Back in 2010 I did my first research internship. And since then, I never looked back on my career choice. I knew I wanted to go to grad school for my PhD. Fast forward 8 years, and I am living my dream! However, living your dream doesn’t mean there are no obstacles.
One such obstacle was the Qualifying exam. For a graduate student, this is the biggest exam of their grad school career. The exam “qualifies” you to become a PhD candidate. After this exam, the only thing that stands between you and your PhD is your data!
Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about myself. Some of those things are good, some are bad, and some need continuous progress. Like most Type A personalities, I too am a “control freak.” Especially in situations I have no control, I try to grasp at anything to make sure I can have some control back. Not having the ability to control the outcome of the exam gave me a lot of anxiety. The uncertainness lead to many sleepless nights and long hours reading.
Over the last few years, I have honed down on my planning, scheduling and list making skills. Some might call it obsessive, I call it time management (AKA getting my control back).
So that is exactly what I did, I planned, I scheduled and I made lists leading up to my exam. Luckily, the outcome was in my favor. Now that I am on the other side of passing my quals, I want to share some of the things I absolutely would do over again to conquer any obstacle.
Plan:
I started planning for the exam as soon as the new year rang in! My friend introduced me to this amazing planning, Passion Planner, and I have been obsessed since! I highly recommend it! When you open the planner, the first page is working out your vision, Your Passion RoadMap. The roadmap helped me visualize what I needed to do and set up deadlines for myself.
My Passion Planner Roadmap. Planning the first half of the year!
Schedule:
Scheduling deadlines for yourself is extremely important. And sticking to them is even more important. What helped me out is finding someone who would keep me accountable for everything I did. If I needed a draft to be read by someone, I made sure I gave them plenty of time to read it, which meant, I needed plenty of time to make edits and send it to them. Schedule that time in! Meeting with my qual chair was another incentive to schedule in my deadlines. Once the written proposal was due, the next thing that needed to be scheduled were the mock quals. It is hard to have everyone’s schedules synced up, so schedule multiple mocks with different people. It was by far the most helpful thing you can do.
Scheduling deadlines! Making time and prioritizing studying
Make Lists:
There was too much to study in very little time. So many techniques, so many experimental designs, so many papers! I didn’t know what else to do but to make lists! And when I accomplished 1 item off the list, the satisfaction of checking it off was even better! Which motivated me to check off more items on the list. Two weeks before my exam, this is exactly what I did. I made lists every day, and made sure I checked everything off before going to bed.
Making my list, checking it twice! Gatta find out who’s naughty or nice. JK too soon for Christmas songs. But making lists and checking them off makes me feel good and feel accomplished.
Other Miscellaneous Advice
Take time off. I went to Yoga with Dallas Fitness Ambassadors (Twice!) & The Dallas Chamber Symphony
Take notes. Write them down on a separate book/binder/word doc. Couple days before your exam, do not try to read any more primary literature or new reviews. Just review everything you have read. Write down the name of the paper and authors to refer back to if something in your notes does not make sense. (Thanks Varsha for this piece of advice, it was super helpful)
Make cheat sheets of the techniques you will be using. Goes back to taking notes. Write down all your experimental techniques, the pros, the cons, and how you will use it to answer your question. What are some alternative methods you could use to answer the same question, what else do these alternative methods give you or not give you, what are the pros and cons of these alternative methods, how do you conduct the experiment. I am a visual learner, having written all these out and seeing them helped me really internalize my project and what I was trying to answer. (Thanks Dagim for sharing this piece of advice with me)
Get as many people to ask you questions as you can. I think at some point this may have become a bit too much. But I required my lab mates to ask me a question every time they were face-to-face with me. These questions can be specific to your project or a technique or theory that I should know by now. I realize that a lot of times I know the answer, I just can’t articulate the answer. It’s a good way to practice.
Give yourself a break. Normally, I would have probably never given myself a break. Except there were times I got tempted with free yoga with the Dallas Fitness Ambassadors and student discount tickets at the Dallas Chamber Symphony. I am so glad I took that break because when I got back to studying, I was refreshed and ready to get some reading done!
Motivational Quotes go a long way! Every week find yourself a motivational quote. Write it somewhere visible. I chose to write it in my planner. If you have the Passion Planner, there are motivational quotes every week or you can use the “space of infinite possibility” to write your own!
~~Cell-ebraTez
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