New qual effective Feb 2015, feedback and comments from students that took the Feb 2015 quals are categorized below by field of specialization:

Credit: Abdulla Alhajri, Carolyn Coyle, Pablo Ducru, AS.

Nuclear Reactor Engineering

First Part:

1. Understand how your project contributes to the greater understanding of "science". What can people outside of nuclear engineering learn from this?

2. Present a PhD project. They want more than a master's thesis prospectus.

3. Practice practice practice. In front of the committee, you get flustered. Helps to really know your presentation.

Second Part:

1. Understand reactor systems. Have at least a surface knowledge of all the different Gen III, Gen III+, and even Gen IV reactors. They might ask you to compare different ones so need to know general pressures, temperatures, coolants, etc for each.

2. Don't focus on derivations or long math problems. Now, this is from only 1 exam, but they only asked for one line formulas that we memorized. Beyond mentioning those the exam was mostly qualitative.

Nuclear Reactor Physics

Overall

I studied like I study for everything ; be honest with yourself : if you do no know how to prove everything you say (or are absolutely confident on its veracity) that means you are not trustworthy. Can you bear with the responsibility of the failure of the future on Nuclear Industry because you failed to be proficient enough? So if you are not willing to trust yourself to be autonomous, honest and reliable, how can you expect others to honestly trust you ? If you feel you cannot trust yourself, that simply means you are not ready yet, and that is good because it would be bad if you were to pass and not be proficient. So just know the science with depth and confidence, and you shall do fine.

Sample paper: Pablo Ducru (May 2015): Pablo.pdf

First Part:

One response:

Prepare slides keeping in mind half of the committee is out of your field.
Practice with students from and out of reactor physics.
Don't try to present everything. Present what the committee must understand and present what would lead to questions you like.
Communication lab is helpful.

Another response:

Be honest about what is your contribution and what is not, as well as on the impact and consequences of such work.
The first questions will be the obvious questions that are posed by your research: if you had not though about it, you have not though well about your research.
The other questions will be going a bit further, trying to make links with other areas of the field, to see how much you know. Again, if you know the science, you will come-up with good solutions, and if you do not know, just be honest.

Second Part:

Based on two 2015 quals, it seems Chapter 9 of Handbook_of_Nuclear_Engineering is the bible.

It is easy: if you know neutronics well, you will succeed. If not, you will not.

I personally worked on my own, without class material, on all the essential aspects of neutronics carried out in the program. I think that is the best way to be honest with yourself.

Nuclear Materials

The main thing that I found helpful was the practice oral exams. Other grad students suggested that I do two or three practice orals, but in my opinion, with the new system their is no reason not to have four or five. I had two practices where I was given an unprepared questions, but I also had three opportunities to present my presentation and get asked on them, to simulate the first half. And finally, I got a full practice oral where I simulated both halves of the exam.

Nuclear Fuel Cycle

Fusion

Nuclear Science and Technology

Download the pdf file qual_AS.pdf for feedback and tips for preparation.

Nuclear Security and Policy

Archive of old qual

The following material was prepared for the oral portion of the old qualifying system (prior to 2015). Some of these material is still relevant which is why they are preserved here.

Here are just some ideas to get you started:

If you have no idea of the answer (taken from Prof. Smith’s 22.251 course taught in 2013 fall):
- Say so, don't bs.
- Start with something related that you know of, describe the process you would use to get the answer, and regain your composure and confidence.

Be able to estimate the order of magnitude of quantities. Be careful about the units. Be careful about the sign (e.g., positive vs. negative temperature coefficients).
Practise speaking in front of people loudly and clearly with confidence. Practise how to handle a question that you have not though of before. Practise how to break a big question apart into several points to attack.
Always start with an outline of what you are going to talk about if you can. For instance, for the second problem you are not going to have enough time to work everything out in the 5 mins given, but rather you should make a quick outline about stuff you feel comfortable talking about, and write down a few key words to help yourself remember what to talk about.
For the prepared question, every sub-field (e.g., in fission there are reactor physics, thermal hydraulics, material etc) has a different style and require a different approach, so definitely talk to a senior grad student in your group for suggestions!

The following information is specific to your chosen field:

Fission students:
- Prof. Smith did a mock oral exam practise for 22.211 in Spring 2012, and it is definitely a good practise for at least the neutronics folks! Also Prof. Smith did first day exams for a couple of classes including 22.211 (fall 2011), 22.S904 (Spring 2012), 22.212 (Fall 2012) and 22.251 (fall 2013), and they are good examples of what you might be expected to know or estimate on an exam.
- 22.39 typically prepares you for the oral exam. For Fall 2013, it looks like the 2nd half of 22.251 will be going over different reactor types which could be very helpful for oral exam preparation!
NST students: Mareena Robinson generously shared her experience on how to prepare NST's oral exams:
- As an NST student, your oral exam is two parts: (i) an article you pick to be grilled on and (ii) questions the committee prepares to grill you on. For the first section, you are allowed to prepare 3-5 slides to help you through your article presentation. I personally recommend using those slides as reminders of things you know you're not going to remember in your head: complex equations, specific times or durations of reactions or decays, complex graphs that you can't seem to remember in high stress situations, etc. Since NST is so broad, from nuclear security to quantum computing, every one on your committee will probably not be an expect on the article you choose. Make sure you know the big picture stuff as well; the questions that a novice in your field would ask. Those tend to be the unexpected easy questions that you don't prepare for.
- Also, if you are fortunate enough to have an idea of who will be on your oral committee, brush up as best you can on their area of expertise. From my oral experience, the questions they gave me for the second portion of my exam really reflected their interests. So if you know you're going to have Scott Kemp on your oral, know a thing or two about enrichment technologies, just as an example. If you're more on the detection side, know the basics (basics being everything the Knoll Chp 1-14). It may not show up on your oral but it would suck if it did and you didn't know it. All in all, just don't loose your nerve and say something blatantly wrong. If you don't know something and can't seem to reason through it, just say you don't know.

Credit: Dr. John Bernard, Lulu Li, Mareena Robinson, Prof. Kord Smith