{"id":65,"date":"2011-08-18T14:49:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-18T14:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thisimpliesthat.com\/angelablog\/2011\/08\/18\/first-qual-complete\/"},"modified":"2016-07-25T22:02:20","modified_gmt":"2016-07-25T22:02:20","slug":"first-qual-complete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisimpliesthat.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/18\/first-qual-complete\/","title":{"rendered":"First qual: complete"},"content":{"rendered":"

My summer-long narcissism ended yesterday. The qualifying exam is over, so now I can let myself care about other things.<\/p>\n

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\nIt’s hard to explain the qualifying exam process to non-math-grad people, but I’ll try… It’s a pass\/fail exam and you can’t advance in the program without it. Here, they offer 5 or 6 different specialty areas, and you have to pass exams in 2 different areas within 5 total attempts. I took my first attempt at my first exam yesterday. The way the algebra exam is structured here is that it’s broken down into 3 categories: groups, rings & fields, and modules & linear algebra. Usually there are 12 total questions (4-3-5 or 4-4-4) and you are supposed to do 8 complete problems with at least 2 out of each section. The exam we got yesterday had 15 total questions, 5 in each section, and we got to choose 8 problems with at least 2 from each section. So, we got more selection than usual. The problems are complex and long, and you basically are not allowed to assume anything – you have to build all the math you need from scratch.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThe general understanding I have is that you have to turn in 4 completely correct solutions for the grading committee to even consider passing you. If you turn in 6 or more completely correct problems, you’re almost guaranteed to pass. If you turn in something in between there, the committee basically votes on whether or not you deserve to pass. I fall into the last category, the one where my fate is now in the hands of the committee. I turned in 7 problems. I’m confident that 4 of them were pretty much completely correct. The other 3 I turned in were of varying completeness. On two of them I was just missing one little part of the argument (well, I think it was a little part, but if that was those parts turned out to be the major point of them putting the problems on the exam, the committee might think I missed the whole point and not give me any credit for it). The last problem I turned in was a pretty easy 2-part problem that I’d done before. I couldn’t remember the trick to the second part, though, so I’m sure that won’t earn me any points. I didn’t have enough work done on any of the other problems to think turning something in would help so I didn’t turn in an 8th problem – hopefully that doesn’t count against me…<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nSo, now I just wait. It’ll take anywhere from a week to a month to find out if I passed. If I failed, I have to decide if I want to retake it in January or in August.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nIn other news, there’s a week until classes start again! I have to plan the course I’m teaching in that time. Other than that, I intend to relax and do whatever I want. This will likely entail sitting around the apartment watching movies and TV on DVD pretty much nonstop. I may do some reading, recreational or mathematical, but I haven’t decided yet. I also have to send some letters and e-mails and maybe make some phone calls since I’ve been basically incommunicado the past few weeks because of the qual.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nAh, nothing beats this feeling. Life is good.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My summer-long narcissism ended yesterday. The qualifying exam is over, so now I can let myself care about other things. It’s hard to explain the qualifying exam process to non-math-grad people, but I’ll try… It’s a pass\/fail exam and you can’t advance in the program without it. Here, they offer 5 or 6 different specialty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisimpliesthat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisimpliesthat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisimpliesthat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisimpliesthat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisimpliesthat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thisimpliesthat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240,"href":"https:\/\/thisimpliesthat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions\/240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisimpliesthat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisimpliesthat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisimpliesthat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}