With 28 days, February manages to feel like the year’s longest month. Something about its placement in the heart of the winter quarter make the month’s four weeks drag. Catastrophes seem to sprout up like mushrooms in the rain. One friend had her dog rip apart her medicine cabinet and help himself to prescription pills. It was a cruel month, but not without its moments.

Luckily for February, it falls nine months after the lusty month of May. As a result, the month is host to several birthdays. The cake and celebrating goes a long way toward treating midwinter blues. Last Friday, my friend Amanda Fulmer toasted her big “three-oh” birthday to provide herself with distraction from pre-dissertation malaise. She baked a cake, crafted some homemade limoncello and stacked a pile of exam-required reference books in a pile two-thirds her height. She invited her neighbors, peers and friends over to celebrate, and we were only too eager to raise our glasses to her.

Fulmer is a political science doctoral candidate in the middle of her exam period. Exams in the social sciences mark the crossing from student to teacher and show that the candidate has mastered the literature of their subject matter. After exams, Fulmer will be ABD — all but dissertation. After completing her third exam question, she will be done taking classes. Ahead of her is her prospectus — a topic proposal — and final dissertation.

Before exams, the candidate creates a reading list for the questions. The list is negotiated with a faculty advisor or committee member. Sometimes, the faculty member creates a question through discussion with the student or they may be expected to answer a previously unencountered question using the agreed-upon literature. Once a week, for three weeks, the student is given a question and 24 hours to respond. After responding, the student must sit for an oral defense of their responses.

At the time of her party, Fulmer had completed her first question and would face another on Monday. Her demeanor remained upbeat, however, when talking about the challenges ahead.

“It’s a lot of pressure,” she said. “You don’t want to simply pass, you want to impress your mentors. It would be a personal nightmare to be technically finished with exams but lose the confidence of your teachers.”

The exams are not only about the math of grades, but about who the department chooses to believe in and promote. Getting time and attention from one’s department can be a challenge, but a good performance on exams can help generate buzz about one’s project and future publishing possibilities.

Amidst gyrations to loud music, I asked Fulmer if her life at 30 was what she expected.

“Not exactly,” she said. “I thought I would be married with kids by now. Jobwise, when I was 18, my grandmother had me draw her a picture of how I imagined myself 18 years older. I fancied then that I would be an anthropologist. Without an exact idea of what that meant, I drew myself watching a group of people dancing and writing about it.”

“You weren’t that far off,” I said. “What is political science if not the documenting of people dancing?”

“Oh dear,” she said. And with that she danced across the floor to lead the crowd in a twirl. Soon, she too will have a “Dr.” title affixed to her name.

Reach columnist Elizabeth Brady at features@dailyuw.com.