How I Studied for My Qualifying Exam: Part 2
My previous post focused on what I did to actually study for my qualifying exam, but I didn’t touch on what happened during my qualifying exam, or how I prepared for presenting my research to my committee, so that is what I plan to discuss today!
My Top 5 Tips for Preparing for Your Qualifying Exam Research Talk
A lot of the advice regarding your qualifying exam should come from your PI or the older students in your research group. I say this because they are the most likely to have experiences that will mirror yours. So, as you can imagine, a lot of my advice came from the older Shaw Lab graduate students. With that being said, here’s my advice for preparing for your qualifying exam research talk:
1. Schedule 3 practice qualifying exams…and don’t schedule them too close to your exam!
In the Shaw lab, each student would schedule a single practice qualifying exam in front of the entire research group about 6 weeks before their actual exam. It was recommended to me that the group meeting QE not be my first ever practice—instead, we had older graduate students from the lab sit in on a pre-group meeting practice run to iron out any obvious issues in our presentations. The older graduate students worked with me to restructure my talk to create a cohesive story, and I left feeling prepared for my one and only practice QE in front of my PI. I still ended up feeling pretty awful after my group meeting practice QE, but our group always tried to be extra harsh so that our practice exam would (hopefully) be worse than the real thing. Notably, a couple of the questions asked in my group meeting practice exam ended up getting asked on my actual exam!
Following my second practice QE in group meeting, I then sought graduate students in the labs of the professors who were on my qualifying exam committee. This was useful because the students that work with your committee members will typically ask questions similar to their research advisor and will be able to fill you in on any of their idiosyncrasies (all professors have pet peeves!). I decided to only have three practice QEs, and I think it was the perfect number for me. By the last one I was confident in my ability to answer questions and was also comfortable navigating questions that I didn’t have answers to right off the bat.
If you feel confident after your second exam, then you don’t necessarily need to schedule more. I do recommend at least 2 practices and ultimately scheduling as many as you need to feel comfortable. The only thing to remember is that people will be taking a lot of time to help you, so you should make sure you really need it before you ask others to attend practices. It’s also always nice to provide snacks and beverages to the people who come to help you out! Don’t forget, you’ll be sitting in on practice QEs once you’re a PhD candidate, so just treat yourself how you want future you to be treated :).
Lastly, don’t schedule them too close to your exam. If you have a practice shortly before your exam, and the feedback that you get is extremely negative, you’ll probably be pretty stressed out for your actually exam. Plan a couple weeks in advance so you have time to address all of the feedback you receive so you can go into your exam with confidence!
2. Plan the beginning of your talk like the abstract of a paper
At UC Davis, the first ~5 minutes of the exam are supposed to go uninterrupted. As a result, when I was preparing my talk I made sure to practice a 5 minute intro that mirrored a paper abstract.
I wanted to touch on:
The background of my research
What my hypothesis was
How I tested it
Why it mattered
I also practiced this 5 minute intro any time I had a moment to myself. I was reciting it in the shower, on my bike rides to and from lab, in my head while taking NMRs… you get the picture. It should be second nature before you walk into your exam, so when you inevitably black out as soon as you stand up at the board, you won’t have to worry about forgetting it.
(Side note—It can’t just be me, right? Anyone else black-out as soon as you stand in front of a crowd? I have no idea what I actually say when I’m public speaking… I just vibe in the moment and then spiral about the embarrassing things I said later. Like the time I said that an antibiotic was yeeted out of the ribosome during a group meeting presentation. And the time I said porn instead of prone. ugh.)
3. Treat the rest of your talk like a 20 minute presentation
You should plan for your talk to be 20 minutes uninterrupted. This way, when your committee inevitably asks you a ton of questions, you (should) be able to at least touch on everything you want to discuss. 1-3 hours go much quicker than you would expect, so don’t plan for too much in case you aren’t able to get to the “good parts”. Remove fluff!
Also, definitely take the time to go in front of a board and practice your talk. As cringey as it sounds, I also recorded myself giving my talk. You can really learn a lot of your nervous ticks when you are forced to listen to yourself, and hopefully the embarrassment will drive you to improve your public speaking the way it has done for me.
Another tip— resist the urge to say um and just take a breath instead. Also, try to keep water near you when you’re giving a talk so that if you start to get flustered you can take a sip of your water and recalibrate. I swear it works! Also, try to go to seminars and see what you do and don’t like about different speakers. Try to model your talk after those you do like, and make sure you don’t incorporate the things you don’t like! You will be giving talks for the rest of your career, so you should start to develop a style as soon as you can.
4. Use this time to your advantage! Tell everyone why your research is cool!
One of the most important aspects of your qualifying exam (and really any other talk you give in your career) is being able to describe the bigger picture. When you perform research, you are working at the cutting edge of the field and are typically the expert when presenting to a room. Not everyone in attendance will have the same background that you have, so you need to ensure that you provide enough background and context to get the big picture across to your audience. Additionally, your qualifying exam is a very unique experience: this is one of the few times in your career that you have a panel of 4-5 academics that are completely focused on your research and (ideally) helping you become a better scientist. Use this to your advantage! Pick their brains if you can!
5. QEs don’t just test your knowledge, they also test your ability to communicate your science to different types of experts
One thing that I recapitulate to everyone that I know is that grad school is a game (hot take: I actually think life is a game). What do I mean by this? Well… QEs aren’t standardized. There is no rubric that you can measure yourself against; every student has a different project, committee, research advisor… so you need to do everything that you can to ensure that you are as prepared as possible to successfully ace your qualifying exam. This means tailoring your studying and preparation to the individuals on your committee. Is one of your committee members an expert in physical organic chemistry? Then you should probably brush up on your molecular orbital theory. Expert in mass spectrometry? You should be able to describe how an MS works and what information you can gain from it (and don’t even think about calling it mass spectroscopy). It doesn’t matter if these topics have nothing to do with the potential success of your research, because individuals are only able to ask you questions that relate to what they are already knowledgable about. If your committee is not knowledgable about your research topic, then they’re going to draw connections to what they are knowledgable about. It does not matter how much you know if your committee does not have the expertise to evaluate you the way that an expert in your field would. I repeat: It does not matter how much you know if your committee does not have the expertise to evaluate you the way that an expert in your field would. You are going to be evaluated based on the knowledge that your committee holds. Prepare to answer questions coming from the lens of their specific expertise!
So what does this mean? It means that it is difficult to predict what will lead to a successful QE outcome. I remember a story from an older graduate student who worked in a chemical biology lab. She had a physical chemist on her qualifying exam, and he knew nothing about biology. She told me that the reason she passed her exam was because she was able to articulate the central dogma of molecular biology to this professor. She didn’t even really talk about her research, she just lectured him on the fundamentals of biology! This is very different from my experience, and the experience of many other people I know from graduate school. Every QE is different, so my best advice is to play the game and cater your preparation to your specific committee.
Final Thoughts
My qualifying exam didn’t go exactly as I’d planned— I was working on a methodology project and I planned for the bulk of my talk to focus on my substrate synthesis. Instead, we ended up discussing the proposed mechanism of my reaction for almost my entire first half! I only talked about ~1/3 of what I had prepared, but throughout the conversation I was able to demonstrate my critical thinking skills and explain how I might devise experiments to support my proposed hypotheses. I did end up getting a full pass, but I knew walking into that room that I had done the best I could to prepare, and I was as confident as I could have asked myself to be. My QE result reinforced my confidence, but I had learned and grown so much throughout my preparation that it didn’t matter what happened that day, I knew that I would be proud of myself pass or fail.
My last bit of advice is that you should try to go into your QE without expectations. You have no idea what is going to happen as soon as you walk in the room, and you have no idea what types of connections the professors will draw and what they might ask as a result. My qualifying exam was definitely stressful, but it was also pretty fun to have the opportunity to discuss my work with experts that had diverse backgrounds in organic chemistry!
Ultimately, as long as you prepare for your exam in a way that makes you confident and genuinely proud of yourself, then I think you’ll be alright.
Best of luck!