Today was my 90 Minutes PhD Comprehensive Oral Exam.
April 28th, 2016
8:00 a.m. until 9:30 a.m
It was a crazy day! I got less than 3 hours of sleep (not a good sleeper I was trying for 6 hours, but could not fall asleep), so I was not moving too quickly this morning. The weather was pouring rain, the streets were flooding, there were Flood Warnings like crazy, thunder, lightening, etc. I arrived on campus and was soaked by the time I got inside. There were three professors at the exam and me. I have been joking for years that I would do an interpretive dance routine for my Oral Exam (there was a funny video a few years ago about someone doing an interpretive dance routine for their PhD and it was hysterical) and no, I did not dance (I cannot dance), but I did make a joke about it and one also about the Magna Carta. We started with my major – Political Development and then moved on to my minor – Security Studies. The exam was crazy hard and I could not remember anything. No names or dates or things that I had been studying for the past year. My mind went blank and stayed that way. The whole thing was much harder and much more stressful then I thought it would be. After over an hour we finished and I left the room and they talked. I figured I had failed. I only had to wait about 10 minutes or so, which is a really short time. Too short and that’s never good. I went in and the IDV Challenge Coin (the sign that you have passed) was waiting for me. At first I thought it was a joke, but no, it turns out that I passed!!! I Passed!!!
Afterwards braving the rain I stopped for a celebratory meal at the Waffle House! I have not been there for years, so it was time for another visit.
Then tonight IDV Department hosted a dinner tonight at the Harbor View Cafe Restaurant. It was fun to see and talk with friends and meet some of the new students.
Later the names I totally forgot to mention keep coming back to me…haunting me…taunting me…Inglehart and Wlezel…Modernization…101 things about globalization…Joe Schumpeter…Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson. Its like PTSD for Comps.
Comprehensive Exams now passed. I am now ABD!!! All But Dissertation!!!
