Sun Moon Stars Girl )-( » 2005 » June

June 26, 2005

The Dreaded PQE

Ok, for the last time…PQE = Preliminary Qualifying Exam = prelims = prelim exam = the thing that determines if I’ve learned enough during classes to “qualify” me to start my doctoral thesis research. It does NOT mean that my thesis has been accepted (um…because I haven’t even started my thesis research yet). It DOES (supposedly) mean that I’ve done the equilavent of enough work for a Master’s degree. So if I hated everything, and I changed my mind at the last minute, I could petition to get my Master’s. But why in the world would I do that when I enjoy the research?

Well, my PQE was this past Thursday, June 23rd. I was so nervous, but it went really well. I PASSED!!!!
That’s all that really mattered…

My committee included someone who I thought might have a “conflict of interest,” which worried me a little during the few days before the exam. It turned out not to be a problem. I also had a committee without a full professor to “chair” it - but it turns out that doesn’t matter either. The UCI PQE format was one that I liked. At the end of your first year here, you have to present your research projects from two of your rotations from the year. Those are parts 1 and 2. Part 3 is a presentation of an abstract that you get only 2 days beforehand. You present a comprehesive background on the topic, your hypothesis and how you would test it. I believe this is a fair way to determine if you’ve learned enough during the year to move on to full research because it shows you can research a topic that you’ve never heard anything about and think critically about experiments you might do to test your hypothesis. I like that you get to present the research you’ve done - to show you learned lab procedures and how to interepret your own data. I’m really happy that this exam is not like some others (Harvard for example) where, in my opinion, you waste months reseaching a topic that’s completely unrelated to work you’ll be doing and design experiments and interpret results for it. As I mentioned, part of my test was like that, but it’s very restricted. It’s only 1/3 of the exam, you only have 2 days to do research for it, and it is a “chalk talk” so you’re not supposed to make slides for it. The Harvard one focuses only on that topic, and like I said - WASTE OF TIME! Not my idea of fun.