µQuals

Who: Presenter: you + the other person who did the same paper for JC, working as a pair* Audience: your cohort + both of (or at least one from the pair) your microquals coaches (the same as your JC coaches) + the bootcamp mentors.

What: In the form of a 5-minute chalk-talk (you can write/draw on the board, but no slides!), pitch a single experimental aim that you and your partner have come up with. Aims should extend on your JC paper, and take 1-2 years for a single graduate student to complete. Your audience can ask you questions at any time during or after your chalk talk. Total presentation time is 15 minutes per group. Typically presentations have a little bit of intro for the topic/paper, the hypothesis and why it matters, and the methods/experimental outline, in brief.

When: Sept 18 and 19th; everyone attends both sessions. Presentations times should go out in the next day or so!

Why: A couple of reasons, yet again. First, there's the usual stuff--getting used to thinking critically and extending on presented results, getting comfortable talking about ideas with peers, getting comfortable presenting, etc etc. Second, and more specifically, in your second year you'll need to pass an oral qualifying exam in which you'll propose and defend (in chalk talk-form) experimental aims for your PhD project to a panel of PIs. Over the coming year you'll do a couple of mock-quals for different classes projects, and though they'll differ in scale (this one is the tiniest and the mellowest, it's really just a chill dry-run) the gist will be fairly consistent.

How: Chat about your ideas with your JC/microquals coaches if you'd like! (You can also ask them for tips about quals/mini-quals; they've all done them in some capacity.) You shouldn't need more than a marker and a board (and notes are fine) for your presentation and defense. You can have a couple of minutes before your talk begins to put some stuff up on the board if you'd like, though it certainly isn't required.

You'll all be giving each other bits of written feedback, and you'll get some feedback from your coaches and the bootcamp mentors, too. No grading (there aren't any grades in bootcamp really ever).

*Viktoriya, you can either do one solo or join another group! Totally your call, and no pressure either way.