Four years later…
Graduate School Barbie
Oh.em.gee. I can’t believe I’m in what looks to be my final semester of the PhD. You guys…I’m writing a dissertation! I know, you can’t believe it either. Or maybe you can. Personally, I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around how to write a dissertation, which might be the reason why it is not going very smoothly at all (*insert nomination for understatement of the year*).
I’m so thankful that the Lord has gotten me this far, but wow– there’s still a long way to go before I defend my dissertation in December (I hope and pray and hope and pray)!
It’s after midnight, and I came to my desk three hours ago to get to work. Instead of work, I found procraductivity. The first hour was spent organizing my files (how am I supposed to write about research that is digitally strewn all over my laptop?!). The second hour was spent on Facebook and Instagram, chatting with friends over text, and reading another person’s blog (which is basically how I feel like I spend most of my life lately). In the third hour, I finally decided that if I’m not going to get any actual work done, I want to at least do some writing (I set a goal this week to write 4-5 pages per day…let’s all laugh together). That’s when I remembered my own blog.
I started this blog four years ago as a new PhD student for the purpose of writing practice (and to complete a final project requirement during my first semester). People in the PhD world always say that the best way to make progress on writing is to write…ANYTHING. I guess the theory is that it is like Drano for the pipe that goes from your brain to your fingers: cleaning out the bits of your life that get stuck inside of you, flushing it out so that those beautiful-but-sticky academic thoughts can make their way down stream.
So, here I am…trying to get the pipes working again.
Four years ago me, on this blog, sounds so different than what I hear my narrative voice sounding like today. She was stressed out but determined; a little rambling yet to the point; kind of funny, and even “sunny” (a way my friend and PhD colleague describes my academic writing). Optimistic, some might say. She always had a lesson to learn or a poignant take-away for her reader. Aww. She was so cute, clueless, and had no idea what was about to hit her.
She knew something was coming, but she could have never guessed what…
When F = A: Grades in Grad School
As a second-year PhD student, I’ve gotten used to the grading system of grad school: all students get As, except when you get a B, which might as well be an F. In other words, you either cut it or you don’t. They probably should just make all classes pass or fail at this point in your graduate school career. I’m also not used to getting anything less than an A, ever. How do you think I got to this point anyway? I’m going to take a guess and say not many below-A (maybe below B+) students decide to become a career student (yes, I said “career student”—let’s just call it like it is). I took some time this week to think about the last time I got anything other than an A for a final grade. (In case you are wondering, it was freshman year of college when I blew-off University Choir in favor of naps and re-runs on TLC; yes, I got a B in choir…har har har).
This semester, however, has been somewhat of a deviation from my previous experiences. Not only am I literally barely passing a statistics course, but I also have a professor that has, thus far in the semester to my knowledge, given one student an A on any assignment we’ve had in her course. Uncharacteristically, I am not exaggerating. I have gotten Fs on my past two stats homework assignments, and homework is worth 50% of our grade. In case you’re not so good with the math (in which I apparently am no genius either), I’m well on my way to getting a grad-school equivalent of a big fat fail in this required course. Yay. As for the other class, my professor who just can’t bring herself to give any of my work an evaluation higher than a B, just gave our class a speech about how her grading reflects her honest evaluation of our work at a high-caliber institution such as ours. Oh, lovely—that makes me feel SO much better. She’s basically saying that she’s not sure why we were even admitted here, as we apparently can’t meet up to the standards. I actually thought I liked her at the beginning of the semester.
Today was a special moment in stats class. I got my midterm back, and it was a 97%. What.the.heck. Believe me when I say that after that exam, I was so confused about how I did that I had to resign myself to failing. It was not a case of, “Oh, you always do that but then you always get an A”. No, friends, this truly was a ridiculously confusing test that I apparently guessed my way through pretty well. In my mind, the A was the same as an F. I went into office hours and told my TA that I didn’t understand, but he didn’t believe me. I asked a question about the one part that I missed points on and totally didn’t understand what he was explaining to me. I, of course, sat there, nodded my head, and then told him I didn’t understand. He just smiled, shrugged, and said, “Well, you did well on the test, so I wouldn’t worry too much.” You’ve got to be kidding me.
On the other hand, in my other class, I feel like I am learning so much and am even able to apply that knowledge to my research. Yet, I can’t get an A to save my life. In that case, I don’t think the grade is at all reflecting what I’m learning, but in the opposite way. What.the.heck.
Obviously, I have to dig my heels in and try harder in both of these courses. For the one, I’m going to have to re-arrange my work schedule to make time to go to my stats TA’s office hours. Me + my TA = BFFs is my new model for statistics class. I’m hoping that the more time I spend in office hours will have a positive linear correlation to my understanding of the material (yeah…I don’t even know what that means). At this point, I just want to pass. Forget the A—just help me avoid the F. For the other course, I’m going to have to spend more time on my writing assignments, and raise the bar a little higher for myself. In both cases, what I am doing right now just isn’t cutting it. I need to change my approach (or else change my career, and we all know that it’s a little too late to turn back now).
What is the point of a grade in grad school? In both of these cases, it is not a fair evaluation of what I am learning in these courses. In some ways, it is purely an evaluation of my instructor’s expectations. I have had to adjust my own expectations, in the mean time. It’s no longer about being a straight-A student. I’m pretty sure jobs are not going to care what my GPA was during my second year of my PhD; instead, they’ll care about if I actually finished my dissertation (Lord, please don’t let me die ABD). Now, apparently, what is important is learning, and no one is keeping me accountable for that. Only I know if I am learning, and only I can make myself do that. Learning, not the grade, is what I have to focus on.
If only there was something out there that institutions used to hold me accountable to learning…like a grade…-_-.
On Why I Love Meetings
Let’s be honest: We all need a reason to get up in the mornings. (Ok, maybe not if you’re a morning person, but if you aren’t a morning person, you definitely know what I mean). When I was dog sitting for a friend’s dog last month, I always had a reason to wake up at 6 a.m.—Sadie, the dog. She demanded that I wake-up at that time in fact, and that is one reason why I refuse to own a dog at this stage in my life. When I kept my little 7 year old cousin for a few days this summer, he also demanded that I wake-up at 6 a.m.—one reason why even in my most “I-really-need-to-have-children-now” moments, I can find even a very tiny inkling of thankfulness in the unanswered prayers. Every Tuesday and Friday, I have to wake-up at 6 a.m. because I am expected to be at a morning prayer meeting because a group of friends in Christian ministries that I am involved in meet at that time to pray—and somewhat unfortunately, those are the only two days I go to that prayer meeting that meets every week day, because, the truth of the matter is: I need a reason to get up in the mornings.
Meetings have a way of waking me up and motivating me to start doing something other than lounging around in my PJs and drink coffee. There’s something about another person (or dog) expecting me to do something that actually makes me turn off the snooze, take off the slippers, and be productive with my life. When I don’t have meetings, it’s not that I lounge around all day—it’s just that my productivity and participation in life in the outside world starts significantly later. In fact, that’s been one of the most difficult transitions of being a student again: no one expects me to be anywhere for most of the normal “working hours” during the week. Therefore, my days have been somewhat poorly managed, especially since two out of three of my classes are night classes. Especially in the last week, my days and nights have been somewhat flipped, as I didn’t take advantage of the morning hours, and started to check-off things on my rather large to-do-list later in the day. If I have a meeting, even if it’s in the afternoon, I tend to schedule my 24 hours better, seeing that I do not in fact have several hours during the day to do nothing, because hey, look—I have a meeting, so I had better get started on things before I run out of time.
Another reason I love meetings is that I love the synergy of many brains thinking about the same things. I know so many people who roll their eyes at meetings, but I find that, if led in an efficient manner, meetings can really bring out more productivity (for any kind of group). Instead of communicating about a conference presentation over email with my co-presenters, this past week we made time to sit down for an hour and talk it out, the good old-fashioned way. In this age of efficiency = no face time = millions of emails/wikis/dropbox adds, etc, I found it refreshing and incredibly efficient to decide on the outline and content of our presentation with the three of us in the same room, communicating synchronously, without having to push a button and wait for the other person to talk, or wait several hours (or days) later for a group member to respond. Not only was our presentation more cohesive, but we came up with a better focus after discussing our target audience and reviewing our main thesis. Meetings help me to produce better work.
Meetings also provide me with the opportunity to connect with others, both professionally and personally, that share common interests and goals. This week I and some colleagues had a meeting with a Department Chair and another professor in that department. While we met to discuss our research on international student interactions on campus, I was able to also talk with the professor about my dissertation research for a few minutes after the formal meeting. We sat in the board room after everyone else had gone, and she was kind enough to bounce around some ideas about possible topics for my future research, which also happens to fit in with the scope of what her lab is currently studying. Had we not scheduled that face-to-face meeting, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to spontaneously exchange ideas and see a place where my skills could potentially benefit other research on campus. Meetings are simply essential to collaboration, in my opinion.
Of course, there are those meetings where I roll my eyes, check my phone a thousand times, and wonder why anyone would put me through such strange torture. Although, most of those instances occur because the meeting is poorly organized, or there is no clear focus for the purpose of the gathering. It is very important that all people in the meeting are aware of the purpose and intended outcomes of the meetings, as I recently learned through a conflict with someone in a volunteer group that I lead. They were going to miss a leadership meeting because, essentially, they didn’t see the importance of the meeting that I had scheduled. Much to my disappointment, I realized that I had failed to clearly communicate the purpose of the monthly gatherings (or, at the very least, he failed to listen closely when I talked about the purpose at our last meeting). I often find that if the leader has a clear vision for the meetings and clearly communicates that to the others involved, it can be a great addition to someone’s workday and a very good use of time.
Today, however, I was in the middle of my day full of meetings, wondering when I would get a chance to sit down for an hour and keep all of my thoughts, brilliant ideas, and advice to myself. I was looking forward to the free 45 minutes in my schedule where I could just stare into space (or at Facebook or BBC news) just to not have to communicate or be productive. Once I got that chance, I reflected on how appreciative I was of the meetings I had today. I got to mentor, teach, and collaborate with some really amazing people about things that I care about. Even when I don’t love meetings, I love meetings.
Want to meet up sometime?
Procraductivity: It’s my New Word
I have a problem. I’m addicted to procrastination. I really am. I’ve been this way as long as I can remember. Finishing my high school AP summer reading list in one week, writing my grad school application the night before it’s due, buying clothes online minutes before the sale expires—you get the idea. Tonight after my night class, I have two papers to write, which—according to my writing process—I’ve already started in my head some time ago and even hand-written an outline for; however, I’m just not quite ready for the pound-it-out session. So, I roamed Target for two hours and finally went to find the computer paper, (the thing I came for), as soon as they made the “store is now closed” announcement. That’s me—procrastinating even while shopping. It’s annoying, and it’s even worse to see written out.
That being said, it’s not all bad news to be a procrastinator. I find that I’m actually quite productive when I procrastinate. Since I’m a student again, I am productive while I procrastinate on writing assignments and readings for class. Apart from catching up on all current events, world news, and friends’ blogs, I also tend to become very “home-makery”. This week alone I’ve baked brownies, a carrot cake, cooked several meals (usually a rare occasion), and hosted a dinner party for 10 friends on Monday night. My laundry is done (although remains unfolded in baskets). I’m just waiting for the right assignment to come around so that I can commence the folding. I also have caught up on all of my other household duties, including calling the lawn man to come mow, decorating for fall (mini pumpkins and multicolored corn), and have fully vacuumed the floors in every room. Following the last vacuuming episode, I also decided to empty the vacuum dust-carriage thing (obvious procrastination, there), which ended in a second vacuuming episode (note to the wise: empty the dust-carriage thing before you vacuum your whole house…you’re welcome).
Shopping is also an excellent way to productively avoid work. I’ve recently updated my wardrobe with the latest (and most on-sale) fashions, which has taken quite some time, perusing websites of both new-to-me-stores and my tried and true go-tos. This is mostly problematic because I am a student and now have a student’s paycheck. I really should not be spending my time shopping online (or elsewhere, for that matter, including random trips to the outlet mall, per last week’s procrastination, or late night paper-runs to Target).
To curb the impulse buying, I began to do grocery shopping at a Smaller Grocery Store instead of one-stop-super-shop. The Smaller Grocery Store[1] doesn’t even usually sell scented candles, so the only things I am tempted by are hardy mums (that was also included in my fall decorating procrastination moment) and the rare bottle of good, on-sale (there’s an oxymoron for you) wine. Did I mention that I use grocery shopping as a procrastination method? All of that cooking requires more trips to the store, which apparently I am ok with now that I don’t want to do anything else on my to-do list.
Although there is much to be said for working ahead on course assignments (and sometimes I try—it’s just not as fun), I do enjoy the productivity that happens during my procrastination. I’ve decided to call this “procraductivity”: The productivity that occurs while one is procrastinating. It’s a phenomenon that I believe many people relate to, as I put it on my Facebook status as I was procrastinating writing this assignment and in just 2 minutes I had 13 likes. I don’t know why I do it, and I’ve tried to be a different type of person who starts things in advance and doesn’t wait until the deadline is looming…it’s just not me. My brain must be addicted to the rush so much that it refuses to work until it gets it. Either that, or, it just takes too much effort to work ahead. At least I can be thankful that, while it’s not always popular and it doesn’t sound responsible to procrastinate as much as I do, I am indeed being productive. My roommate, my house, and my wardrobe thank me for it.
[1] On a completely unrelated note: I’ve started noticing that the Smaller Grocery Store I frequent hires employees with special needs to work during the day time. I didn’t notice this before this semester because I did most of my shopping in the evening. I am so thrilled with them that I’ve made a commitment to do all of my grocery shopping there. I have a cousin with cerebral palsy, and my mother is the Director for Special Education in a school district, so people with special needs are close to my heart. Way to go, Smaller Grocery Store!
Writing: It’s a Process
Today at 6:45pm I finished my first academic paper of the semester– the first in my PhD career. If you looked at the clock and imaginary video of me, you would have seen that I started writing said paper at approximately 2:30pm today. However, the video would be lying to you; I actually started the paper two weeks ago. Today, as I was finishing up my concluding paragraph, my roommate came in to talk over a grad school crisis of her own. I patiently listened and responded, until she asked if I had finished my paper. I explained that I had 20 minutes until class and no, it wasn’t finished yet, while she just stared incredulously at me and yelled for me to get back to writing. This started a discussion (wasting another five minutes of my precious deadline-looming time) about our writing processes, which turned out to not be such a waste of time at all.
I explained that I was basically finished with my paper, but that I was still about 150 words short of the recommended word count—a very unusual occurrence for me. Somehow, and I’m really not sure how, I almost always magically arrive at the end of my thoughts and word count around the same moment. I think it must be a super power I was born with (my third cousin Lesa would tell you that all of my “super powers” come from the extra tooth that hides in my bottom jaw…and she would be dead serious about that).
Super power or not, I never have to go back and “fluff up” my paper to get to the word count I need. Today, the solution was to add a conclusion to the conclusion, if you will. It turned out fine, I turned it in on time, and I turned my attention to putting on a pot of chili to cook while I attended my online evening class.[1]
The discussion on our writing processes led me to an important realization: I have a writing process. I really do. Also, contrary to what my mother and closest 15 friends would guess about my process, it does not begin four hours before the deadline; instead, my writing process begins the moment I get the assignment. I think. I plan. I research by reading articles and doing random web searches while procrastinating on other things that I should be doing. I outline. Yes, I actually pre-write. I pull up a Word doc and jot ideas, and maybe even make a rough outline of those ideas. I keep two Word documents open as I write my paper—my idea page and my writing page. By the time I actually sit down to pound out my ideas, they have already been cooking in my head for quite some time, and have likely even found their way, in some shape or form, to my “idea” document. I start writing my paper much before I actually start writing it.
My writing process also has to have a few particular aesthetic elements. When I actually arrive at the “pound it out” stage, I can’t just pound it out anywhere. I need to be in a comfortable chair, preferably one in which I can put my feet up (a couch, a desk chair with an ottoman, or even a coffee shop chair with another coffee shop chair pulled close enough for my short little legs to rest on). The ambient noise is also important; I need either silence, white noise, or music with no words. Coffee shop noise with obscure indie music is fine; coffee shop noise where they play familiar pop music is not. Pandora is my friend, but only if she’s playing Miles Davis or light classical. Pandora playing Diana Krall or Will Smith is not fine. The TV is not fine. Words distract from my writing, so the outside world must be wordless to my ears while I write. Snacking is not something I do while I write (I have a thing about messy fingers), but a beverage of some sort is a must. Wine makes me sleepy, so nothing as classy as that. A glass of water, a cup of decaf tea, a Diet Coke (if it’s not too late), or in cases of oh-shoot-I-have-12-hours-to-deadline-emergency, a cup of good coffee (no Folgers, please) are my companions.
Thinking. Note taking. Research. Outlining. Pounding it out. The only thing that my writing process lacks is revision. I am personally not a fan of revising my own work. For one, although I do start to plan out my writing in advance, I confess that the pound-it-out stage happens dangerously close to each deadline (I may or may not be writing this at 1am Wednesday night. My only excuse is that after writing one paper today/this evening, my brain needed a little time to take in “Modern Family” and “Honey Boo Boo” before it would allow any other productivity). In order for there to be significant revision, you need to have time to do that. You need space between when you pounded it out and when you revise, so that your brain reads things the way you actually wrote them, instead of reading things the way it thinks you wrote them. My best effort at revision usually is a once-over for basic mistakes. If it is a high-stakes piece of writing, that’s different. I send the important things over to a friend for review and suggestions. Then, I’ll take those suggestions under advisement and do a re-write, often grumbling to myself that I hate re-writing and revising. I much prefer to be perfect the first time around, thank you very much.
Sometimes it takes a lot of time and effort to write. Sometimes, though, I sit down at my laptop for a pound-it-out session for a simple reflection paper that I have only been thinking about for a half hour. I sit (still in my comfy chair), I put on my blogger hat (I used to have a blog when I lived a much more interesting life than I do now), I let my inner voice come out on the page, and I enjoy putting together a few pages for a professor I barely know. Most of the time, as I put the finishing sentences on each paper (or abstract or clever work email) I write, I think back to a poster that was in my high school English teacher’s classroom—Snoopy, I think. It read, “It’s exciting when you’ve written something that you know is good.”
Then, there are times when I sit at my computer for a pound-it-out session and…
Snoopy gets me. [2]
[1]I would like to point out here that I did consider the possible complications of cooking a pot of chili while attending my online class, per my reflection paper from last week on the difficulties of simultaneous online learning and popcorn popping. This time, though, my roommate was there to watch the cooking so that I didn’t set off any smoke alarms. Goal for next week: Don’t cook anything while in my online class.
Online Learning: A Disastrous Beginning
“This is nice. I get to relax on my fluffy couch, be in comfy clothes, light a few scented candles, and have a snack while I participate in my online class. I think I’m going to like this online learning thing!” say I to myself as the first online class starts for the evening. It’s strange that I’m in an on-campus program and two out of three classes that I’m taking are online, but if this is where modern education is headed, I should get used to it. After all, I get to learn from the comfort of my own home. However, one hour into my first class, I wake-up to my classmates introducing themselves, and my professor never calls my name. Uh-oh. I must have slept through my turn for the introductions! I hear her call out a few other students’ names, and when they didn’t respond, there was a comment about “technical difficulties”. Whew. Looks like I got by with it this time, but this is not going to be easy.
Fast-forward to the second online class for the week, the next day. This time I am more awake, had a Diet Coke (for the caffeine), and am ready to pay attention. The class was starting late because of technical difficulties, so I decide to pop some popcorn as a snack. “This is great,” I think. “I can even eat popcorn during class! Maybe online learning is really going to be for me!” However, just as soon as the class starts up again, I race to the microwave because I realized that instead of smelling popcorn, I’m breathing in popcorn smoke! Smoke alarms going off and the whole house now having that lovely burnt popcorn smell, I try to air out the house while paying attention to what my professor is saying. Strike two for me and online learning.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one having a hard time adjusting to online learning. Later on in the class, we divided up into groups to discuss the readings that were assigned for our very first session. There were four people in my group, but only two of us were able to discuss the article. One guy types in the chat box that he can’t hear anything, so he’ll just post something on Moodle later. Another guy never responded to our inquiries at all, so we had no idea what happened to him. As myself and the only other person able to use the software correctly try to discuss the article, there are lots of awkward pauses due to the fact that only one person can talk at a time without getting major echoes and feedback. After an entire twenty minutes, we only managed to discuss the article for about five of those minutes. Maybe my group members didn’t accidentally fall asleep on their couch or distract themselves with burnt snacks, but we all were finding it difficult to engage fully in the class.
During week two of my online courses, I knew I had to approach them differently. No snacks, no reclining on the couch with soft pillows and stretchy pants. Instead, I sat at my desk with a pen and notebook in hand, headphones in to drown out other noise going on in the house, and ready to engage my mind. I was listening intently, taking notes, nodding and “hmmm”-ing when something interested me. Then, it hit me—my professor had no idea that I was actively engaged in the lecture, just like she had no idea that I had fallen asleep the previous week. When I had a question or wanted her to expand a little more on an idea, it felt strange to interrupt the lecture that I was listening to. Because I couldn’t see her face, I didn’t have any visual cues as to when she was going to take a breath or break in the lecture so that I could insert an opinion or remark. I also realized that staring at a blank screen, or a PowerPoint slide with words on it, was not keeping my attention. I was not only learning online—I was learning blindly.
I continue to struggle as I learn how to learn online. My identity as a student, as I’ve discovered, has a lot to do with my physical reactions: verbal feedback, nodding, facial expressions, etc. When I have a question or want to discuss an idea, I don’t think in well-thought-out phrases or use a high level of academic vocabulary; when I’m learning, I think and speak in short phrases, and depend on interaction with others in order to verbally process those thoughts, questions, and ideas. Online learning is totally different. My professors mainly gauge my interest and activity in class through written posts later on in the week. My posts need to be well written, well articulated, and use a certain rhetoric that is far from conversational (at least, that is the caliber of posts that have been happening in these two courses). I feel that they do not get a sense of who I am, which, I’ve discovered recently, is important to me as a student.
Interestingly, this is not my first online class experience: I teach an online class a few times per year. The biggest difference for me, apart from being in the learner’s seat, is that when I teach, I meet with my students on Skype at least once per week. The course content I teach is different, and requires brief face-to-face meetings (involving advising the language learning process and teaching different phonetic sounds). There’s no doubt that having those video Skype sessions with my students gives a more personal feel to the course. However, I do have more sympathy for my students who, for the majority of the course, have to listen to pre-recorded lectures and do other online activities. While we have seen many benefits to moving this course online versus teaching it in person, I do now understand more of the disadvantages to online learning from a student perspective.
As it’s only one month into my online courses, I might change my opinion. I’m applying new strategies, including meeting in person with the few on-campus classmates in my courses to discuss assignments and readings. As time goes by, I’m re-learning how to be engaged in courses like these, and learning how to make my posts more “me”, including more personal stories, etc. While it may not end up being my favorite form of education, it certainly is inevitable, and I’m glad to be involved in these courses not only for the content (I do LOVE what we’re learning), but also for the shared experience of online classes in a more globalized and digital age of learning.
It’s a Project
- Started because of a final project in an “intro to grad school” course
- Continuing because I have to practice writing
- Content: Old posts, new posts, funny posts, academic posts, guest posts, contemplative posts, etc.
- Goal: Blog once a week until I deposit my dissertation
phdblogger 