Cold Spaghetti

I’ve had a day to decompress and reflect. These are the lingering things in my head regarding the comprehensives — I’m unloading them and moving on!

Day One:
– Was challenging in that I had to use my skills/knowledge in applied ways not tested before. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do them, but I had to think carefully through them and do my best based on what I knew. In this way, the questions were very cleverly written.
– I was lamenting to Paul that I didn’t get a chance to talk at all about experimental design (something that I know well from coursework at Michigan) — I had been looking forward to pulling this out as a strength. Then, yesterday, I realized that I *did* have an opportunity to use it, but between being tired and the openness of the question, my mind didn’t go there. The question was one part of a three-part question where it asked, within the context of a sampling frame I has been asked to design for a Roll Back Malaria program, if I would make any changes to the baseline. I was so caught up in sampling that I connected the question to survey measures and discussed anthropometric/biomarker/health survey data within the context of evaluation. I didn’t think at all about experimental survey design! Had the question asked if I would make any changes to the design, or survey, or study, I would have totally launched into a discuss of experimental design. Maybe, assuming the read the practice exam I sent them weeks ago, they’ll give me benefit of the doubt since I discussed experimental design at length with citations in the practice exam. I’m hoping I can still pull some partial credit on this one.
– With the extra time, I took a short lie-down in the afternoon to recover from the long night with Will. In retrospect, the lack of sleep really hurt; I wasn’t at my full game. I think I still did well, but I could have rocked it a little more.

Some examples (paraphrased — they are actually long questions!) of Day One:
– You are designing a study with three treatments. Randomly assigning ten men and ten women to each treatment. Write the ANOVA model.
– The actual sizes of the villages differ greatly from the estimated sizes. Using your chosen sampling method, explain how to mitigate this problem and restore an epsem design without increasing workload/decision making in the field.
– Suppose y is a discrete outcome. What method would you use to estimate the above equation and why? Explain what is meant by the method of maximum likelihood. What are the drawbacks of other estimation methods in this case?


Day Two
– The shortest 9 hours of my life! I sat down and started the exam at 8:01am. With the exception of bathroom breaks (lest we forget the growing child applying more and more pressure to my bladder), I did not leave the chair until 4:50pm, when I emailed out the exam and printed it to deliver the hardcopy to Penny. Paul went on two coffee runs for me (once in the morning with Will — for a splurge on a cappucino from CCs– and then for a regular from PJs in the afternoon.) He also made great lunch (veggie pot pie leftovers) and supplied snacks (apples and peanut butter). I was so caught up in the work that I didn’t even ask for these… he predicted the need, made the goods, and set it in front of me. It was exactly what I needed.
– The questions were basically what I thought they would be. They were very challenging in that they were the type of questions one could spend months writing about. It was difficult to properly gage how much time to give each question, how to narrow the scope of what could be said/cited, and how to do it all somewhat eloquently!

A sample of some (paraphrased) questions from Day Two:
– Imagine you’re designing an ethnographic study of access and use of RH services in Lima. How would reading Burawoy impact this study? First, discuss a conventional approach that explores topics and approaches common in public health. Next, discuss Burawoy’s globalization framework. Then discuss how this framework would modify your study.
– How have ‘development theories’ (broadly envisioned) been an influence in reproductive health technologies, programs, and research agendas in the developing world since the 1950s? Should this change? Why/why not and how? Discuss this theme in general, and also explore these ideas through a specific contemporary reproductive health debate/issue/reasearch question of your choice.