Hi Readers,
I started writing this post 35 days ago, before I actually took quals and found out my results. The fact that I haven't finished it until today speaks volumes as to how busy I have been. This quarter has just been waves and waves of shazam and I'm finally starting to dig myself out of all this crap. I just turned in 2 final projects, and I have another final project and final hw set due on Monday. After that, 2 finals stand in my way of snowboarding and other spring break plans. Yippee!
AND I PASSED THE QUALS!! FIRST TIME TOO!!! I was unbelievably happy when that email came. =)
Anyways, this post is going to talk about my experiences taking the qualifying exams at Stanford. When I came to Stanford , the EE department head (Professor Mark Horowitz) was very adamant about it not being a big deal. He said that first years should not worry about passing or failing their first time, and that they should just treat it as a practice their first year. I think he's slightly out of touch with the EE students. When do we not freak out about anything? Especially a test that is, even if only symbolic, a somewhat traumatic experience for all who go through it.
Here's what the quals nominally entail:
-10 oral exams with 10 different professors, each 12 minutes long.
Here's what the quals actually entail:
-at least a month of frantic studying
-a complete 8-hour day of running around to different rooms
-lots of sighing
-sarcastic professors making fun of you
-well-meaning professors unintentionally making fun of you
-having absolutely no idea if you passed or failed
Here are some tips and hindsight:
Studying
-A quals study group is a great idea. I usually don't work in groups, but studying for quals in a group is a phenomenal idea, since there are many people at Stanford who are smarter than you.
-I started really studying for the quals a month before I took them. This really was not enough, and I should have started studying earlier, so I could cover more. It was pure luck that I passed the first time.
-Do not study your group 3 and 4 more than your group 1 and 2, even though you might not be very good at them. The group I ended up doing the worst on was group 1, while groups 2, 3, and 4 ensured that I passed.
Professor Selection
For quals, you must make your professor selections from the list that is given to you that year. There are many different fields your professors can be chosen from. All quals students have to choose 20 professors to distribute into 4 groups, and 10 quals professors will be chosen from those 4. Students will rank their groups from 1-4, with 1 being the most preferred, and 4 being the least preferred. 4 professors will be chosen from group 1, 3 from group 2, 2 from group 3, and 1 from group 4. The maximum professors from any one field that can be chosen is 4.
Given knowledge of this, it is possible to "game" the system a bit, by selecting professors in special ways. For example, if there are 6 professors in the field that you specialize in, you can put 5 of them in group 1, which will ensure that the 6th will not be picked if placed in any other group (because the maximum 4 professors from group 1 will have been picked already). If you game the selection process carefully, it is possible to minimize your chances of getting professors in areas that you don't want. My four areas were devices, physics, E&M, and circuits, and yet I managed to escape with 4 professors in devices, 4 in physics, and 2 in E&M. Sheer luck! I would have performed poorly on circuits.
The Arbitrary Scores
I tried to smile the entire way through my quals, but it was hard for many reasons. For one, you have absolutely no idea what criteria by which the professors are judging you on. You don't know what the right answer is, whether or not there were more parts to the problem that you didn't answer, or whether you made a good impression on the professor or not. You are struck by the arbitrariness of it all.
And that's really the word of the day: arbitrariness. When I received the final breakdown of grades by professor, it completely floored me. Here were the big shocks in the scores:
1. My group 1 professors (Devices) gave me the lowest scores. I had Professor X (anonymized in case we were not supposed to reveal this information), who I thought I did relatively well on. 1.2/10 after curving. How I got that, I had no idea, and still have no idea. Professor Y asked me if I was in signals and systems at the end of our session. Ouch.
2. Physics and E&M profs love me. At least, I did better than 75% percentile of students on all of them. I had no idea how to answer Professor Z's question, and made up an answer, and the professor told me at the end of the session: "your answer was wrong. You may leave now." 8/10. WTF?
3. I performed either extremely well or extremely poorly. It was either below 25th percentile, or above 75th.
I lost complete faith in the quals system after the scores were published. Some professors that I thought I did well on didn't give me good scores. Some professors that I thought I failed gave me fantastic scores. How this is supposed to measure your ability to do research, I have no idea.
But that's over. It was a very traumatic experience, but one that all Ph.D EE students will be able to complain about for years to come. And I passed! That's the important thing. =)
Till next post!
-FCDH
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