Comps/First Day of class

Well, I talked with one of the professors who is on my board this afternoon about it (not my program advisor, mind you, I meet with him on Friday). Dr. Richetto answered some of my pressing questions about exam structure and such. Basically what he told me is that Dr. Weber (my program advisor and presumably my review board chairman) will sort of get me to talk about myself. Things like why I like Geography, why I chose to study it at Alabama, and some career goals. This, I suppose is to loosen me up a bit. Then each professor including Dr. Seth (Appiah-Opoku) will get a twenty minute session to ask me basically anything from any classes I've had with them, or any broad topics I should know as a geographer, specifically a second year master's student. For instance, Dr. Weber will ask me about GIS and Transport Geography, Dr. Seth about Africa, Environmental Management, and broad planning ideas, Dr. Richetto about some more specific (but still fairly broad) planning concepts on the public and private sectors, some broad human geography ideas (which will probably be encompassed in other planning sections), and since Dr. Jerry Webster isn't on my board, he will ask me some broad questions from GY500 (history, traditions, etc.). From that point, they each get a ten minute session with me to follow up on any questions they answered in their first round, or to get clarifications on what I meant, etc. Then I'll leave the room while they talk with eachother to get a concensus on whether or not I pass. This takes about ten minutes, at which point they'll call me back in and give me the 411 (pass/fail) and perhaps reasons why I failed (assuming such). I'm still nervous and apprehensive, to be sure, but now that I have some specific structure on what to expect I'm a little less worried (I've moved from a 10/10 to a 9/10 on the apprehension scale you might say).

I meet with Dr. Weber on Friday afternoon to discuss what I should study specifically for his section, then a more broad idea of what to expect on the exams, and how I should prepare. Things as serious as what to say if I don't know the answer to a question, to nominal such as what I should do in terms of dress for the day (the girl I work with who took it January was dressed up a bit more than usual the day she took them).

I should have a date by this time next week. Then my apprehension shoots back up to about 55/10.

On a related note, my first day of class this year went fine. Typical first day, to be sure. This class has only grad students. Except for GY500, this has been the only class that has had only grad students in it. GY540 had one undergrad, that was as close to no undergrads. I guess Dr. Richetto expects more from the class as a whole in this one.