State of the Author - September 2019 · 3:32am Sep 27th, 2019
Hi all,
Here I am with an update. It’s a really good update. Today is a really good day.
This entire month has been found me dedicated to practically one thing only, and that is the graduate physics comprehensive exam. For some context, this exam covers everything we learned in the first year of graduate school and passing it is required for moving on through the graduate program. You get two attempts and you can pass it at the PhD level, the Masters level, or you fail. I’ve known about this exam since March of 2018 and passing it has been a huge, looming hurdle for a long while.
I previously stated in my previous State of the Author that I was spending the summer doing research. While classes don’t start until the end of September (today was actually the first day of classes for the new year), us first year students get released from summer research toward the end of August so that we can spend a month studying for this exam. And while there have been things here and there that I have done that have not been studying, I did not write any words in the latter two weeks of that study period. I promised myself this, just to ensure I would be sufficiently focused on my studies.
The exam was a two session deal. Friday was Classical Mechanics (the study of how bodies move and interact) and Electromagnetism (the study of electricity and magnetism. Monday was Statistical Mechanics (the study of how systems probabilistically behave--there is no way you’re going to accurately describe a system with 1023+ particles) and quantum mechanics (the study of systems at the absolute basic and unitary level). Passing the exam requires a good overall score.
Today, I got my results back, and I passed at the PhD level. That means I get to continue!
The time I took off to study paid off. I now have this huge weight off my chest. I now can turn my attention to other things.
That includes my writings! As of now, I have turned my eyes back onto writing Divergence and Retrograde. It’s my intention to get something out soon (and you can probably guess, from where my priorities have historically lay, which will come first). But stuff is going to start happening again soon. We’re getting back on the train!
I’m so excited to continue these journeys with you all, and I thank you all for your patience. This has been a trying year, and a trying month, and it’s over. We are now full steam ahead.
That’s all I wanted to report on, but man... this feels great.
-RQK
Congrats, that's really great news!
Huzzah!
Congrats!