This semester, my life outside of my PhD has been pushing me to pay attention to it. Many circumstances have forced me to put my work aside and put my personal life first; planning a wedding, health concerns with family, moving apartments, and most recently a death.
After two and a half years of my PhD, my body feels depleted. Last semester, nothing went to plan, which has made January was one of the hardest months of my PhD this far. I didn’t feel like myself, my body gave up on me and my mind felt against me. How could this be? I have only just finished my course work, I haven’t even started my dissertation! Am I burnt out before I have even started? Today’s blog post will share how I am restoring my body and mind in order to hopefully continue on this PhD marathon.
Continue reading “Burnt out before I’ve even started? How I am putting myself before my work”
The end of a semester is often a busy time for most scholars. The past two months have been especially difficult for me. I am completing my qualifying exams, prepping to teach my first course, working on a research study, and other paid jobs. In times like these, it is easy for me to get caught up in a negative mindset. In this blog post I want to share how I have been trying to shift my negative mindset to a more positive one.
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.
Hi Scholar Friends, I know it has been a while. I am deep in the midst of my qualifying exams and I am taking a break to write this important post. After finishing my coursework in the spring, I have officially moved onto the isolation component of my PhD. Everything I do from this point on is, well pretty much, on my own. My work space consists of a 9×9 room in my 500 square foot apartment, with no door and no windows. But it is a designated space, and I have the necessities. I have found working from home more difficult than I expected. I had worked from home before but never 7 days a week. Over the past few months I have figured out some strategies that have helped me in this journey. Below you will find some of my top 5 tips for working from home.
Last week I was featured on Career Conversations. I completed an interview with Stefanie and during we discussed everything from mental health, time management and blogging during my PhD. In this blog post, you will find a link to the full video, as well as an overview of the key takeaways. Continue reading “Career Conversation on YouTube”
This blog post needs no introduction. If you are a grad student, time always feels scarce . I often feel like I don’t have enough time. My only option then is to make the most efficient and effective use of what I do have. Here are my top ten tips for making the most out of my time.
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 2nd year as a PhD student:
Continue reading “10 personal reflections of a 2nd year PhD student”
It’s that time of the year for academic conferences. Where do I even begin? There is so much I want to write about regarding conferences, but for this post I’ll share my top 10 tips on how to prepare yourself for academic conference culture. I will likely be writing more posts on conferences so comment below if there is something you would like me to expand on. Continue reading “Tips to Prepare for Academic Conferences”
I often get asked about things that are helping me in my studies. These items include, books (both school related and fiction), food, fitness, conscious brands, podcasts and apps/tools. Also, with the @ScholarCulture community continuously growing, scholars often share with me some of the things they are loving too. Sometimes I try them out and if I end up loving them, I want to keep you all updated. Below you will find some of the things I am loving at the moment and things that are helping me through grad school.
