pass my comps

Just handed in! Will get the comments from my committee in 2 weeks and find out if I pass (fingers crossed)!!!!!!!!

I finished my comps, and will know if I passed (which I’m pretty sure I did) in another month.

Getting close! Due date is August 14… I find out if I passed a little while after that.

With distinction! :-)

oh, gosh! such a pain!!!!

Well, the faculty members I selected (from the small pool of people who weren’t on sabbatical…) are giving me a hard time because they’re not interested in feminism and the body and technology, and all the things I want to talk about. They’re changing the rules of the game to get me to throw out my interests in favor of theirs. It’s a delicate battle to maintain my integrity and make this exam useful and interesting to me, while also managing their expectations and demands.

still a goal…just a somewhat longer term goal.

I have a two-part comprehensive exam. The first part is a clinical position paper in which I outline my approaches various aspects of psychotherapy and psychological theory. In the second part, I choose a list of books and articles in different categories (theoretical background, addressing diversity in psychology, and qualitative research methods) and “learning goals” or questions I hope to respond to in my written exam. That part is the proposal, due 2/16. Then, some faculty members of my choosing submit questions based on my learning goals and book (I’m trying to come up with some very specific learning goals, so my questions will be predictable!), and I have a week to answer them in August.

I’ve just started working on my comprehensive exam, which at the University at Albany School of Criminal Justice, is a quantitative research paper. My goal is to have this defended/passed by May 2009, and submitted for publication by August 2009. Once this happens, I can work on my prospectus…

The exam is a requirement to continue with my PhD program. I complete this about one year from now. It’s a lot of writing, intended to demonstrate my mastery of selected materials from different areas (e.g., research methods, theoretical background) as well as to present my clinical position (e.g., what I think therapy is, limitations of my approach, role of cultural diversity in therapy, etc.). Working steadily toward this goal by keeping notes and organizing what I have so far—by the time I get to this, I should know what I want to say and be able to say it well.