At 4pm on Friday 8th June, our inaugural band of dissertation boot campers stopped writing.  After one full week of a job-like, clock on at 9am and clock off at 4.30pm, they were the first group to say, "we survived boot camp!"

The Dissertation Boot Camp was a one week intensive boot camp, designed to accelerate a graduate students progress in the final stages of writing their thesis. Participants committed to spending 5 days writing their dissertation in a comfortable environment (Stauffer Library) dedicated to writing, with free lunches provided on three days, a limitless supply of coffee, tea and snacks (not to mention lots of bananas), and an inter-disciplinary cohort of fellow students at similar stages of thesis completion.

Smile! Campers at work - well not really as they had more space than this and actually had their heads down all week

The Writing Center and Learning Strategies ( our thanks to Maureen and Amanda) provided one-on-one editorial and writing support when needed, as well as some short spot-light talks on subjects especially relevant to the thesis writing, for example, maintaining writing momentum!

Equipped with some strategies to make the time to sit down and write free of distractions, the campers celebrated with some cake and then they were off, to get a little rest, before continuing their writing.  Campers will reunite in a month to catch up on how they have progressed post camp.

The School of Graduate Studies congratulates you all on your committment and wish you every success in completing your thesis.

2012 Summer Dissertation Boot Campers - at the end of the week joined by Associate Dean, Dr Sandra den Otter (Left), Learning Strategies, Amanda Kesek (2nd from right) and the Writing Centre's, Maureen Garvie( far right)