Two and a half years. Five courses. An exemption I didn’t want but, somehow, circumstances warranted. And one email thread I will never delete that resulted in transition
What a journey! And I took a sigh of relief,This is such a long overdue post considering I had bits and pieces of it sitting in my draft.
I am a PhD candidate. I need to say that again for myself. I am a PhD candidate now.
The Requirement in the Handbook
The requirement, on paper which might come off as straightforward. Within two years, you take five courses across three buckets, earn at least an A- in each, and then proceed to your Research Proficiency Exam (RPE). Pass that, and you advance to candidacy.
The sequence. Clean. Linear. Predictable.
Have walked this path, there is nothing linear about it. Of course it was linear for most. But I am not here to compare myself with others. I did however watch people in my cohort complete their qualifier, some in their first years, most in the stipulated department timeline — two years.
Then there was me. I only passed one course each semester. hence eventually using 5 semesters — two years and a semester to eventually become a PhD Candidate.
At my end-of-year-semester-one meeting, my program director and I made a plan (more like he made one for me, a good one from all indications). Complete my RPE that semester (year 2 semester 2), get an A− in one of the courses I was taking, and carry the final qualifier into my third year. An exemption was made. Technically not standard practice, but one they were willing to make for me. I was grateful. I also hated needing it in equal measure. There is a particular kind of shame in being told that the rules are being bent in your direction, even when it comes from a place of support.
The Final Course I Almost Regretted Taking
For my third year, first semester, I enrolled in one course: CSE 512 Machine Learning. I want to be careful here, because my inherent “applied” background is in machine learning. My master’s was somewhat centered here — I applied a couple of Machine Learning techniques in the problems I was solving. At the end of the semester, I came to the conclusion that, application is not the same as knowing. I walked in thinking I had a foundation, maybe even an edge. I was wrong.
This was not machine learning as I had practiced it. This was machine learning stripped to its bones with topics ranging from optimization theory, mathematical proofs, derivations, the formal logic behind why the sigmoid function is the sigmoid function. The kind of course that does not care what frameworks you know. It wants to know if you understand what is happening underneath all of them.
I sat in that class every Tuesday and Thursday and contemplated my choices and ultimately my life and why the hell I am embarking on this pursuit. Why had I not looked more carefully at the course list? I’d had three months before the semester started to pick a suitable qualifier. I had options. And I had ended up here, in a room where I understood less each week than I had the week before.
But I did not leave. I kept showing up to every single class. And every evening after class, I went back through my notes and tried to claw some meaning out of what had been taught. Because what choice have I but to study? So each day I gleaned and studied.
Thursday, 8:11 AM
It was a cold Thursday morning in December. I was at my desk, preparing for my scheduled quiz. The kind of quiz that, three months into this course, still tormented you and made me angst and nervous.
At 8:11 AM, an email arrived from my professor.
I stopped studying. A tear rolled down my face. I said a word of prayer and took the biggest sigh of relief. I doubt I have been in a state of disbelief in my life than this email did to me — yes, it did put me in a state of relief, disbelief and gratitude all at one. Curious to know if a person can feel all such emotions at once.
This was the last qualifier. The one that had cost me an extra semester. The course I had dreaded every morning for four months and sat in classes question my existence and life choices. And I had passed it.
I wrote back the next evening asking if we could schedule a Zoom to confirm my grade (my disbelief could even let me accept good news in good faith. I needed to hear it said clearly. I needed it to be real.
The Anti-Climax
Well, my professor responded to my email and it went something along these lines.
Fully convinced now because I heard it unequivocally from the horse’s own mouth, I sent this email back to her.
They had noticed. Through a class of however many students, they had noticed that I came every time, that I tried every time, even when trying was not producing the results I needed. That meant more to me than I know how to fully articulate.
What was kept to myself
Somewhere in the middle of that semester, I walked into the office of our former graduate program director with no appointment, no plan. I sat down and I cried through every sentence came off my lips. I told him I thought I was going to fail. That I was a third-year PhD student who had taken one course and had no backup if I didn’t pass it. That I was starting to wonder whether what to do — what are my options should the worse happen, how should I navigate considering how I feel about my current predicament.
He was kind. He gave me my options. He told me to talk to my advisor, to think through contingencies. And I left still afraid, but less alone than I had been when I walked in.
I’m including this because the story is incomplete without it.
The Story I get to tell
While my path — just like every unique human experience — is different, that of advancing to candidacy was no exception. I didn’t follow the graduate handbook, took longer than most, and was offered an exception. I doubted myself more times than I can count.
I stand before you a PhD Candidate in Computer Science.
I told myself from the beginning that I would enjoy every single step of this journey. So I booked a reservation, put on a pretty dress, and took myself on a solo date to the Cheesecake Factory. I ordered cake, asked the server to write “Congratulations” on it, and had them take pictures of me. They were kind enough to oblige.
Cheers to the story we get to tell.
