Category: Grad School

Giving and receiving feedback is a skill I highly underestimated I would be using before going into my PhD. I am not sure what I expected actually, was I expecting everyone to say, “this is fantastic” and me to fly through my PhD with ease? I think it mostly has to do with PhD students doing very well in their undergraduate and graduate degrees, rarely receiving in depth feedback because they are excelling and the students who need to improve, receive more of the feedback. This was my expectation for the PhD as well, and far from my reality.

But my journey with feedback hasn’t been so bad. I truly love receiving feedback because this is where I learn. The conflict I have with feedback is that it always stings a bit. I’ve talked about receiving feedback for my qualifying exam in this blog post, but currently I am working through revisions for my proposal. This process has allowed me to reflect on how others provide me with feedback, how I prefer to receive feedback, and how I give feedback myself.

Continue reading “Giving and Receiving Feedback in your PhD” →

It has become a tradition to reflect on each year of my PhD and somehow put my reflections to words in a blog post. You can read my reflections from my first year here, and from my second year here.

This year, it has taken me a while to write this post. My third year has been one of the most difficult ones yet, however the way my fourth year is shaping up might beat it. My third year was the first year without course work. I moved back full time from Ottawa to Toronto. I struggled to complete my qualifying exam – put did pass. And I taught for my first time. All while planning a wedding, that was “postponed” due to the pandemic.

But here I am, in my fourth year, reflecting on my third.

So, here are my 10 personal reflections from my 3rd year as a PhD student:

Continue reading “10 personal reflections of a 3rd year PhD Student” →

I am excited to share with you today the first part, of a three part series, in my experience with my qualifying exam. This first post will share an overview of my story with the qualifying exam – what it looked liked in my department at my school, my personal journey with it and some of my advice along the way. My qualifying exam was comprised of both a written and an oral exam, therefore part 2 will be specifically about my written exam and part 3 will share the oral exam. Part 2 and 3 will provide more specifics on my process of writing, how many hours and how I prepared for the oral exam, as well as what I think helped and didn’t.

Continue reading “My PhD Qualifying Exam: Part 1” →

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” →