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.