Post 94: My thesis adventure is starting to come to an end!

I start a new job on Monday! I got hired to fill a paternity leave in the Ministry of Environment, and I am very much looking forward to learning more about how policy work happens in our provincial government. I'll try to keep some updates coming about how my understanding of what a policy analyst does, exactly, evolves in the coming months. I've never had work like this, but it seems promising on both an intellectual and interest basis!

I lined up the job interview shortly after I arrived back from my trip home (mid-September), and by the beginning of October I had a new job lined up! Even now, thinking over the past month, I'm still struck by how quickly the whole process went!

Rosa nutkana, one of our wild rose species on the West Coast! Look at those rose hips!

I really quickly had to put my thesis into an even higher gear than the pressure that I had been putting on myself prior to my trip home. BUT, so much has come together in the past few weeks! I finished a full draft of my last chapter, then I went through all the previous chapters and completed all of the edits according to feedback from my supervisor (and a few of my own revisions that I felt were necessary), put together the formatting of my thesis into the UVic Thesis Template, and sent off a full draft with a somewhat more rough introduction, missing an abstract, and an unformatted Bibliography.

What a difference it was to put the whole thing together and see it looking great!! Now I'm waiting on my committee member to have a read of the thesis and give me suggestions to strengthen and clarify the writing and the ideas. While I have some tasks in terms of cleaning up the Introduction, writing the abstract, and finishing the bibliography (I had used the write and cite function of Papers, which handles all the journal articles and the grey literature and government documents that I've used, but I have some books that I need to make sure are included in there!)

Whew! What a whirlwind the last few weeks have been! Now, I'm gearing up for my new job. I attended what may well be my last lab meeting this morning, and I was definitely feeling sentimental about it. I am going to miss Eric's wonderful stories and the regular check ins with everyone, and the camaraderie that comes with a lab group. I don't think that the camaraderie will disappear simply because I'm no longer in the office, but something special happens when you get a small-ish group of people together regularly. You build rapport, and a sense of community that's hard to come by! And now it's coming to an end much faster than I had anticipated! (I didn't expect to find meaningful work so quickly, when I emailed a few friends in the late summer!)

So here I am, feeling the feels.

The coming months will be challenging: working full-time in a dynamic workplace, and trying to balance finishing up the thesis. I will be carrying on trying to finish the research contract work, which also wraps up around Christmas. Time management and scheduling my time carefully will be my best friend, I think!

So here's to new beginnings and endings: I'm sitting in my office listening to Sia's "The Greatest," feeling happy and excited and sad. I've loved being at UVic for so many years now. It's starting to sink in that my regular time here is coming to a close. All I can think to say now about the thesis process is that perseverance pays off.

Lovely October sky, with a ghouly ghost saying hello, too!

Wishing everyone a happy and safe Halloween! I hope that I'll have a few more guest posts coming in soon! I've asked a few more people with specific topics to contribute, and we'll see if any of those can materialize.

For my next post, I'll summarize the short presentation I gave about "writing in grad school" last week at our lab meeting.

Post 77: Dealing with Impostor Syndrome, Again

It's always the small things that set of my insecurities.

I've known since the beginning of the semester that this week would be my week to present something in my weekly lab meeting about my work, and I find that since last week I've been worrying, and stewing, and brainstorming. Here's kind of the muddled craziness that I am able to upt together:

What can I present? What do I have that's good enough to present? Am I good enough to present and take up peoples' time? What do I have I can present about? I'm don't want to over-burden my already busy colleagues with extra work, so I can't be sending them things to read ahead of time... If I'd wanted to send them something, I should have done that last week. (I thus, have not sent them anything to read.) Well, if I'm not going to send them anything to read from my current chapter, then how can I adequately present about the writing for a chapter? Do I think that I can?

How does one put together a presentation? I don't know how to put together a presentation, or at least, I am concerned that I've forgotten how to. How did I do it before? Well, if I don't have anything from my current chapter, then how can I put a presentation together? For a presentation, you need to have good content. Right. That's where you start. So what do I have I can present about?

Thanks Becky Barnicoat at BuzzFeed for capturing this so well! 

Haha! So that's some of the worry whirly-gig going on in my brain for the last few days. It's gotten a bit more wild the closer I've gotten to my presentation tomorrow morning. Watching myself go through this silly bit of brain work is a little bit funny, once I start to see what I'm doing, and have an awareness about it, instead of simply being in it. (Writing this post is helping me to laugh at myself, and deal with it, once again.) (I've written previously about the Impostor Syndrome, here.)

It's called the impostor syndrome. And it shows up in all kinds of wacky ways. A colleague of mine shared a post this morning from the blog of Hope Jahren, who thinks she's cured herself of it with the simple solution of getting tenure (which is, admittedly, a big deal in academia). Good for her! At the same time, I hope it doesn't turn out to be a merely temporary solution for her. I'm more inclined to think, Once a worrier, always a worrier (and yes, I realize that worrying and the impostor syndrome done have a perfect overlap in the world of Venn Diagrams, but I think they're pretty close). Also, I am nowhere near getting tenure, and am undecided about whether to pursue that route at this point. I'm just trying to finish my master's thesis, which seems gargantuan enough a task at this point! :)

More beautiful spring flowers to brighten up my room! Much needed to combat the grey!

Ms. Jahren's post is quite funny, and I will be going back to read more of her blog. I've signed up as a follower. :) Finding other women in academia, writing about being in academia is definitely an interest of mine.

So. I have this presentation tomorrow morning, and I think that alongside preparing a slide or two about my current chapter, providing a (short) overview of the Monograph style thesis that I'm using, and explaining what that  means for my current chapter, I also want to take about 15 minutes (half of my time) talking about process. And this is definitely part of it. Struggling with this. And not giving up, even though I can go through intense periods of time feeling like I still don't belong here, still don't know what I'm doing, and still struggle to get words on the page and share them with my supervisor. At the same time, I am still at it! The outline of my final chapter was approved after its fourth draft, so full steam ahead to finish this up, and then revise, revise, revise, which is an ongoing process anyways.

So for today, beating the impostor syndrome is about admitting that I am good enough. I am good enough to take half an hour of my colleague's time tomorrow, to let them know where I'm at, and to have them give some input on how they deal with things. I don't really need inquiries about how my thesis work is going; I need invites to work and writing sessions, at this point. Easter Long Weekend, anybody?

I can definitely put together a summary and overview of the assertions and arguments I'm trying to make in my last chapter. It's my final chapter. I'm almost there. And I'd love my colleagues to share in my excitement about this. It's been a long journey to get here.

Afternoon sun at UVic. Lovely, lovely day!

One sentence at a time. One. Word. At. A. Time. This thesis will get finished. I can do this. And so can you, if you're a grad student reading this, going through your own whirly-gig of worry. You've got this. Worry or no worry. We've got this.

***

I am aware that I promised a post on Research Data Management Plans, and I have another in the queue about research ethics, both based on extra workshops organized by Dr. Natalie Ban in the department, and those are coming next. I needed to deal with myself and this lab presentation first. :) Thanks for your patience.

Post 63: First Lab Meeting, and New Grad Students!

We had our first lab meeting this afternoon, and it was lovely to have everyone gathered in the same room after really, four months apart!

(Quick sidenote: In the last 10 minutes I have seen a hummingbird, a woodpecker, black-capped and chestnut-backed chickadees, and they are so cute!! I love this office space, right near Mystic Vale!!)

Kristen and Mary were out for an excellent field season gathering data, and Tanya was in the Galapagos for a research project unrelated to her thesis work; Hyeone was in England for a conference and workshop for a month, and we have two new students in the group, Julie and Jemma! Welcome to them both!! It is exciting to meet new students to the program.

Leaves on the Galloping Goose!

With the first meeting comes plans and ideas for what we want to do when we meet for the rest of the semester. We had a couple volunteers to send out draft articles or other writing material to share and discuss among the group, including myself (Gulp! I am already nervous about it, but am also excited to share and receive feedback about my current thesis writing for my Findings Chapter, in which I'm reintegrating earlier work that I did during this project trying to lay out the conceptual component of my thesis, where I'm connecting the dots between the novel ecosystems concept and the mountain pine beetle as an excellent case study of the concept applied, with a few case specific factors about insects (as animals) in novel ecosystems; I realized that there has been very little written on this so far...; and, then the second component of the chapter is being able to situate the empirical findings from the interviews I conducted with scientists for the thesis as well; there is a lot going on in this chapter...). This should be good. I have another two weeks to get a draft of the manuscript ready to go, and I think it should be doable.

Otherwise, it feels nice to check in with colleagues, hear about renovation plans for the building; hear about grant writing in progress and what the new research projects are going to be about, or what skills others will bring to the lab group. Definitely feeling very positive about the start of the semester!

Post 46: Lab Meeting Guests, and Normalizing the Grad School Experience

This post has been brewing in my mind for a while, and now that I'm mostly over my flu (caught early last week on the Easter long weekend!), and TAing has wrapped up, I can engage in this space a little bit more again. In many ways this semester turned out to be much busier than I could have imagined it to become at the beginning of January. I knew I was staring down TAing a very big class with multiple tutorials, that I'd be trying to write a lot of my thesis, and that I would be keeping up with my hours for my second research project. At some point in those early weeks of the semester myself and my colleague Tanya took on the role of organizing our weekly lab meetings, too, and we set out on an ambitious schedule.

Due to difficulties with our technological setup at University House 4 (we didn't have a video-conferencing set-up, nor did we have functional space with a big screen to effectively share work or demo programs or such), our schedule was flexibly modified as the semester chugged along. Still, we included a good variety of meetings, from a discussion on short scientific presentation skills, to prep and planning for a conference many of us are attending in early May called Thinking Mountains, to overviews of Weebly (website development), Scrivener (a composition program), and Papers (citation program that plays well with Scrivener), student presentations and catch-ups, and a variety of guests, mostly PhD students, a post-doc student, and a visiting scholar from Australia.

Walking in the land of tulips! Makes me think of the tulip mania that took over the Netherlands during the 1600s. 

For the meetings with guests, I was particularly keen on hearing about their experiences during their graduate degrees, because in the recent months I have found it incredibly useful and wonderful and important to help me deal with the impostor syndrome, anxieties, and other concerns about graduate school. I've found that the more I hear stories about people experiences—good and challenging—about making it through grad school, the more I've gained perspective, built bonds with those colleagues, and found a way to really enjoy my experience all the more. In short, it's been a really useful way to normalize a lot of the experiences of going through this program, and it's been simply wonderful to make more connections and deepen my understanding of the graduate school.

So on top of asking about their current research projects, Tanya and I asked about what the most valuable advice was that each of them had received during their graduate experience, major roadblocks they'd encountered and how they overcame them, what formative experiences led them to carry on to do PhDs or further, and what they recommend for managing relationships with their research communities, including their committees and supervisors. For a couple of the later ones we also asked questions about the differences between PhD students and post-docs, and about experiences with transitioning into sessional teaching (this will be an upcoming guest post). Our guests included Frances Stewart, Christy James, Nancy Shackleford, Liese Coulter, Garrett Richards, Kira Hoffmann, and Jonaki Bhattacharyya.


Because there were so many of them—it's a shame that I didn't have more time to write on each closer to when they happened—and because I got too wrapped up in enjoying the stories and having our guests I only took sparse notes, so the below is going to be a very brief overview of what we all discussed and heard during those meetings.

Beautiful tulips on the walk to the bus down in Cadboro Bay! Love the colour!

Unsurprisingly, each graduate student has their own story: their own path to developing their interests in the field they're currently studying. And the advice or insights or stories each of them shared are as varied as the people telling them. It's amazing the territory discussions have covered with this diverse set of students, whether it's hearing about stories about the Elk Island National Park or the Cooking Lakes Moraine from Frances, where she is conducting her work on gene flow among a number of mesocarnivore (animal whose diet consists of mostly meat!) species, and learning about the genetic techniques used to figure out these landscape scale animal behaviours and relationships. Or then about Nancy's math background and her excellence at developing the networking skills that have enabled her to co-publish a number of publications very quickly. She described the process as "pulling together different people's strengths," and recommended working with "people that you like;" if someone's getting in your way or preventing you from reaching your goals, making the connections you want, or supporting your work, get them out of the way and find someone better! I also really loved hearing about her ideas about writing, during which she encouraged writing quickly and getting the writing out quickly, because someone else will fix the mistakes that you've made (give feedback). :)
Kira and Christy are both amazing women doing very interesting work! Christy on finding out about specific habitat ranges for a variety of bird species in the Willmore Wilderness. Christy's two cents: make sure to take the time to build relationships with your supervisors, and mentioned that when her supervisor says something's going to be easy, it definitely won't be! There are all sorts of curveballs that come along the way, and you work your way through them!

Kira identified a few different roadblocks, from struggling with a statistics course, to feeling the insidious isolation that we find at different parts of our grad school experience, but reminded us to be adaptive, as things always change. Further, "don't take yourself too seriously," and "Don't compare yourself to others." This last point is one that I can really identify with; some of my early grief in my program began with the constant comparing, and accompanying worry that I wasn't working hard enough, or doing enough, or learning quickly enough, or wasn't smart enough, etc. It is hard, though, when working with a bunch of fantastic, brilliant, and intelligent people!

Kira found a group of other PhD women working in ecology that became a sort of support group that's really been helpful for building  camaraderie and excitement and a deeper engagement with her graduate experience. This sounds very similar to what I've recently been enthusing about with my writing group! :) And one final bit of advice: meet with your supervisor regularly, even if you feel you don't have much to discuss. There is always more to discuss than you think! And it is good to check in with how things are going, and keep the forward momentum going.

And our dogwoods are blooming on campus now, too! :) Love these ones! 

Jonaki had some incredible stories, including about some of the adventures she had during her PhD, such as losing her hardrive and the backup of her hard-drive due advised us to be our own "project managers: set an agenda, go through the material;" your supervisors will appreciate the professionalism, and similar to Kira's advice, it will keep the momentum going.

Garrett had some really practical advice, too, and encouraged us to become much more assertive communicators, by asking for very specific things from our supervisors when it comes to feedback (he's also in the writing phase right now), and provided some useful ways to frame these requests: "This would be most helpful" or "I'd like this kind of feedback," which can guide the expectations for what he'd most like to hear from his supervisor.

Everyone has their ups and downs, and finds different ways to tackle the surprises and challenges that come along the way.

I'm sorry because in a way I can recognize that this post falls very short of expressing the delight of sitting in on the presentations, and hearing the varied experiences, the voices and stories of different researchers, and the adventures that they shared, but I hope this at least gives a little sense of these wonderful people.

The next post is going to be Garrett's recommendations on teaching, because that was one aspect I'd been particularly keen on hearing from him, but we didn't get a chance to talk about it too much because we ran out of time at the lab meeting!

If I do this again in the future, I will try much harder to write soon after each of the lab meetings with the respective guests.