I am currently living in Baltimore and will soon be joining the commute down to DC (that is where the new job is). I "guess" we are fortunate in that our qualifying exams are just written (but 6 days of written exams...) and the final dissertation defense is oral. So we get a combination but maybe it is just our discipline. I will be getting a degree in Pharmaceutical Health Services Research, which in English means that I study the economics of prescription drugs.