In the UBC psychology dept. Preliminary exams (what we call comprehensive exams) vary from subdiscipline to subdiscipline. In clinical psychology, we had 2 days of written exams, divided into four 2 hour sections and an oral examination. I must admit although I didn't enjoy the examinations, I did enjoy the reading leading up to them. Our exams were the everything you ever might want to know abour clinincal psychology sort, so I ended up doing a lot of reading in novel areas for me.
My favourite doctoral preliminary exams, however, are what I heard was done in another discipline on campus (biochemistry). What they do is they set up an comprehensive group for each student and then they sit down with each student and discuss biochemistry. This is done, according to students who have gone through the process, in a vey relaxed, collegial environment with the profs sharing a lot of their understanding of the topics. The comprehensive group then gives ideas and direction for what the student might want to learn more about. The students goes out to read and then comes back for another talk. This process continues until the comprehensive group is comfortable with teh depth and breadth of the student's knowledge. I would have loved to go through this process!!! Cheers. Martha --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
