I passed my preliminary doctoral exam!
I passed!
Its been such a journey. Its a bit shocking and hard to believe I've progressed this far. Feeling relieved I guess. Lighter. It really wasn't that hard, it was the prep leading up to it that killed. Over the hill. I have to remember that I'm over the hill I just have to roll it towards the finish line.
Generally in a phd program there's a few major checkpoints. In my program there's about four with some side quests in between. It basically goes like this,
- Admission to University, College, and Program
- Starts phd probation
- Qualification Exam
- Ends probation, start of PhD candidacy
- Preliminary Defence/Exam
- Summary of progress and a proposal for dissertation topic
- Final Defence/Exam
- Executing the proposal
- Submission of dissertation
The others Ill talk about another day. I've just completed step 3 of earning my good enough PhD.
After being admitted to the program, and then later qualifying to be a PhD candidate you can start focusing on research. Exploring research and finding a topic is a wild ride. Focusing isn't really the right word it's more akin to stabbing around in the dark until something makes sense and has scientific value. It's a lot like this fork of 2048 for grad school1. Some ideas turn into code, some ideas turn into garbage. Sometimes it'll live longer and go further and lead to a simulation or an experiment before then turning into garbage. Research is a highly nonlinear process. I've been in that stage for over 2 years.
Once you've gotten your feet wet and played around, things eventually start to cohere into a common narrative. The scope of the work should narrow and justification become more clear. Nonessential parts of the work are documented and mothballed. I've dropped over two dozen ideas that warrant further examination in my topic area but just aren't worth my time because a) i dont care anymore I want to graduate, or b) my main idea is better. For me things didnt really start to crystallize until May 2024 when I was forced to do an informal thesis review before leaving for a summer internship. Summarizing everything and then stepping back really helped to discern which parts of the work actually mattered and which didn't. But even then it was kind of vague. Since January 2025 my only work goal has been to get to the prelim exam.
The preliminary exam2 is essentially the culmination of your explorations. In the preliminary exam you go before a committee of faculty members and with a formal oral presentation introduce the topic, and present your research progress so far. You then formally propose extensions to the work that will become the main content of your PhD dissertation3. The committee then gives their feedback, asks you some questions, and ultimately approves or denies the proposed plan. The approval signifies a contract between the two parties that says 'if the student does these things, we will give them a doctorate.'
The presentation itself went well, I wasn't nervous and conveyed my points well and spoke to the audience instead of the monitor. I got some feedback that was surprisingly helpful. A few oddball questions from one member that even my advisor during our debrief said "I have no idea what they were on about". But other than that very smooth, I defended the work well. After the second member finished their questions I started thinking,
oh man i think i passed this
Then the last member finished their questioning, and they just smiled at me.
I definitely passed this
At which point I was asked to step out for the committee to deliberate. Which was very brief, they came out and told me congratulations!
I'm still in a bit of disbelief, I'm proud of what I've accomplished. But I'm more excited that there's a plan in place now, and with a real end date! I feel that the end is in sight now!