PHD comprehensive exams difficulty by major?
I was browsing through a few schools websites, and apparently, UCR, UCLA and UCSD do not force Chemistry PHD candidates to take a written comprehensive exam! However, the Physics PHD candidates take a brutal and long comprehensive exam consisting of 2-3 quarters each of advanced quantum, statistical physics, EM and classical mechanics.
What's up with this? Is it to "weed out" the weak from physics, while chemistry is lacking people so they don't want to weed people out?
|