As of 10:00 this morning, I’m officially ABD — “all but dissertation.” Passed my oral exam yesterday (which is basically a defense of my three eight-hour written exams) and my prospectus defense this morning.
Archive for the 'School' Category
I’ve finished writing my exams. Monday is my oral exam, and then I defend my prospectus.
And then all I have to do is research, write, and defend my dissertation. Piece of cake.
My first eight-hour comprehensive exam starts in 15 minutes. Then another Monday, then another Thursday. Then an oral examination the Monday after that.
Actors search for rejection. If they don’t get it they reject themselves.
The same could be said for academics. In a sense, then, I’m lucky that others have saved me the trouble.
I’m more than a little disappointed that my proposal for a conference at Cambridge wasn’t accepted. I still might go to the conference–I’ll be in Europe anyway–but that’s not the same.
I already have my ticket to London, but that’s because whether or not I go to the conference it’s cheaper to fly through London than straight to Germany thanks to all the discount airlines in Europe. If I stay for the conference I can fly to Berlin afterwards for 1 EUR plus taxes and fees; if I don’t stay for the conference or any site-seeing, it’ll be a bit more expensive because it’s a peak time.
70 pages to go. By noon tomorrow that should be 60. By the end of the day tomorrow that should be 30. By Friday at 5:00pm it will be 0. Almost there.
…who knows how many to go. As of 11:50 this morning I am finished with my first semester of graduate school. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to relax and enjoy that feeling for too long; I have a pretty big course load next semester, so to get a head start I have quite a bit of reading to do over break. I feel like I’ve learned more this semester than the past four years combined; I don’t mean that as an insult to the school where I did my undergraduate work, but as a compliment to the school I’m at and the program I’m in now.
More on surviving my first semester later. Right now I just want to take a nap. Until the middle of January.
Got my first grade of the semester yesterday on a ten page paper I wrote.
Continue reading ‘First graded assignment’
My (new) racquetball partner paid me a huge compliment today that helped to dispel some of the feelings of inferiority I’ve hinted at recently. He’s also starting his first year in the department, but he already has his MA. We’re in two courses together. Exactly what he said doesn’t matter. Nor does it matter that he beat me three times in a row, each time keeping me to three or fewer points… come on, it’s been literally four years since I last played…
Tomorrow I think I need to focus on getting a bit of work done. That’s not to say that I don’t get work done on other days, because I do, but I have a seminar paper to research and write, and it won’t get done without making a concerted effort. I need to spend tomorrow:
- finishing up my overview of secondary sources on the topic
- finding/evaluating/checking out/beginning to go through primary sources available locally
- locating and requesting primary sources not available locally
Of course, that’s just for my seminar. For my readings course I need to–that’s right–read, and there’s a few other things for other courses.
Continue reading ‘Hitting the books’
It’s a common question, one I ask and occasionally try to answer myself. When talking with other students in the department, the typical answer is “oh, fine,” or some other brief explanation with little detail. In that sense it’s like asking how somebody is when meeting; you don’t neccessarily want a real answer, it’s just something you say.
Continue reading ‘“How are your courses going?”’
