Cold Spaghetti

Scott Cowen, President of Tulane University, announced the renewal plan for Tulane. The basic jist is that the U lost a lot of money in the wake of the worst natural disaster in U.S. history and is scaling back on some stuff. They are cutting back athletic programs and dropping some graduate programs, focusing on those that “have demonstrated ability to be world-class and, in the sciences and engineering, have the proven ability to obtain competitively awarded grant funding”. The chart outlines the current degree programs.

First signs suggest minimal disruption for our Department (International Health and Development) and very little for the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in general. (A plus for chosing a top program, I guess!) From a short message from Pierre Buekens (the Dean of the SPH&TM): “the Plan opens many new opportunities for the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. No major change is planned for any of our Departments or our teaching programs.” So, no major surprises seem to be lurking on that horizon.

In fact, there are signs for opportunity. Some neat initiatives: all new and future students will be required to perform service learning in rebuilding efforts (this is in addition to the wonderful service learning that Tulane undergrads already participate in — something that has very much impressed me about the undergrad experience here); all first and second year students will live in residence halls to rebuild the community; and (the most interesting), “our professional schools will augment their current programs to increase interaction with undergraduate students.”

I am curious about how and if undergraduates will have “increased interaction” with our professional school. (FYI: “Professional School” means just graduate students. Every School I’ve attended post-bachelors has been a professional school.) Possibilities for teaching positions, etc? It will be interesting to see how it all falls out… especially since current faculty are already majorly strapped.

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.

I still can’t believe it, but I finished, I’m done. I survived comprehensive examinations.

Now I *completely* understand what those before me mean when they say that the experience really isn’t over until you hear the word “pass.” It does not feel real. Now that the exam is out of my hands, it feels scary. It’s out there… I just have to wait and see if what I did was good enough.

All in all, I feel good about it. There weren’t any surprises, although I was certainly challenged. I’m terrified of stupid mistakes or things I’ve overlooked. I’ve been told that the results should be in after about two weeks. Yikes… how do I keep myself from dwelling on the exam until then?

Please please please… let this be the last time I have to do this! I’m ready to move on the really hard stuff… prospectus and disseration!

…and that’s about all I can say about that right now. Some interesting things that have happened in the last 24 hours:

– 12:22am this morning. Will wakes up and vomits all over himself and Paul. Will is terrified, requires great clean-up, comfort, and all three of us had to change.
– 4:12am. Repeat performance from Will. Bottom line: we did not get much sleep last night!
– 8:05am. Get home, look over questions, realize that Penny only gave me questions for 2 of the 3 sections; I’m missing econometrics.
– 10:30am. Questions arrive directly from Paul, after phone calls and emails. Penny gives extra time to account for not having the questions.

Some issues…
– Turning interacted odds ratios into logistic regression coefficients (usually we do this the other way around!)
– Being way tired!
– Paul made a fantastic dinner (veggie pot pie) and was amazing at helping with Will. He supplied me with snacks (apples, bagel, peanut butter) and lunch (rice and chili) which helped so much. Two thumbs up for a wonderful spouse today!

And *thank you* —
— to everyone who sent emails, cards, phoned, posted to the blog and on and on… I even got flowers from my in-laws tonight! The encouragement means a lot! I just hope I actually manage to pass to live up to all the great support!

Update… Penny has all the needed questions for Day One. I will drop off Will in the morning at his school (around 7:40) and then go to Penny’s house to pick up questions. Home by 8… when I’ll start work! I will email the questions by 5pm to show completion and bring hard copies to Penny when I pick up Will, by 5:30.

As for Day Two… she only has one question. The other two questions are from Carl, my committee chair, of all people… and he is AWOL! In the words of a fellow doctoral student, “Oh, this is so perfect!” I have faith that he, and the questions, will turn up soon.

What drama!

With comps on the horizon for December, planning for Peru has begun in earnest. I signed up to an Lima-based expat mailing list and sent out a “seeking housesitting/rental” announcement and within a few hours had great leads… including referrals for pediatricians and OBs! The best news so far: the availability of a 3-bedroom Miraflores house where a family of three lives (including a 2-year old girl!). They will be out of the country for January and February and are willing to sublet to us at a reduced rate. (Hooray!) Paul and I have to talk more about it, but this sounds perfect… great location, high speed internet already set up, walk to parks, shopping, and amenities.

An interesting tidbit from one of the parents who responded: each child in Lima has a nanny. If you have three children, you have three nannies. The pay from expat families? Around $200-250 a month.

The next issue: we need tickets. The problem: flying in early January breaks all the frequent flyer rules, it’s about 50,000 miles per ticket — I checked this morning and it will take 157,000 miles for the three of us to fly via frequent flyer. (Otherwise, it is about $1000 per person for three of us.) There is no way we can get enough rent out of our house to cover that. So… Mom? No Christmas shopping this year! How about frequent flyer tickets for Christmas???

Today was my first true day of studying. It went pretty well, I got to cross three things off my study list:

– Finish answering Econometrics section from June comps
– Email answers to Paul (a professor) for review/suggestions
– Type out notes from meeting with Carl (my committee chair) and send for review and comments

It took me longer than I thought it would to get my head around the material. Granted, econometrics is among the toughest stuff on comps and the section that doctoral students spend the most time stressing over. I started out by reading my early responses to questions and thinking, “Wow, this sounds really good. But I wonder what she is talking about?” It was sort of like nudging my brain out from hibernation. (A stuffy head, victim of the excess NOLA dust, did not help.) A few things I’d really like to sort out:

– What exactly is the estimation procedure with a truncated model?
– A really, really, really clear explanation of the differences between sample selection bias and endogeneity — (with reference to the sampling problems cited in my paper on low birth weight and violence in Peru)

and finally,

– Why is my child obsessed with knocking heads? ouch.