They don't tell you whether you passed?

For my PhD orals they tell you on the spot. I b a r e l y passed. It was a disaster. I answered a particular question wrong, but my advisor continued asking me questions and talking about that answer as if I had answered it correctly, until finally I said, "I'm not sure." That's when he said, "That's because blah blah blah, you were wrong about 10 minutes ago." It was like a sucker punch in the gut. Suffice to say that I was so distraught and paralyzed with embarrassment that anything I *did* know fell right out of my brain for the rest of the exam.

When they told me I'd passed, I had to ask them why, and it was basically on the strength of the written portion of the exam and their familiarity with my knowledge/ability in general. But they told me to consider *very carefully* whether I would continue to the dissertation stage. Oh, and my diss proposal, which was part of the oral, pretty much went out the window too! I cried for about 24 straight hours after I got out of there.

The happy ending, of course, is that my diss. turned out to be a great success and was my department's sole candidate for outstanding diss. of the year for the entire University of Michigan. (toot! toot!) I also know one guy who outright failed his orals but decided against all advice to try again. He now has tenure at U Penn and is beloved there as a teacher.

Anyway, you did it, you're standing, so you can color me impressed!

And now (cheesy segue) I think I'll go color me some eggs!

Shaun
www.homeschoolblogger.com/shaunms