Today was my PhD exam (not defence) which I needed to pass to complete the requirement of obtaining a doctoral degree in Poland. This exam is the last–but most crucial–hurdle for a PhD candidate to get the doctorate, so you can guess how stressful it was for me while preparing for it. I was studying (almost :p) daily in the morning, around 4-5 hours, for a whole month while working on research projects during office hours.

The format of the exam was to discuss three specific questions out of three topics–one from each–which were selected from a list of five topics. These topics were given a month ago by a doctoral committee of eight professors. One question was related to my PhD thesis, which focuses on porous medium flows, while the other two were slightly off: one was about classical kinetic theory: Boltzmann equation, and another was micro-macroscopic diffusion.

All of these are fantastic topics, so I really enjoyed studying them, but I think I was overprepared. Although the questions were not that hard, my discussion was very chaotic–jumping from one point to another without properly describing the first point. This was the result of a fear of making mistakes because I had too much in my head, and I am not an expert in most of these topics.

Regardless, the committee was satisfied with my work but sarcastically complained about my laziness in discussing details. I, on the other hand, was not confident in my knowledge, so I was talking in simplified terms and expecting that they would ask detailed questions. In the end, I was given a good grade with a green light for my PhD defence. I was happy yeyyyyyy.

It was a demanding journey where hard work, combined with the support of my supervisor and my family, and luck paid off in the end. The calm and relief I feel now are beyond words.