Next Milestone Achieved!

 This past month I presented and defended my research proposal to officially move onto becoming a Ph.D. Candidate! This is the second milestone doctoral students must achieve (first being passing an Oral Qualifying Exam over core curriculum) to be able to call themselves a candidate. The designation of candidacy indicates that a student has mastery of their subject of interest and designed a project that they are now focusing on and is assumed to only spend time in lab to accomplish what was proposed or attending conferences to present data and look for a postdoc position. 

I am beyond relieved and grateful to have made it to this point and am really looking forward to just dedicating my time to the lab!