3 ms·
Sorry for asking, but I'm not familiar with this term. "Generals" means "final exam"? For PhD?
by yu3zhou4 3y ago
Sorry for asking, but I'm not familiar with this term. "Generals" means "final exam"? For PhD?
- GTP 3y agoI'm not familiar either, but here they are talking about graduate students [0]. I guess it's a sort of final cumulative exam at the end of the programme. [0] https://web.math.princeton.edu/generals/ https://web.math.princeton.edu/generals/
- bmitc 3y agoThe exams would be at the beginning to middle of the program.
- GTP 3y agoI mean a final exam at the end of the program covering not just a single subject but potentially anything you studied during the program. But in practice it has to be more restricted, that's why they ask him what he prepared: it could be potentially anything, but to practical reasons they have to restrict it to a few subjects. Still more fields than what is covered by a single course. Or at least this is my interpretation.
- bmitc 3y agoI knew what you meant, but as I said, these type of exams are not at the end of a PhD program. At Princeton, it appears that the general exam occurs after year one or two: https://www.math.princeton.edu/graduate/requirements https://www.math.princeton.edu/graduate/requirements
- xdavidliu 3y agoI went to MIT for a physics doctorate, and in 2009 their generals were done in three parts. Part 1 was given in August of 2009, basically immediately after orientation, so I had spent the entire summer studying for it.
- sampo 3y ago> graduate students As far as I understand, in America graduate student can mean both a M.Sc. student and a Ph.D. student.
- bmitc 3y agoI think these are normally referred to as oral exams. Most PhDs go from qualifying exams to oral exams to thesis defense.
- nebulous1 3y agoThis other article by Tao explains the situation: https://www.ams.org/notices/202007/rnoti-p1007.pdf https://www.ams.org/notices/202007/rnoti-p1007.pdf