Everything, everywhere, someway, somehow is Math. You just never know when you're the quotient and when you're the remainder. (Hurdle 2: Comprehensive Exam and Proposal)

It was horrible... extremely horrible... but I am done and that is the important part. After three hours, I am now a PhD Candidate. I met a woman who was outside of the room who was a recent PhD graduate. She said comps and proposal was the worst day of her life. I have to say that it is in the top 5 of my worst experiences... For those who have not yet conquered this hurdle, it is the lowest and hardest part of the dissertation process. When I did mine, I was able to do my Comprehensive and Proposal at the same time. The rules have now changed so you have to do the Comprehensive exam at least a day before your Proposal presentation. Good luck wrangling your committee members twice in such a short time. Wrangling cats would probably be easier.

Of course, one of my committee members was late to the event. I actually had to track him down and did have a moment (or 5) where I contemplated making a run for it. Unfortunately, I had left my keys in the room. Won't make that mistake again!

The first thing they did was kick me out of the room so that they could decide on the rules for my torture. The presentation of my proposal was easy since I was very familiar with it. Then the comprehensive exam began. I had the false impression that I just had to last 2 hours. That hope was dashed when one of my committee members said that he had all day. I contemplated running again. after 3 hours, I was asked to leave the room while the remaining members (one had left) decided my fate.

After what seemed like forever, I was called back in to discover my fate. I had passed, but with provisions. I just cared about the fact that I had passed.

 

So, if you haven't gotten to this point, know that this will be the worst part of the whole process. Though your advisor shouldn't let you do this hurdle without being ready, I did have a friend who failed it his first time, but did pass it his second time. Most people do pass with provisions which could range from a answering a written set of questions to adding a chapter to your proposal to washing their cars (jk, it's never as easy as just washing their cars). Once you are through this hurdle, it's smooth sailing.

 

At least it is over and I just have to do this one more time.
Some helpful information I got from Jeff for writing a proposal presentation:

Introduction

1. What problem are you trying to solve, and why is it important?
2. Does anyone actually care if you solve it, and if so, why?

Background

1. Who else has tried to solve this problem (or similar ones), and
   what did they do?
2. What aspect of the problem didn't they solve that you plan to address?
3. It's easy to spend too much time on this part.  Be very brief.  A
   few slides at most.

Proposed Solution
What is your proposed solution?

Methodology

1. How will you test to see if you succeeded?
2. Are you comparing it to other state-of-the-art approaches?
3. Are you using any standard test problems?
4. What statistical measures will you use in your comparison?
5. Do you have any preliminary results?

Conclusion
If you succeed, what contributions will you make to the field?