An Outline to Grad School

Well, my first major graduate school requirement has been assigned to me for the spring semester.  I will be giving my “first required seminar” to the department.  I am both excited and nervous already.  Because of this I feel it’s only appropriate to give a little overview of how my graduate school outline looks. I originally was going to post a new “Under the Hood” featuring my topic for the seminar (and what will eventually become my thesis work) but I want to have a large background before I write that post so that I can accurately paraphrase, because in reality I would bet none of you really care.  But I appreciate all the site views and support for my blog regardless!

Anyway, if you go onto the Purdue IPPH website it has links for the curriculum and requirements but the links just lead to under construction pages.  So I will do my best to fill you.  The Pharmaceutics Ph.D. program is considered a five year program so I will break it down into those five years and what is expected.

Year One –

• Finish any pre-requisite classes (Physical Chemistry, Linear Algebra and Differential Equations, etc.).
• Take full course load of classes that are either helpful for your future research or helpful for background in you research area (Organic Spectroscopy, Statistical Design of Experiments, Computation Chemistry, etc.).
• STAY OUT OF TROUBLE academically!

Year Two –

• Begin working in the laboratory.
• Identify area of research for thesis (non-specific).
• Give “First Required Seminar” involving a literary review of relevant topics and preliminary data.
• Take a few more classes that could aid in your work (Properties of Solids, Crystallography, etc.)

Year Three –

• Continue lab projects.
• Take one or two more classes.
• Complete an “Oral Preliminary Exam” based on your direction of your thesis work.  Sometimes this is referred as an Opening Defense.

Year Four –

• Lab experiments.
• Write thesis.
• Enjoy life.

Year Five (and Beyond) –

• Give “Last Required Seminar” over your thesis research to the department.
• Complete your “Thesis Defense.”
• Submit your final “Thesis.”
• Get a job!

So as you can see there are essentially five big milestones for the graduate curriculum (bold).  I am excited because I am finally getting to start on the first one!  I guarantee you will be hearing much more about all of these as they come and go.

As for my First Required Seminar, that involves an hour presentation to all the professors and students in the department.  It is the stepping stone into giving presentations at conferences and preparing for the grind of publishing and defending work during and after graduate school.  Needless to say, this might be the least significant presentation I ever give professionally, but it will definitely keep me up a few nights in the near future!