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Brit here. It seems a little different than US. I didn't take any exams (except viva at the end). I was given some reports by PhD students/researchers working i
by blippage 4y ago
Brit here. It seems a little different than US. I didn't take any exams (except viva at the end). I was given some reports by PhD students/researchers working in a similar field in the same department as background reading. I thought that I'd never understand the stuff, but after awhile, it seemed fairly straightforward.
My supervisor chose me rather than the other way around. It seemed an interesting subject, so I went for it. He set the subject and had a general idea of the direction it should be going.
An alternative approach is to look at the PhD opportunities at various universities, and pick one that looks interesting. I don't think it's rocket science.
The overwhelming number of theses will be a bunch of results that are "quite interesting" and extend the field incrementally. Don't expect to redefine the way people look at physics, mathematics, or whatever.
My number one tip for getting a PhD in a timely fashion: work hard and don't arse around on the internet all day. You don't need the intellect of Gauss to get a PhD; although the brainier the better, obviously.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- groffee 4y ago> and don't arse around on the internet all day I feel personally attacked!
- Test0129 4y agoComprehensive entry exams are being done away with a lot of schools. At the university I went to (before I dropped from the program for financial reasons) I simply had to have gotten A's in my last 4 semesters of CS classes. The last 4 semesters are graduate courses, and undergrads simply do marginally less work. Comprehensive exams in my opinion are extremely dumb. You take some classes and to take more classes you need to take sometimes up to a year to cram 4 years of various CS trivia, most likely unrelated to your core interest, to sit a 4-5 hour long exam to prove you can regurgitate things. It really is trivia too. My advisor issued these exams and showed me one of the old ones. I am not sure how regurgitating the finer details of computer architecture will ever help me produce research in computational mathematics but apparently it was required. It's just yet another shibboleth of academia. It provides the illusion of exclusivity for a group that is so smart, they're too dumb to see comprehensives prove nothing.