WiGS hosted its annual General Exam Prep Q&A session on January 8th, with a panel of third- and fourth-years offering tips to the current second-years.
How did you choose your committee members?
- You can base a committee based on your project or based on your career
- Sometimes committee grows organically from collaborations
- You can ask for advice beyond your immediate advisor on who should be on your committee
- First committee meeting can range from ideas-based to true dress rehearsal
- If you have someone hard to schedule, consider adding someone who’s not
- “Easy” vs. “hard” people on your committee – not necessarily about the type of questions they ask but what they expect of the student – want people who will eventually allow you to graduate
- If you have a methods or computational project, consider including someone who applies those methods
How much of the decision-making process for who would be on your committee was driven by your PI?
- Depends on PI – can be helpful to have them generate a list
How and when did you ask your committee members?
- It’s normal to meet with many potential GSRs
- Courteous to ask for an in-person meeting in your initial email reaching out
- Can mention in the email you know it’s a time commitment; give them an out, not obligated
Additional general advice:
- Make sure to check all the basic boxes – print the exam form, send in a short summary and long writeup in time
- If there is something important enough to be on a slide, make sure you know everything about it in detail
- Include your lab-mates in your preparation – give a practice talk with plenty of time, talk about the project and hit the big-picture questions
- If you are doing anything clinically-based, know the clinical side of it as well
- Start writing early, build the written exam gradually over time in bits and pieces
- Use this gradual writing time as a check for yourself to make sure everything makes sense