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I have recently started to prioritize boundary setting in my life – both in and outside of my degree. These boundaries started partly because I am learning to trust and care about myself more. But it is also due to the fact that I never thought I had the power to set boundaries. I never was in a situation to say no to opportunities (still not) and I felt like I was never doing enough academically (still do). All of this changed when I started to put myself first and push back on the demands of academia. Read more below to find out what I have learned about boundary setting.

Continue reading “Setting Boundaries in Grad School” →

After finishing the first year of my PhD program, I spent some time reflecting and wrote a blog post on personal reflections from that year, you can read that post here. This process helped me reflect and naturally I wanted to do it again for my second year.

Similarly to my first year, after course work was finished, I was exhausted and depleted. Although I finished a big milestone of finishing all my coursework, it suddenly dawned on me that I still have four more years to go. I just finished two of the most challenging years of my life but yet I felt like I was just starting again, moving into this new phase of my own research and teaching. Not only was this very daunting but also brought on even more anxiety than usual.

On top of this, I also had many other life events that arose. So recently, I took some days off and now I am feeling more like myself. If I am being honest though, I could still use some more time. But I also am realizing that I need to start making that time and building it into my schedule.

All this to say, a PhD is challenging and here are my 10 personal reflections from my 2^nd year as a PhD student:

Continue reading “10 personal reflections of a 2nd year PhD student” →