41: Surviving Grad School Qualifying Exams

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Hi, everyone. Today's episode is all about surviving graduate school qualifying exams. This was another request. I've been doing a lot of requests lately, just because I want to make sure that I'm connected to my audience, to my listeners, and actually answering your questions. This episode is actually for my graduate student listeners. You know, initially, I started the podcast thinking that I'd be focusing mostly on undergrads and helping them prepare to get into grad school. But I've started to realize that I have some folks who are already in grad school, and that also includes some alumni who I've worked with in the McNair program. I want to make sure that I also have a few episodes that are for them.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

So today qualifying exams. Let me get started by explaining what qualifying exams are, and then letting you know what qualifying exams looked like for me. The tips, the strategies for surviving that I'm going to be sharing are obviously going to be a bit biased in the sense that I'm going to be describing what worked for me, and what worked for other individuals that I know who are in similar fields, who are in the humanities and social sciences. Some more general strategies may apply to those for you, it may be relevant for those of you in STEM. But I want you to realize that a lot of what I'm going to be talking about is more for Humanities and Social Science students who are undergoing their set of qualifying exams.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Okay, so what are qualifying exams? Qualifying exams are what they sound like. It's a set of exams that is the one step that's in the way from you advancing to candidacy. By the time that you are taking these exams, it's assumed that you have completed your coursework. You may have completed other requirements. Some programs have language requirements, or internship requirements. At this point, your committee, which includes your advisor and other professors, believe that you are ready to take these exams. After you take the exams, and you advance the candidacy, all that you'll have left is to draft your dissertation. So what do these exams actually look like? It can be different. Every department is different in terms of how they run their qualifying exams. For some, it may be a two part process. Maybe your part one focuses on giving you multiple reading lists, and then testing you on those readings through an oral exam. And the second part is a written exam where you're writing essays based on those readings that you're supposed to be an expert on. Sometimes it's a timed exam. They'll literally give you some questions to answer and give you a certain number of hours to answer them.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

In my case, they were considered one set of exams, but it did feel like a two, even three part process. I had to prepare three sets of reading lists for three areas that I was supposed to become an expert in. So there were three topics of interest, three sets of theories that I was going to be focusing on in my dissertation. Each of those areas of interest had its own reading list. Those reading lists can vary. Sometimes, it's ten to fifteen readings. Sometimes it can be as many as forty-five to fifty readings per list. I had to make sure I did all the readings- I had fifteen to twenty per list- and make sure I knew what I was talking about, make sure I understood each of the fifteen to twenty readings per list and I had three lists. During my study process, I had a lot of reading and a lot of note taking to do. The first part was, I was going to be tested on the readings through an oral exam. In the oral exam, everybody on my committe- I had five committee members, my advisor, two other individuals, well actually, three other individuals from my department and one outside person, one person outside of my department. All of them got to ask me questions about the readings, because it's presumed that I did them, and that I know what I'm talking about. So they asked me about the readings. That was one part.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

The second part was, I also had to write three essays that were informed by those readings. So I had to make sure I worked on summaries in advance. Then it wasn't until the day of the exam that I got the three questions that I was supposed to answer to write these essays. I got three prompts, and then I had essentially seventy-two hours to write my essays. I believe, I got the essays on a Monday, and they were due either Wednesday evening, or on a Thursday. I can't remember. But it was timed. I did have a short deadline to complete those essays. Then there was another part to my exam, which was drafting a dissertation prospectus, which is essentially a long version of a dissertation proposal or a research proposal. Mine was close to thirty pages. Some fields are much shorter, and may be ten pages long. It's essentially a summary of what your dissertation is going to be about, so you're making an argument about what you're going to write your dissertation on, and why it's important, and everything that's informed your work thus far. I had to write a prospectus, and I also had to defend my prospectus. That was another oral aspect of my exam. On the same day that I was asked about the readings, I was also asked about my essays, and I was also asked about my prospectus.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

So it was very intimidating to prepare for all of that, because I'm writing a prospectus. I'm doing readings. I'm writing summaries. This all happened during the third year of graduate school. So I worked on coursework my first two years. Then after that, I had completed everything that I needed to complete in my program, and so I started studying for qualifying exams. I took my qualifying exams, I believe, the second term, so the winter quarter, in my third year of graduate school. A lot of people in my program, they did it the fall, that first term. But I took a little bit longer, because I needed that time. I was also pregnant at the time during my qualifying exams. That's a whole other story. That's a whole nother level of stress. But here's what, just based on my experience, and based on the experience of the people I know who have also had to undergo their own set of exams, and they all sound terrible. They're all just as grueling. It's not a good time. No one enjoys their qualifying exams. I don't know a single person who thought it was easy or a breeze or enjoyed it. It is going to be miserable, and you just have to push through.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

So what to do? One thing I like to remind people all the time that I had to be reminded off multiple times when I was studying and feeling helpless and feeling like I was doomed, and I was for sure gonna fail. Especially because when I was studying, and during my first trimester, I was so sick, so nauseous and so fatigued, that I could hardly get any work done per day. I thought to myself, if I'm not studying, if I'm not reading, if I'm not writing my summaries, I'm going to fail. But I was reminded of this. I was reminded that it's actually in your committee's best interest to pass you. They would not allow you to get to the stage where you are scheduling an exam, if they don't think you're ready for it. If they don't think you're ready for it, they might just ask you to take a little more time to prepare, because they think you need that time. Again, if they didn't think that you were ready for this, then they wouldn't ask you to be doing this. The other thing is, you may never feel like you're ready and you may never feel like like you've done enough, like you've read enough, like you've written enough. There's always more that you can do. But just remember yourself, why would your committee members have you go through the whole process of writing these essays, of defending them, for them to go out of their way, to take time out of their busy schedules to listen to you, and then to fail you and then have to do it all over again? Have you retake it? No, they don't want to waste their time, and they don't want to waste your time. So remember that.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Now, in terms of getting the work done, what do I recommend? I recommend, less is more. Set small, daily goals. Small, very achievable goals, whether that's five minutes a day, ten minutes a day, fifteen minutes a day, until you get into the groove and are willing and capable of doing more. Very small, daily goals. Also I personally like setting minimum and maximum goals. When I set my goals, my minimum goal is, if I'm having a really rough day, like imagine the worst day possible. Maybe you're feeling depressed, or anxious, or you're just moody, or something happened that ruined your day. What's the minimum that you could do on that day? I mean, obviously, the minimum could be zero, doing nothing, zero time. But what would be the minimum? For me, it might be five minutes. Open up the document, and write nonstop, free write for five minutes. Then that's it. Then I'm done, because I just can't do anything more. That might be my minimum goal.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

My maximum goal is, imagine the most perfect scenario for working. Maybe you're at a coffee shop, and they have a really good playlist and you're studying with a friend. You're both really kind of focused, and you have the whole day to yourself. You don't have to worry about any other things, nothing's come up. In an ideal scenario where everything's aligned, and you feel focused, what's the most that you could get done? Maybe for me, that might be working for four to six hours, working on my writing for four to six hours straight, with maybe one break to eat something. That would be my maximum goal. My maximum goal would be work on this for four hours, nonstop. Then realistically, what I would want you to do is to make sure that every day, you're somewhere in the middle, you're somewhere in between your minimum and your maximum goal. That way, no matter what you're meeting your goals. It may not feel like you're doing enough, but you're doing something regularly.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

And this is the other thing, I don't always believe in working on things daily. Because I also think that life happens, and for me, it's never been realistic to expect myself to work every single day. I think part of it has to do with the fact that I live with a chronic illness, and so my days are so unpredictable. Some days, I can get a lot done. Some days, I can hardly get anything done, because of my pain, because of my symptoms. It's just really hard. And so for me, I can't expect myself to be working and working in the same capacity each day. If that works for you, great. A lot of individuals are going to be telling you, you should set a writing routine. You should set a work routine, where you're doing this and this and this every single day. You should be writing writing every day. Get up at 5am and do two hours, you know, before everybody else wakes up. Then before you know it, you'll have your dissertation drafted. Well, that's great. That might work for some people, but it doesn't work for everyone. It certainly has not worked for me. So if working daily doesn't work for you, I recommend working in chunks of time. By that I mean, what I would do when I was a grad student, and I was studying for exams was, I didn't have every single day. Because one back then I was also dealing with my health issues. I was also pregnant, and I was also juggling more than one job, part time job. So for me, I set certain days of the week where I knewm these are the days that I'm going to do work. Maybe it was two to three days a week, and I would work in chunks of time. So four to six hours. Instead of doing one to two hours every single day, I would do four to six hours, two to three times a week.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Here's the other thing that I would do for myself, because again, life happens. What if life happens the two to three days you have scheduled to do your work? Then what? So, I would always try to give myself a little bit of cushion when I would set deadlines. Let's say I'd set a deadline with an advisor to have something drafted, a certain month and day. I would set an internal deadline for myself two weeks earlier. More often than not, my internal deadline I'd treat it as if it was the real deadline. Then things would come up, and I either didn't meet my own deadline, or I was close to it, but I wasn't quite there. At least I knew I had that wiggle room, that extra time, and I technically wasn't late with my advisors deadline. So I would try to have that cushion. The same would apply with studying and writing my summaries and doing my readings. What I would do, and I know not everybody has the privilege that I have. I would actually set aside one weekend, a month, every month. I started doing this probably around the time that I was setting for qualifying exams, and then I kept doing it until I graduated with my PhD.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Once a month, every month, I treated that weekend as a writing retreat. Sometimes it meant locking myself up in the room, and literally ignoring everything else. Having my partner bring me food, ignoring dishes, ignoring laundry, ignoring anything, ignoring everybody, my family, friends. Just all day, for eight to 10 hours straight, working on whatever it is that I needed to catch up on. Because life happens again, and maybe I didn't do as much work during the weekdays that I wanted to. So that was my catch up time. That Saturday, that Sunday, it was a writing retreat, and my goal was just get my work done. Don't worry about everything else, ignore everything else. Sometimes I did it at home, sometimes I would do it at a coffee shop. I would go to a coffee shop by myself, but more often than not, I was with a friend, or more than one friend because not everybody was willing to be there with me the whole time that I was there. Or in some cases, I would even split the cost and share a hotel room with one, two or three other friends. We'd get one room with two queen sized beds, just myself and three other friends, and we were all there with a goal of writing. We were putting money down, spending our hard earned grad students stipend money to spend the night at whatever hotel. It didn't matter what the hotel was, just whatever deal we could find online. We'd bring our snacks, and we'd survive off of snacks the whole weekend and just set our timers and work the entire weekend. That's what I did. So I recommend, if you can't work daily, work in chunks. If life happens, can you afford to take a weekend a month, or can you afford to schedule retreat time into your weekends, or whatever days you have off.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

When you're actually taking the exam, that's a really stressful time. That's when you really need to ask others for help. You can ask others by having them bring you meals. Sometimes just telling your roommates or your partner, whoever it is that you live with, that you're just not going to be able to help out, that you're going to kind of be missing for a little while. Be okay with letting things go. When you're taking exams, your home is going to be a wreck. Your friends are going to be annoyed, because they can't reach you. Family members too. You can tell them in advance. That will actually help. Let them know hey, I'm gonna go missing for a little while. Don't worry, this is why. I'll be back and ready to hang out when I'm done, which will be on this date. It's okay to let things go. It's okay to ask others for help. Ask people to bring your meals, ask people to check up on you. The other thing you can do, if you're really stuck and having a hard time with your studying, is ask other people in your program how they prepared. Ask some of the more advanced graduate students in other cohorts, what strategies did they implement? How did they survive their own qualifying exams? See if any of their tips or strategies work for you.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

If you are in the humanities and social sciences, and like me, you had a lot of reading to do. Sometimes you literally run out of time and cannot read everything. I actually don't think it's realistic to expect to read everything. You want to learn to read strategically. For me, it meant- you know, I had a lot of books on my reading list. It meant that I read, realistically, the introduction to all of the books, and one sample chapter. One chapter that was a good example that I could use in my oral exam, or in my essays. And that was it. I didn't read the whole book. I read the intro, I read a sample chapter, and I was good. I moved on to the next. I made sure though, that I had summaries for every single reading on my list, even if they were short summaries. That way, I didn't miss anything. In some cases, yes, I skimmed through some of the material, but I got the gist of it. I had questions, reading strategy questions, of things that I needed to identify and answer for each of my readings to be able to write a good summary. So you know, what is this- you know, I don't even remember what the questions were, but I'm just making it up. What's this book about? What is the main argument? Who are they arguing against? What kind of theories are being introduced? How does this relate to my dissertation project? Those are the types of questions that I had, where if I answered all of them, I could write a good summary. If I wrote a good summary, I could move on to the next reading.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

The other thing I want to remind you is, if your exams include an oral component, and even in the essays too, remember that you're in control of where you take them with your answer. If they're asking you a question, focus on what you know best. Focus on the ideas, the readings, the scholars that you know best. And that will allow you to basically show off what you know. You don't have to focus on the one reading that you don't really know that well. And if they ask you about that one reading, say what you know, and then transition. Find a way to transition, navigate them into another topic or into another reading. That way you can transition to what you do know, because at the end of the day, they want to hear your thoughts. They don't really care that much about the work that has been done already, because at the end of the day, you are producing new knowledge. They want to see, what are the ideas that are most or best informing your work? It doesn't mean that you have to know every single thing on your reading list. Then another practical thing is, if you know you're going to have to write essays, if you have an idea what the essays are going to be about. You might want to start drafting your outlines in advance. I didn't know what my questions were, but I knew that they were going to be informed by the readings and by the summaries that I worked on for my readings, which is why I had a summary for every single reading. Then when I was asked my questions, I tried to find ways to incorporate my summaries as much as possible into the answer. That way it wasn't time wasted, that way I could utilize the work, the material that I had already drafted.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

I think that is all that I wanted to share with regard to qualifying exams. I know other people might say, remember how far you've come. You got this. Push through. Yes, that's true. But I do actually really like to tell people remember that it's in their best interest to pass you. I kept telling that to myself over and over and over again, even though I never felt good enough, smart enough, prepared enough. But then I thought to myself, well, you know, if they don't pass me, it's going to be more work on them. It's going to be more work on me too, but it's going to be more work on them. What's the worst that can happen? In my program, if you don't pass the first time around, they do give you a second chance to retake it. After that, if you fail the second time, then you're asked to leave the program with a terminal Master's. So reminding myself, okay, if I don't pass, I have the chance to do it again. Probably the second time, I'll do better, because I'll have learned from the first time. The odds of me failing twice are slim, and even if I do fail twice, at least I'm gonna have a Master's degree after this. I didn't waste my two years, two, three years in this program. Those were the internal thoughts that I had in my head. It definitely helped to remind myself like, okay. I guess they think I'm ready. I don't think I'm ready, but they think I'm ready. I just have to just be good enough. It doesn't have to be stellar, or great. I don't have to pass with glowing reviews. Even if it's just a barely pass, it's still a pass. At the end of the day, who cares how you passed? No one's gonna say, oh, you barely passed? Or oh, you did a great pass? Or whatever they call it. No, if you pass, you pass. No matter how rough it was. So remember that. Focus on your small daily goals, your minimum and maximum goals. Before you know it, it'll be over. Let me know how it goes. Thanks so much for listening and I will talk to you all next time.