Perhaps the most difficult part of a qualification exam is gathering your committee. Your committee is required to consist of 3 faculty members from the Astronomy department, and 1 faculty member with no appointment in the Astronomy department. As you pick an outside faculty member, be sure to ask if they have any appointment within Astronomy! It is recommended that you begin asking faculty about availability well in advance (i.e. >= 1/2 year) of your desired qual date, since professors' schedules fill up early. Your advisor should be on your committee, and can help you select other members. Factors to consider in selecting committee members:

• Availability
• Ability to offer advice in a field complementary to your advisor's
• Potential interest in your project

Remember that the purpose of your qual committee is to advise you on your research to help you succeed. Pick people who can offer you meaningful advice.

It is very useful to talk to each member of your committee 1-2 weeks before the exam. The purpose of these meetings should be to briefly familiarize your committee with your thesis topic and proposal. Letting your committee know what to expect can reduce the number of strange or random questions you will face during the exam. As a bonus, some external committee members are willing to clarify what what kind of role they expect to play in the exam (general knowledge, related sub-field, project management and timeline, etc.).

The structure of the qualifying exam is different from the prelim. You prepare a ~45 minute talk and presents it to your qual committee. The committee members will interrupt with questions throughout the presentation, lengthening the presentation to 1.5 to 2 hours. Afterwards, there is a short round of general knowledge questioning. This questioning typically focuses upon the material presented, but sometimes wanders into related fields of astronomy.

Formally (according to UC Berkeley), the qual focuses on 3 subjects related to your research. Within the department, these 3 topics are generally nested “contexts” of your research:

1. A general overview/broad context of the subject of your research
2. A narrower and more detailed context assuming familiarity with (1).
3. A detailed discussion of your research assuming familiarity with (2).

For example, if your research is on 21 cm detection of the Epoch of Reionization, your contexts might be: the cosmological context of reionization, the physics of 21cm emission in reionization, and then the actual research.

In terms of your presentation, the first 2 “contexts” should constitute only the first 5-10 minutes, since your committee will probably be familiar with them. You are demonstrating that your understand the context of your research. The rest of your presentation will explore your current research, the research you plan on doing, your timeline for doing it, and the publications which will result. It can be helpful to your committee to present the goals and expected results of your research early on, and to refer back to them as you discuss each subject in greater detail.

The Graduate Division requires that you submit an "Application for the Qualifying Examination" (PDF) form at least three weeks prior to your proposed exam date. You are required to list both your three subject areas and your committee members. You must select one committee member as the chair of the qual committee (mostly a formality), note this has to be someone within the department who is not your research advisor. Details about the Grad Division's requirements for the qual can be found in section F3.2 of the Guide to Graduate Policy. The form needs to be signed by the “Head Graduate Advisor”. Both Dexter and the Grad Division have a list of authorized signatures for this form, so see her to determine whom you need to hunt.

Devote time (at least 5 minutes of your presentation) to a good (direct, well-organized, not rushed, not lazy) explanation of how your thesis project will help answer broader questions. For example, my proposed thesis project was to directly measure the masses of supermassive black holes in a sample of galaxies. So the first part of my talk summarized the possible roles of mergers in galaxy evolution, and how different merger scenarios would yield different values of the final black hole mass. Only then did I get into why directly measuring black hole masses was challenging, and how I was going to do it. Yes, your thesis committee might already know a lot of the broader context, but spelling it out for them will give them the warm and fuzzy feeling that “this student understands why his/her work is important.” Which will set you up to do quite well.

Clearly point out the ways in which your proposed work will be unique, and be specific about how it will improve upon past work. Don't limit this to the beginning of your talk: when you present technical stuff later on, remind your committee why your methods will accomplish things that other authors haven't been able to.

Be strategic about how thoroughly your presentation covers technical details. Provide the most thorough explanations for the methods that are truly central to your thesis work, and especially note the details that give you a significant advantage over previous authors. But don't distract your committee with endless details about less important issues. If you feel nervous about glossing over some details, remember that your committee can always ask you for them. By all means, give them a chance to ask questions you know the answer to! - Nicholas

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“If I had one thing to say to anyone taking their qual, I'd say 'Papers,Papers,Papers'” - Abraham Lincoln

Seriously, read as many as you can, it will make you feel better, you'll know the field better and you can drop them into qual chat like cookies for committee members to snaffle. They love it, really they do. - Conor

It's generally considered good form to provide snacks and coffee for your committee to snaffle while you present. Don't forget to relax during your presentation.

Relax some more. You must now fill out an “Advancement to Candidacy” (Plan B) form before the end of the semester following the one in which you took your qual. (This will set you back $90 in the form of a check or money order). You are now 3 signatures (and a thesis) from graduating!