I confess, my intentions for writing this particular post were, at least, 50% self-serving. I have a 4-month old, I’m in my final year, and I’m trying to get through this game. So I thought I’d take the opportunity to…
Work-Life balance – the most fantastical and elusive concept in grad school. Two things we know for sure, 1) It is essential, 2) grad students are bad at it. How does this happen! Well grad students tend to say yes…
One of the earliest lessons that I learned as a grad student was that purchasing lunch everyday is unsustainable on a student budget. Looking back, it was common to spend $30-40 per week on lunch and snacks on campus; costs which…
If there was ever a blog post on Gradifying that was relevant to each and every grad student at Queen’s, it’s this one. Now I am not trying to make any assumptions here but I believe we all need to…
I’ve been involved in conference planning before but this time is the first that I’ve actually come up with a conference that I wanted to make happen. It required me to take a chance on believing that “if you build…
Conferences happen throughout the year, but summer is a big season for conferences. Here at Gradifying, we want to start spring off right, and talk about all things conference-related. But first… A huge congratulations goes out to Master’s student Chenman (Cara) Yin…
Pretty soon after orientation, we grad students have to start thinking much longer term–September and October are grant season for many of us and tomorrow (Sept. 30) is Queen’s Career Fair, which comes just ahead of Career Week (Oct. 14-17th).…
Speaking of travel, on the heels of Rachel’s last post, I’ve been away myself for a few weeks circumnavigating Mediterranean with my wife. Most recently I was on Turkey time, which is why I’m posting at such an odd hour;…
At some point in your graduate education you’ll have to ask for a letter of reference. It might be for a funding application (see my previous post) or it might be for another program (med school, law school, PhD programs…
