I took a break from written reflection in the winter quarter but this quarter I want to aim for a weekly drawing reflection. This week I engaged in a significant number of heavy conversations about social justice topics like intersectionality, what a "normal" PhD process can or should look like, and about the privilege I have just by being in graduate school. I felt "heavy" by Thursday so I drew today. 

In bullet point form my two biggest takeaways from this quarter have been: 

• The transition from undergrad directly to graduate school is not easy - but it isn't a bad thing either 
• Research and publications are really important as a metric for success 
• I can seek answers to the question of how I produce research, but another way to frame this question is how I produce knowledge

The week after Thanksgiving we spent our time in class discussing trustworthiness in research because as our structured abstract at the end of class notes - trustworthiness is a big, important, problematic, critical topic. 

I start my reflection post with a funny story, a personal one unrelated to research on a surface level but if I dig deep and reflect maybe I will find a connection to research or class. This week I went back home to Chicago for a short Thanksgiving break. I include a diagram of the all the transportation vehicles I used on my 12-hour total travel time day. I also present my observations after getting my wisdom teeth removed and a short paper synopsys. 

We spent this past week with my PhD cohort discussing ethics in academia through a structured, targeted investigation. Our conversations in class led to many more questions (as seems to be the norm with our targeted investigations) about what ethics in academia means, how we can address ethics in academia, why ethics in academia is not talked about as much as epistemology or argument in research, and how we can be more ethical researchers.