It is the end of April. Spring is in the air, and summer is just around the corner. Those of us who are instructors or teaching assistants will soon be free. Free from preparing for classes, giving lectures and tutorials, and…
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Blog Archives
On Balancing Breaks
Posted in Overwork, Productivity, Staying Well, Thesis, Time off Tagged with: mental health, productivity, summer, thesis, work-life balance, work/life balance
Where do I start? Strategies for writing effectively
Reading and writing are key components of life, curiosity, inquiry, and learning. Writing, in particular, is an important skill that is at the foundation of graduate student learning and professional life. However, writing is not easy; it is a lifelong…
Posted in Productivity, Skill Development, Student Perspective, Thesis Tagged with: degree progress, Grad Student Life, productivity, professional development, publish, Student perspective, thesis, time management
Surviving Archive Fever
In Jacques Derrida’s book Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression (1996) he writes about the French idiom mal d’archive (archive fever) explaining that this idea is more than simply suffering from a sickness but it is – “to burn with a passion. It is never to…
Posted in Archives, Overwork, Productivity, Skill Development, Staying Well, Student Perspective, Thesis, Uncategorized Tagged with: archive, library, research, thesis
On Dissertation-on-the-Lake
I am a proponent of making writing social. In one of my previous blog posts, I touched briefly on writing retreats to overcome isolation among graduate students. Here at Queen’s, we are lucky that the School of Graduate Studies (SGS)…
Posted in Thesis Tagged with: Elbow lake, productivity, resources, SGS, summer, thesis, work-life balance
On writing blocks and getting unstuck
Have you ever experienced a writing block? Last February, I attended a special lecture by Visiting Professor Deborah Britzman. Professor Britzman holds the York Research Chair in Pedagogy and Psycho-Social Transformation. Her lecture was on a topic that is close…
Posted in Thesis Tagged with: Dissertation Boot Camp, productivity, professional development, thesis, writing, writing block
On Craftsmanship as a Metaphor for Research
How do you frame your scholarship? Do you have a metaphor for how you approach your thesis or dissertation? In her book Write No Matter What: Advice for Academics, Joli Jensen extols the benefits of craftsmanship as a metaphor or…
Posted in Thesis Tagged with: habits, professional development, research, research skills, student-supervisor relationship, thesis
On Five for Focus
As a graduate student, you’ll often be confronted with mentally challenging tasks. Your thesis, for example, demands you to write about difficult concepts, understand dense research articles, and analyze unruly data. Here are five strategies to help you focus so…
Posted in Productivity, Professional Development, Skill Development, Thesis Tagged with: productivity, professional development, thesis, time management
On Writing Productivity – Writing Among Others
After years of going through the research stage of my PhD program, watching my cohorts graduate one by one, (feels like) I am alone. It has become difficult for me to stay motivated and focus on making progress in my…
Posted in Productivity, Professional Development, Publications, Skill Development, Staying Well, Thesis Tagged with: Dissertation Boot Camp, Elbow lake, networking, productivity, professional development, publish, reflection, thesis
2 Tips on Nurturing “Baby” — Dissertation Boot Camp Reflections
In last week’s post, Dustin offered some useful suggestions for PhD students with a baby (or babies!) to raise. While this week, I would like to start with baby in its metaphoric sense. Every Master and PhD student has a…
So you want to be an Epidemiologist…
Last week, my Gradifying co-author Amanda highlighted how her degree is structured. Today, I’ll be talking about the degrees offered by the Department of Public Health Sciences. There are six factors that differentiate programs: the degree structure, courses, comps, research…
Posted in General, New Students, Student Perspective, Thesis Tagged with: being awesome, comprehensive exams, degree progress, existential crises, funding, General, Grad Student Life, Kingston, new students, productivity, publish, Student perspective, student-supervisor relationship, TA, teaching, thesis