I've had two "formal" conversations with Gary and Jennifer in the past couple days of how the quarter went and they've helped me begin my personal deeper reflection on what this journey has been like so far. This post was also a part of a class reflection that helped me start to flesh out my thoughts.
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
I'm not sure if I was expecting the first bullet point, if I imagined that it would be a big deal before arriving at UW, or if I knew all along and just tried to ignore it, but my transition from my undergraduate student life to graduate student life has been pretty stark. Exactly a year ago, I was worried about how much my senior year fall quarter grades would influence my future and more broadly, I spent the past four years at Northwestern thinking about how my classes were my priority. During my first quarter of the PhD and especially the first couple of weeks I spent a lot of time working on the "assignments" for class and making sure I was on time to all of the lectures I signed up for. I struggled to adjust and reframe my method of thinking that while yes, classes still matter, I am here primarily for my research and my knowledge seeking can be through whatever method (class, research meetings, lab meetings, etc) is most beneficial to me in the moment. On a social note, I spent my undergraduate experience constantly immersed in student groups, in different research labs, in orientation leadership positions, in student government and learned so much from each of these experiences but also had pockets of communities across campus that I connected with. Coming to UW - where I did not know a single person in Seattle besides my roommate that is also in graduate school - was hard. I am still figuring out how I find "my people" but I am pleasantly surprised with the patience I have been allowing myself in this process. Following up from Oliver's point I'd also like to see our cohort get closer in the next couple of quarters but I think in class this quarter we did a good job of starting to form relationships!
The last two bullet points are a higher level of reflection that I will flesh out for myself as a longer reflection over winter break but I wanted to note it here because this class helped me ask all the questions I had about research, about how publications work, how citation count works, how the field quantifies success, etc and I really appreciate that you gave us that space to ask questions Julie!
I am excited to move into a research rotation next quarter and work with Cindy while continuing my research with Jennifer. I feel lucky that they both work so closely together and my research interests align with them as well as the personal connections we are starting to develop. My research rotation this quarter went really well and I think a large part of why I feel positive about my experience is that I was able to start the work on Jennifer's grant from the beginning and I really feel like she and Ahmer give me ownership of the project. As I write this post too I was thinking ... I know that I've expressed that I struggled with finding a community but now that I think about it further I've met so many amazing researchers through CPREE that I appreciate. Here's a quick list of why I am thankful for them. CPREE Team - Terri (helped me with the mad lib analysis & asked about my wisdom teeth), Diane (always smiles at me when I walk past the CELT office), Lesley (asked about my family during the earthquakes in Mexico), Giovanna (has taught me so much about the learning sciences), Ken (always has meaningful insights), Cheryl (taught me through doing about design and writing and research), Kathryn (answered all of my questions big and small, relevant and irrelevant to research), Cindy & Jennifer of course (for everything!).
There are many things I am looking forward to including very interesting classes and seminars (one on gender in HCI & one on technology and education), getting to know my cohort more, getting to know other PhD students, and my research projects on engineering education!