Reflections on a PhD
As this is the first full week of classes, thankfully, the reading list is light. So, without further ado:
History and Theory
Gallant, Thomas. “Long Time Coming, Long Time Gone: The Past, Present and Future of Social History.” Historein 12 (2012): 10-20.
Today marks the last day of the first week of school (okay, there were only two school days, but I’m still counting it!). As my schedule stands right now, I have class five days a week (haven’t done that since high school…) and I’m taking these classes: Arabic, French, History and Theory, Research Seminar in Modern European History, and Historical Scholarship of the Middle East – Colonial Period.
The next few weeks should really see a drastic pick-up in my posts as I plan to provide a list of all readings for the upcoming week and summarize all readings at the end of the week in the form of two blog posts. I’ll also try and post something entertaining as well, but we’ll see. If we have a particularly interesting class discussion, I plan to post that, too.
Now, on to the weekend.
Is there anything specific you’d like to hear/know about? Has anyone else experienced a beginning in the last couple weeks or has one coming up?
A few days ago, a friend of mine posted on her blog about transitions. In her post, she made a point about transitions that I hadn’t thought of before: namely, that life isn’t full of finite beginnings and ends; rather, it is full of transitions that continually (though not always gracefully) move you from one to another, but not entirely leaving where you were before. There is a change but there is also continuity.
Today marks the T-minus 30-day piont before starting my new adventures as a PhD student. Last week, I made the announcement at work that I would be resigning on September 20. It has been bittersweet. While I’m looking forward to my transition from government employee to full time student, everything is full of unknowns. What will classes be like? How will I interact with new faculty members and peers? How will I handle the renewed pressured associated with the life of a researcher?
While I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, I do know that this is just one more of life’s exciting transitions, where I can take the experiences and people that make up my life with me, combining them with something new and probably awesome.
You could say I’m a planner. Planning is one of my favorite things to do. When I was in high school and college my favorite day of the school year was the first day of each new semester when I would get the class syllabus. When I’d get back to my dorm, apartment, whatever, I would meticulously (color coded and everything) add assignment due dates, test dates, and class activities to my planner (still paper then). Pure joy.
While I’m still looking forward to that with the start of my PhD program, I know things will be a little different, a lot more fluid, and much more up to me to keep myself on task. So, over the past month or so, I’ve been trying to get myself ready and organized for the years (yes, years) ahead.
I’ve been looking up information on grants and fellowships for which I could apply, from language study to research, to post-doctoral opportunities. I’ve joined several H-Net groups and actively peruse the daily and weekly emails for relevant information. I’ve started looking into citation managers (I didn’t use one when I did my master’s but was told that they are a great help). For now, I’ve organized for myself a single Word document with all of the relevant information I’m collecting: fellowships and grants, conference opportunities, journals and other publications, books to look into that seem relevant, as well as some new research ideas I’ve come across just from what I’ve looked at so far.
What I want to know is: are there better options out there (than my current Word document solution) for organizing the to-dos for grad life? Is there a single, magical, constantly updated website or blog out there with all of the information I could ever want as a graduate student and someday professional? Or something like it? What have you used to organize your life, research, and fellowship and grant information?
Oh, and I still use a planner. A real paper planner.
Thanks for stopping by!
Well, here’s my first post. Over the years, as the number of blogs has flourished, I’ve considered starting my own, dealing with topics have to do with everything from politics to clean and whole eating. Upon learning of my acceptance to UCSD, I thought that I might actually start one which not only chronicles my experiences in a PhD program and is a receptacle for my note taking, but also a place where research ideas could be fleshed out and discussed (and maybe help keep me accountable for doing these things, too).
With that in mind, there are many things I hope to do with this blog. In addition to posts on how PhD life, research, and professional development, I hope to create various series about class and research-related readings, applying for fellowships and grants, and conference experiences.
Of course, I’m not sure exactly how all this will come into fruition. Being quite new at this, I’m going to have a play-it-by-ear kind of attitude, so it’ll be as much a surprise to you as it is to me!
So, follow along and journey with me as I develop my blogging voice, research interests, and historical knowledge and reflect on the world of advanced degrees.
Johanna L Peterson