No Prerequisite » School

ABD

Jason — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 02:32:20 +0000

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.

Progress report

Jason — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 02:48:58 +0000

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.

In 15 minutes

Jason — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 12:44:30 +0000

My first eight-hour comprehensive exam starts in 15 minutes. Then another Monday, then another Thursday. Then an oral examination the Monday after that.

The search for rejection

Jason — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 00:55:03 +0000

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

Jason — Wed, 11 May 2005 03:59:18 +0000

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.

One semester down…

Jason — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 21:50:22 +0000

…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.

First graded assignment

Jason — Fri, 12 Nov 2004 17:25:28 +0000

Got my first grade of the semester yesterday on a ten page paper I wrote.

Not a bad grade, either — B+/A- — and that’s my first paper of my first semester of grad. school, so I’m happy. Of course I would have liked to do better, but after talking with a couple other people in the class (people I see as smart and want to keep up with), I realized everyone I talked to had a lower grade than I did.

There is an option for doing a re-write, which I may do. The main reason I didn’t get a solid A- or A is because I slightly misinterpreted what the professor wanted.

A compliment

Jason — Mon, 27 Sep 2004 20:10:48 +0000

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…

Hitting the books

Jason — Mon, 27 Sep 2004 02:19:27 +0000

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.

On top of that, I’m spending this semester familiarizing myself with current literature on German colonialism and imperialism so I can begin to figure out what direction(s) I want to go for my masters essay and later my dissertation. I’m not complaining by any means. It’s more like I’m trying to keep track of what I have to do and get myself motivated.

“How are your courses going?”

Jason — Sat, 25 Sep 2004 03:39:18 +0000

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.

On the other hand, really telling how your courses are going–just like explaining how you are–can be tough. As an undergraduate I had many more opportunities for feedback from professors. That’s not to say that I had more interaction with professors, because I didn’t; all my in-class time nowadays is discussion, whereas my undergraduate courses were largely lectures, a much less intimate experience. But feedback in the form of quizes or tests gave some indication as to how things were going. And I have none of that now.

So answering the question means relying on my own feel for how I’m doing–pretty good, so far. On whether or not I feel overwhelemed–I don’t. There’s a lot of reading, but I knew that coming in, and there’s not as much as I’d been led to believe.

The one thing that gets to me is being at the bottom again. Being in courses with students in their third, fourth, or fifth year means there’s a great deal that they bring to the table that I don’t know… yet. The main thing is historiography, and the only way to catch up in that regard is to read as much as I can, and pay attention to who’s arguing what.