When everyone was screaming “yay! Summer 2021!” I was like “Nah, I am staying indoors!” It was time for my comprehensive examination, popularly known as comps. Comps is that long awaited milestone in the first or second year of the PhD program, where you show your department that you are the real deal. It is different for each… Read More Rose’s summer 2021 comprehensive journal: chapter 1
I don’t know if it was a day per se, or a slow gradual decline. There were days I thought I could do it. The despair would seem far away – like just one of the normal ups and downs that accompany normal grad life. But then weeks of broken machines, inconclusive experiments and unsolved… Read More the day I quit
Anzala Murtaz Isn’t it time to finally evolve past the romanticization of youth and embrace the gift that age is? Sure, biologically, the degradation of the body with years accrued is a negative thing. But we all know our fear of age has way more to it than the worry of memory loss or bad… Read More On the basis of age
I needed a new job. My job as a social worker was becoming increasingly incompatible with my job as a mother of three, and my writing job alone couldn’t pay the bills. My friend suggested I contact Lorna MacEachern, the Associate Director for Student Engagement in the Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. Apparently, Lorna was seeking… Read More The next best thing to owning a crystal ball
With us being in the season of joy, what would be a better way to end off this year than with some actionable tips on how to cultivate this sometimes seemingly mythical entity? Let’s get into it! Less is more: I believe in this world of hyper-everything, it becomes even more difficult to find joy. You have access to more people at your… Read More Top 5 tips on the art of joy
I dream, I think, I see The end of this degree. Been many years, So many barriers: Long hours, failed experiments, Cover the hypothesis in cerements. Does it feel like you’re stuck in quicksand? Or are you stuck on flat land? Feeling like an imposter? “But I am very poorly today & very stupid &… Read More An Ode to GradLife
“I don’t know what I am doing here,” he said. This is a statement I heard recently from a colleague from the African continent studying at McGill University. Poking further, I needed to understand the perspectives, his challenges and what could have led to making such a statement. My understanding through relating with many ambitious young people over the years is the level… Read More Crossing the Seas: Behind the Blood and the Hope of African Students
Nayyirah Waheed’s quote “I have always been the woman of my dreams” has been one of my favourite sayings ever since I read it for the first time. It made me wonder whether I was becoming the woman of my dreams, and what criteria one must check off to achieve that level of self-approval. The… Read More I am the woman of my dreams
We would be remiss if we did not give some sort of explanation on our long silence over here at Gradlife. Part of it was due the pandemic and the toll it has taken on all of us, but the other part (and this is the good news) was because we were in the midst… Read More From surviving to thriving: on resilience as a graduate student
I remember being asked, during the enrollment process at McGill, to answer to some private questions: gender, sexual orientation… I never fully understood why those questions should matter to anyone, or why they are asked so often in university questionnaires. The way I see it, if you respect people and diversity, then you don’t ask,… Read More I came out to myself in grad school.
The graduate student experience at McGill
The graduate student experience at McGill
The graduate student experience at McGill
Sharing PhD experiences across the University of Warwick and beyond
Welcoming you in to the secrets, techniques and taboos around succeeding in a Research Higher Degree
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