Graduation Pictures!

A good friend of mine took some pictures of me in my cap, gown, and hood. So I have a few after all. One of them is posted here, the rest are in a photo album in facebook. I love the hood!

Doctoral Degree Conferred!

I graduated and officially received my doctorate today. It still doesn't seem real. It will take awhile I guess. I really don't like going to graduations because they seem so long, drawn out, and are boring and this one was no exception. The best part of it all was getting hooded. That was so awesome!!! I wish I had pictures, but sadly I don't. My husband wasn't feeling well today; he tried, but not any of the pictures that he took came out.

Dr. Joyce!!!

I had my oral this morning and I passed!!! It wasn't bad. My committee and I sat around the round table (some of you know which table that is) and they asked me some questions and I answered them to the best of my ability. I thought I would have to do a calibration problem, but thank goodness, I wasn't asked to do one. My brain tends to freeze up when doing math under pressure. The oral lasted about 2 hours and 20 minutes. The chair (my adviser) of my committee then asked me to step outside of the room for a few minutes while they decided my fate. It felt like the wait was about 30 minutes, but in reality it was only about 6 minutes. My committee congratulated me with hugs and handshakes and called me doctor!!! Wow!!! It doesn't seem real yet.

I Passed!!!

I found out this afternoon that I passed my third and final written exit exam!!! Yay!!! All I have left is the oral which should not be anywhere near as tough as the written exams were. For the oral, my committee and I will sit around the "round table"; they will ask me questions and I will hopefully be able to answer them. Then I will be done! I am so ready to be done.

I'm Still Here

I took my 3rd exit exam last Tuesday and I am waiting to hear the results. All I know so far is that I did very well on the plant disease diagnostics portion. There were 5 other parts to the exam and so there are 5 more professors that have to grade their part. As usual the exam was hard and it lasted for 9 hours. It covered pretty much every area of plant pathology.

My oral is in 2 weeks and I am now studying for that even though I am so sick of studying that I don't want to read anything. I think that is why I am not blogging very much. I don't even feel like reading what I write, so I don't write.

But soon I'll be finished, I hope...

Studying For Finals

I'm sorry that I haven't been posting on my blog very often. But, my 3rd final and oral are coming up very soon and I have been studying. I found out that it's impossible for me to work 32 hours a week while studying as I had planned. So for the last couple of weeks I worked 25 hrs a week and this coming week, I will work only 12 hours. At this point, I hardly care about the lack of money; I just have to pass my remaining finals.

My husband took this picture of me today and I thought I would share it with you. This is what I spent my weekend doing.



I fell asleep while studying yesterday, but I think I'm awake here.

A Report On My Interview

I'm sorry to take so long to update you on my interview. I have been feeling so tired since I got back.

I did not get a job offer. I found out that the department does not have the funding yet. They have funding to conduct a faculty search, but no money to fund the position yet. It seems a little weird, but I understand why they are handling it this way. A few years ago they had funding for a faculty position, but they could not find anyone, so the funding was withdrawn.

I met with all six of the faculty, all guys. They were very nice. I got a tour of all of their labs and was not entirely impressed. The labs are very old and look more like storage spaces than functioning labs. In spite of this, they are a very prolific group. They all publish several papers every year. The older faculty have published several books on their area of expertise. There are about 30 M.S. and Ph.D. students in the department.

I’m not sure that I would fit in with this group. I would be starting from scratch as far as equipment is concerned. Since I do molecular biology, I would need the equipment that molecular work requires and as some of us know, that can be very expensive.

Anyway I gave my seminar on Citrus Huanglongbing and I think it went well. The room was full. A few people came that were not students or faculty, but had heard what the topic was going to be and so they came. My seminar went for 45 minutes and I then got bombarded with questions that went on for 25 minutes.

If nothing more comes from this, at least I got to give a seminar on my favorite plant disease and I got a free trip to my home state.

The Pressure Is On

Thank you to Makita who left comments here and the rest of you who left comments in Facebook, for your advice on how to handle this unexpected situation. Your ideas helped me with my response. I sent an email reply again describing the nature of the doctoral program that I am in and that the degree is not a Ph.D. I said that the training received in the program includes botany but we learn much more. I told them what that more was. I said that the program is application based rather than research based, but that I have research experience from my M.S. studies and from working as a molecular biologist. I also mentioned what topic I would choose to give a seminar on if I gave one there.

The reply that I got back was that they would be happy for me to give a seminar on that topic. So I am going! I'm already booked for the flight. I will spend the weekend meeting and visiting with all of the faculty and then give my seminar on Monday, March 1.

I'm both excited and nervous.

I'm Studying...Do I Need This?

I was checking my Yahoo email this evening. It has been about 5 days since I have looked at it and I am thinking that I should look at it more often because I got a very important email that I should have replied to by now. But my inattentiveness is not the purpose of this post. I writing this post because of the content in that email and I don't know what to say when I respond.

The email was an official invitation to do a seminar and interview for a faculty position at the university where I got my bachelor's degree. I would love to be back in my home state and working at that wonderful university. There is a problem though. This is a portion of the first sentence of the email: "...we understand that you are completing a PhD in Botany and the Department of ... would like to hear about your research." Do you see what the problem is now?

Heaven help me. How did this happen? I was in touch with one of the faculty a little over a year ago and thoroughly (or so I thought) discussed the nature of the doctoral program that I am in. I was told that they would be looking for someone that studies anything having to do with plants and that I would be the first one they thought of when they could fund the position. Somehow their need has morphed into botany.

They do not have a single female faculty member in the department and I suspect that they desperately need one to increase their diversity. They also do not have anyone doing any research on plants and desperately need to fill that gap as well. But I don't do research; I diagnose and manage plant health problems. That is what I told them a year ago and they said that was great.

Their preferred date for the seminar is March 1. So what am I going to say to them? I don't know. Any ideas?

Good News

I did a partial re-take of the disastrous exam and I passed!!! So I now have to take only one more written exam and the oral. I am happy, but mostly feel relieved. I am very grateful that the test coordinator and other professors realized that the testing conditions were unacceptable and therefore allowed me to re-do the part of the final that I tried to do near the end of the day but could not do because of the distracting noise level.

So now I can move forward and prepare for my last semester in this program. I have a lot of studying to do. The written final will be on plant pathology including some history, but mainly diagnosis and management of viral, bacterial and fungal plant diseases. The oral will be on plant pathology, sustainable agriculture, pesticides and herbicides, and integrated pest management.

I've already incorporated yoga and working out at the gym into my life and the studying starts this weekend.

Moving Forward

It sure doesn’t feel like it has been a little over a month since I have posted here. I have been both working and relaxing. The spring semester has started and I am moving forward and preparing to have a successful outcome this time.

A few days after I got the test results, I met with the exam coordinator of the disastrous exam. I requested and was allowed to re-take a small portion of his section of the final. That brought my score up to 79%. The coordinator suggested that I request to re-take a small portion of another section given by another professor. I have requested a meeting with this other professor, but have not heard back. This is something that I have to pursue this week.

I feel justified in making requests to re-take portions of the final that I tried to do at the end of the day when my brain was too fried from all of the noise in the adjoining rooms. However I have no excuse for the failure of the other exam. I just wasn’t ready for it. I was working so much that I did not have time to study for both exams. So I chose to put more emphasis on studying for the harder exam and spent very little time studying for the so-called easier one, which I then failed. Hopefully, I will have only one written exam and the oral to study for this semester.

What am I doing to ensure success this time? I have a list; it is as follows:

1. I quit my nematology job, so I am working only one job. This will eliminate the running back and forth between jobs.

2. I will not work full-time. I will not work more than 32 hours per week.

3. I have made out a study schedule and I will stick to it.

4. I have started doing yoga to reduce stress and improve my mental clarity.

5. I have made out a schedule to work out at the gym and I will stick to it.

6. I have reduced the amount of time I spend on Facebook by eliminating some of the games that I was playing.

So the semester has started and I am off and running. Will do my best to keep you posted.

Failed

I finally got my scores today and I did not pass either exam. I knew I was taking a risk. I've been working full-time, taking a 4 credit course, and trying to study for the blasted finals. It was too much. Sorry, but I'm too disappointed to post more tonight.

Still Waiting

It's been almost 3 weeks since I took that disastrous exam and 2.5 weeks since I took the exam that wasn't too bad. I still have not heard what my results are. My oral is next Wednesday and is not supposed to take place until all of the written exams have been passed. Since I haven't heard whether I passed or not, how can I know whether to take the oral or not?

I've done what I could to find out the results. I sent emails, made phone calls, and knocked on doors. I think the most reasonable way to handle this is to proceed with studying and preparing for the oral. So that is what I will be doing during this holiday weekend.

I hope that you have a good Thanksgiving!

Three Down (Maybe) and One to Go

I hope it's three down. I had a final today and one last Friday. The one today wasn't bad. I think it was a very fair exam. It took me about 8.5 hours to complete it.

The final on Friday was a disaster. That one has a reputation for being the most difficult final for our program. Usually the exam is held in a building up near the center of campus in a quiet classroom. This time it was held in a conference room that is close to our program study room. For those of you who know where this is, we were in the center conference room. The whole conference room area can be one big room or divided up into three rooms with dividers separating each room. I don't know what those dividers are made out of, but they are not soundproof.

So on Friday, a colleague and I had been taking the exam for about 1.5 hours when we heard preparations starting in one of the rooms for the monthly Friday morning coffee break. They had a new coffee pot and for about 20 minutes were talking loudly about their new toy. Then people starting showing up for the break and it really got noisy. My colleague and I could not work on the exam. So I went in to join the coffee break. It only lasts for about 30 minutes, so after it was over, we got back to work on the exam.

We had only 30 minutes of peace. Someone in the other conference starting setting up for a seminar. The seminar lasted from 11:00 - 12:15. Again, we had peace. It only lasted until 1:00. A lady came into our room even though there was a sign on the door that said "Exam in Progress Do Not Enter". She took chairs out of the room and into the room where the coffee break had been. That room started filling with people and it got noisy. I think they were having a combination lab party and lab meeting. Then we could hear preparations starting in the other room for something. So from 1:00 until 5:00, we had loud talking, laughter and clapping going on from both adjoining rooms.

The test was scheduled to end at 5:00, but I wasn't finished. Because of the extenuating circumstances, our proctor let us go longer. By 7:00, I was not done, but I was so done. I did not finish the herbicide calibration calculations; I forgot that photosynthesis has a Photosystem II and Photosystem I; I forgot how many feet are in 1 mile and who knows how many other things I blanked on.

The noise level had a serious impact on my ability to concentrate and to take my exit exam. I don't know what my score is yet, but I know that I did not make it to 80%. There was no way I could have. The question is, will they pass me anyway because of the extenuating circumstances or will I have to take that final again next semester. I guess I'll find out in a few days.

Three More Days

This Friday, I will take my second final and next Monday, I will take the third one. I am not ready. There is so much material to cover; it's impossible for me to get through all of it. I hope that by the time I get to each final, the amount that I have studied will be enough to get me to 80%, which is the minimum for a passing grade.

I'm taking this week off from work; I should have taken last week off as well. But it's too late for the should haves, or the could haves. It is what it is and I will do the best that I can. It's not the end of the world if I have to stay in school another semester.

I probably will not do another post until after Monday's final. Wish me luck. I need it.

I'm Still Here

This semester is rough, but I'm surviving. All of my paperwork for graduation has been completed and my finals are coming up faster than I want to think about. But I have to think about it and deal with the fact that I am not studying enough. So, I am going to reduce my work hours a little more. I mentioned in my previous post that I reduced my hours to 32 hours a week. Instead I have been working 35 hours. Starting next week I will work 30 hours per week for 3 weeks and then take off the first week of November. I hope that will give me enough time to study.

Very few students in this program have taken 3 of the finals in one semester. I know of only two others who have done that; one suffered from cramps in their hand from all the writing and the other turned into a basket case at the end. What will happen to me, I wonder?

The Pressure Is On

The summer semester is over and I have only one more semester to go before I graduate. So the rush to get everything done in time has begun. I have to complete registration for the fall, which involves filling out paperwork for internships, filling out a degree application, turning in my final program of study, making sure my graduate records are accurate, turning in my paperwork for the remaining competency finals, and studying for the finals. During the fall semester, I will also be presenting at 2 seminars, and taking 3 internships which total to 40 hours of work per week. How I am going to manage all this, I do not know.

To add to everything, I have to look for a job. I have already been looking and just saw tonight that a position with my favorite government agency has come open. It is located in my home state! It is in a city that is about 115 miles from my home city. Best of all, the pay is very good!!! I have to apply. The deadline to apply is Monday, Aug. 17. So I have one week and I'm sure it will be a very hectic one for me. These particular positions do not come open very often. The scientists that occupy these positions are so happy in them, that they stay until they are way past retirement age. So the only time this type of position comes up is when someone finally retires. The competition is fierce and there is no guarantee that I will even get to the interview stage.

I have to wonder whether it is wise for me to pursue this position when I have so much that has to be accomplished to graduate in December. But like I mentioned above, these positions do not come open very often and I don't know when another one will open up. Another reason in favor of applying now is that several faculty at the university have told me that I needed to be looking for this position title in my government job searches, because I am very skilled in this particular area. Or so they say. I don't quite know how that happened. I did not try to be skilled in that area, it just came naturally, I guess.

So, a busy week ahead for me here, but I just don't think I can pass up the opportunity to apply.