User:Tom Neiser

In the event

Not passing the comps is embarrassing. Here is some advice: First, let it be know that some students that have not passed UCLA's comprehensive exams have gone on to become leaders in their field (including an assistant professorship at MIT straight out of graduate school). Therefore, not passing is not a measure of your innate ability, but merely an instantaneous measurement of your training status. Therefore, do more training. The best training strategy for your next attempt will probably involve some modification of your last strategy. Therefore, try to identify your mistakes from last year. Some good training strategies include:

• Don't fool yourself into believing your were learning new things. J. Sakurai says in the preamble that "the student who has read the book but cannot do any problems has learnt nothing". A common mistake is to read rather than getting your hands dirty. Independent of your study habits, by far the best preparation for the comprehensive exams is practicing previous problems.
• Do problems properly. Having identified problem solving as the best training method one may not do so rigorously. One may be tempted to prefer quantity over quality in order to collect a large canon of completed questions. However, it is important to find a balance between quality and quantity of problem practice. A quality problem session involves working on the problem for 30 minutes, checking one's answer with the solutions and then going back to the question without the solutions as aid. If one does not check the answers, one is merely revising the things that one already knows rather than learning new things that one does not yet know. Eric D'Hoker rightly says that the time when you are confused and lost is the time when you learn the most, so it is not wasted.
• Leave your comfort zone. Learning has an uncomfortable activation potential. This potential means leaving one's comfort zone and accepting the fact that one does not know something. When you transform this confusion into curiosity, the learning process becomes fun and intrinsically rewarding.
• Be optimistic. Research has shown that optimism motivates for long term reward rather than short term reward. Therefore it is important to remain optimistic to fight procrastination.
• Don't be embarrassed. Your colleagues probably know your results. Information gradients quickly equilibrate and with them dissipate any future potential for embarrassment. Therefore, don't avoid your friends and colleagues for fear of being asked about your comp results. They want you to do well and are likely to offer help and advice for next time. It may feel like you have an albatross around your neck, but it is only temporary.
• Work in small groups. Working in groups helps with motivation, problem debugging and making studying fun.

2014

Hallo! Below is a list of problems that I completed in preparation for the Fall 2014 comprehensive exam.

Finals and Midterms
Course	F09/10	F10/11	F11/12	F12/13	F13/14	M09/10	M10/11	M11/12	M12/13	M13/14
EM 210A
EM 210B
QM 221A
QM 221B				1/8	3/8					1/8
StM 215A					1/8
CM 220

HW
Course	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
EM 210A			0.5
EM 210B
QM 221A			0.1
QM 221B
StM 215A	0.6
CM 220

E&M Examples, CM Lim et al.
EM 210A E.g.'s	L2.1	L2.2	L2.3	L2.4	L2.5	L3.1	L4.1	L8.3	L15.4	L16
EM 210B E.g.'s	#1070	L6.1	L14	L8
CM L=T-V	1026	Chicago Q18
CM Relativity
StM/QM	2.11	StM 2121	StM 2122

Tasks
Days left	14 Derivations	1 HW	3 M/F Q	5 Comp Q's	1 E&M example	1 Python Q	Uploads
50				1	*		1
49				1	*
48			1	2
47
46				3
45				2
44				2
43				2
42	*			2
41		0.1	1
40		0.1	1	1
39		0.1	0.1	2
38			1
37				1
36				1
35				1
34			2
33				1.5	0.1
32	*			2	*
31				1
30				2
29
28				1			1
27				1
26		0.5	1	2			1
25		0.5		3
24		1
23				3
22	*			3
21				2
20			0.5
19
18					**
17			0.5
16	0.5
15				2
14 Monday			1
13 Tuesday			1	3
12 Wednesday			1	1
11 Thursday			2	2
10 Friday			2*	2*
9 Saturday			2	4
8 Sunday				3
7 Monday				2
6 Tuesday				4
5 Wednesday				1
4 Thursday			2**	4**
3 Friday
2 Saturday			***	**
1 Sunday					*
0 Monday					*
0 Tuesday			1
Total	500	4	41	108	28	2	4