u/95lizards

Hello, r/PhD! Last October I posted this seeking support and advice on moving forward after failing my comprehensive exam. I have a nice update so I thought I'd share.

Initially, I thought all the people saying I need a new supervisor or committee were overreacting but it turned out you weren't. I ended up speaking with another prof in my department that I trust a lot who used to be graduate chair. After hearing my whole story, he let me know that I was not given procedural fairness, my committee committed two reportable offenses in how they handled my exam process, and I should consider escalating it to the faculty level with a formal report.

Shortly after, I met privately with my supervisor to confront her on it in case we could resolve the issues without a huge formal process. She apologized for some stuff, which was nice, but also dropped that my committee spoke and feel my research is interesting and worthwhile but would be better suited to another department. I ended up finding a new supervisor and new committee members in another department who are more knowledgeable on my area of research. They are incredibly enthusiastic about my work and we contacted the university about transferring me.

It turned out that the university has no established transfer process for PhD students so it caused quite the upset with upper admin and took 4 months to be resolved. The university was very resistant but the profs who are supporting me fought really hard and we worked something out. I'm still officially registered in my original department but they cross-appointed in my committee members from the other department and my faculty had to sign off on ceding all my academic oversight to this other department.

It's weird and seems like way more work than just moving 1 student over but I ultimately got what I need and want. I will have a new VERY knowledgeable supervisor, new committee that understands my research, and my exam rewrite should be in much better hands now. I'm frustrated that it took so long for this to be resolved but my new committee is trying to make sure I get through the exam process in a fair way as fast as possible so I can get to my dissertation. I also get to do the other department's comprehensive exam process instead, which makes more sense for my research area. As frustrated as I am with my old committee, I am also grateful that they assisted with fighting the university on my behalf to work all this out. There are no hard feelings with anyone.

I really appreciate the feedback and support I got from people on my original post. I'm not sure I would have had the audacity to fight this hard for it if multiple people didn't leave such encouraging comments and DMs. I'm a lot more confident moving forward and I'm finally looking forward to engaging with my research again.