Me vs Ph.D. Requirements: The Comps Papers

I vaguely recall writing a few posts about me vs. Ph.D. requirements. Let me detail those requirements. I'm at the stage now where I need to write two comps papers. At least one paper must be on an empirical project I have done and the other can be a literature review. I've done enough research projects in the past to eek out two empirical papers. So that's the route I took. Once I'm done writing the papers, I have to submit them to my advisor and at least one other person to read. Both people must pass the papers in order for me to move forward. Then I schedule an oral defense of the papers with my whole dissertation committee. I describe the research projects and then my committee asks me questions. Yikes! At least is it better than a comprehensive test that lasts a few days. Finally, I write my dissertation proposal and defend that. I'm actually planning to defend both comps and dissertation proposal on the same day. I hope we all can handle it!

So far, I just finished writing completed drafts of both my comps papers. Phew! I can't believe I finished them both within three days! Although, I did have significant portions of both already written and I was familiar with the literature on both. Writing a paper from scratch on a topic that is new to me takes much more time.

Well, now I'll submit the papers to my advisor and get some feedback. Hopefully, I won't have much more work to do on the papers.