March break happens not only to university students, but also, as you can remember, to very young students in primary school. Like my 5 years-old kid. To have fun that week, my two children and I spend some time in the Rockies to ski with my dad. That was challenging and fun (and exhausting). Then,… Read More Kid in the office
I think mostly in metaphor. Especially for concepts that I struggle to wrap my mind around, reducing them to pictures makes them fold up into pocket-sized pieces that fit nicely into the cupboards of my world. This week, the metaphor I kept returning to – my PhD is a mountain. You know, the ones that… Read More my PhD, a mountain
Last year I was quite excited, but also quite scared, by the fact that two different seminars I was taking were requiring me to do a teaching demo, or to present my homework in the form of a lesson to my peers, rather than as a more traditional presentation. Those were my first experiences as… Read More Time to learn… to teach!
Reduce Your Stress! I find that the more defenses I go to, the less stressed I feel about my own upcoming oral thesis defense. I think repeated exposure to what a defense is like in our department can help us prepare for our own and feel less stressed about it as we see others like… Read More Calling All Thesis Students – 10 Benefits of Going to Other’s Oral Defenses
This is a response to an article sent to my class: Graduate School Can Have Terrible Effects on People’s Mental Health It is December already. There is no time to thinkingly daydream, in these early-to-nightfall-darken-the-doorstep days. Instead, to dispel the darkness that thickens the blood like a Canadian plague, I will hang here a series of lines to ‘light/en’ the load… Read More Hello, Darkness
Not many students consider co-supervision for their graduate experience. Indeed, 2x the supervisors seems like 2x the work. But that is not necessarily the case. Being a co-supervised student, I’ve come to appreciate co-supervision as it benefits both my supervisors and me. Here are some tips and tricks I’ve accumulated over the past year on… Read More How to Co-operate with Co-supervision
We’re constantly told not to compare ourselves with others. Conventional wisdom has told us time and again that comparing is bad for our self-esteem, our relationships, a waste of time… the list goes on. Challenge! Comparing ourselves is a natural process that we all engage in, and it can make us feel better and motivate… Read More It’s OK to Compare Ourselves with Others – IF WE DO IT RIGHT
With the release of the IPCC report and the Nobel-adjacent prize in economics going to a green growth economist, its been a regular-style dark month for ecological economists. The IPCC report was not nearly as annoying as the Nobel-ish prize, mostly because what was in the IPCC report is not a surprise to people who… Read More Going Plastic-free is Self-Care
After teaching for a great many years, I have switched seats and am back to being a student. This has, unsurprisingly, brought some anticipated shifts. Holding the scope of the term in the imaginative space of a teacher starkly departs when becoming a student. I am no longer standing on the hill, surveying the perspective.… Read More Breaking/Braking/Brr-Aching
Since I am studying History, I spend most of my days behind my books or my computer. When I hear almost all my GradLife colleagues talking about «the lab», I feel this is a secret word full of mysteries. So I asked Sophie Cousineau to help me understand what she is doing exactly in her… Read More The secret life of a lab grad student
The graduate student experience at McGill
The graduate student experience at McGill
The graduate student experience at McGill
a blog about the PhD student experience, University of Warwick
Welcoming you in to the secrets, techniques and taboos around succeeding in a Research Higher Degree
