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How to prepare for an oral exam
Introduction
I’m about three weeks away from preparing for my oral specialty examination as the gateway into officially becoming a Ph.D. candidate. With that in mind, I am reflecting on my process for preparing for this important milestone, and figured by putting the process into a blogpost, I’d identify and potential issues while sharing my methodology with everyone. Even if you aren’t in a Ph.D. program, this might be a helpful blueprint for any presentation you may have to give as part of a conference or a course you are taking at any level.
To clarify, an oral specialty examination is designed to assure that the examinee has mastered foundational material in his or her field.
Schedule the exam and build your committee
Some logistics need to be taken care of. You’ll need a committee to assess your progress towards the degree at this point, which will include your advisor and some other faculty members in your department and maybe surrounding departments as well. In some cases a department head or other administrative person will do this for you. In my case, I was given the freedom to choose my remaining committee members besides my two co-advisors, so I approached the other faculty member in my department that worked on the most closely related problems. He gladly agreed to serve on my committee.