Holler If Your Taking Comps This Semester

[IRdreams]

Anyone want to share comps stories? The good, the bad, the ugly, but preferable the funny accepted. I'll share first. The very eminent professor proctoring our exam today gave the "best" motivation speech. "Everyone passes. Well...the faculty couldn't pass these...but...So shall we begin." I'd be anxious if it wasn't so priceless. Other anecdotes or commiseration for this ritual of graduate life?

A related anecdote. One our younger faculty started his exam period with this priceless gem: "The proctologist is here. The exam can begin." I swear if I ever have grad students and they are taking a high states test, I'm just going to hand out the sheet and wish them luck.

Edited May 26, 2011 by IRdreams

[AKJen]

Taking my last two today. It's a horrible awful process and the next person that tells me that everyone passes and I'll be fine is going to get some of my wrath. I mean, it's true, but that doesn't make the process less stressful. No real stories here, since we just show up and they hand us the test to be emailed to the admin in two hours, but many, many hours of studying for things that probably will not be on the tests.

It is super cruel to give out 15 detailed prep questions and use only three of them for the actual test. Especially when it's in a class based on a timeframe of millions of years with hundreds of finnicky details.

Soon, soon it will be over.

[theregalrenegade]

One of my friends in classical history who I had no doubt would do just fine, didn't pass. I never found out the whole story and what happened to her. What happens if you don't pass, btw?

[ZeeMore21]

One of my friends in classical history who I had no doubt would do just fine, didn't pass. I never found out the whole story and what happened to her. What happens if you don't pass, btw?

That's unfortunate! I'm starting my PhD in the fall so I have some time before I have to think about comps, but from what I here, the experience is pretty stressful. I do find the whole process to prepare for comps kind of exciting though...by the end of it, you have pretty much read a significant portion of texts in your field. That's pretty cool, I think.

[theregalrenegade]

I will probably be taking my comps after this fall semester. I'm scared, but like you mentioned, I'll have a ton of great texts under my belt. When I had a history theory class last semester, the prof said our exams would be set up like comps. It was killer. Our final was a a three-hour session where we had to choose one of two all encompassing essay questions to write on. I thought for sure I wasn't going to pass, but I managed to get a B+. I was happy with that considering it was a methodology course that was notorious for giving ulcers to MA and PhD students alike!