The General Exam Saga Concludes

Well… I passed the Generals. After nearly a year of active preparation for this exam, I made it through and my committee granted me doctoral candidacy. Yippee!!! And the best part–I didn’t even cry this time.

The exam consisted of a 2.5 hour conversation/inquisition with my committee and they pushed me in very productive ways. I came out of the exam yesterday with some recommendations for other things to read to help me think about the dissertation project. I feel so lucky to have such an extraordinary committee and yesterday was an amazing opportunity. How often will I get to spend 2.5 hours with amazing scholars focusing on exactly what interests me? It was pretty awesome.

In addition to feeling really lucky to have had that experience, the sense of relief I felt after it was over yesterday was tremendous. I don’t think I had realized just how much anxiety and apprehension I was carrying around for this last year. Making it past this hurdle means that I am approved for work on a dissertation, it means that I can teach my own classes (not as a teaching assistant), it means that I get a tiny raise in pay, and it means that (unless I do another graduate program after this one) this was probably my last official exam.

The next hurdle is to get my research proposal approved so that I can begin researching and then eventually write my dissertation. If all goes well, I hope to begin my research in March/April and hopefully have the research phase completed by the end of 2012. That’s the plan, anyway. We’ll see how it goes.

My friend Karen sent me a note yesterday quoting her dissertation advisor, “Congratulations. Now you get to write a dissertation.” I think this was meant to be slightly ironic, but I do! I am so looking forward to doing the research and writing the dissertation. I love the writing part; in fact, I actually was probably happiest in the program when I was writing my Masters thesis.

So, that’s it for now. I’m going to spend today catching up on things I’ve been too anxious to do for the past week and try to get back to some semblance of normal routine.

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