#thelearningcat and academia

[thelearningcat]

I will never stop taking pictures of my cats cuddling me. They are the sweetest and need to be beloved by the world. They make work so much more bearable.

Indy, by finally accepting a laptop on top of him so he can lay on my lap while i work, despite his larger than normal size.

[thelearningcat]

He supervisors the work.

[thelearningcat]

Never has a single comic summed up grad school life better.

[thelearningcat]

Then completely deleting that one sentence when you have to completely rewrite the paper after getting reviews back.

[thelearningcat]

Grad school is figuring out what you are writing a paper on 12 hours before you are supposed to present the results of said paper.

Time for bed now. Tomorrow morning, I will actually run the regressions and make the powerpoint.

[thelearningcat]

To give some perspective, most of the time by the time you've reached undergraduate professors, you already write better in your first draft then you did in your final draft in high school. As a graduate student, I'm lucky if my professors get a proofread final, but I know, having read old papers that I have started proofreading some of my normal mistakes while I write the first time around, because I know it's there. I've learned to write the conclusion and intro last unless I haven't figured out my thesis yet.

I also tell many of my students this, learning to write is more like a curve. You start out without a lot of structure, and as you learn more, that structure becomes your guideline. Eventually though, that structure is so inherent that you learn to write better by stepping away from it, and learning to write with more engaging tone and organization. The better writer you are, the further away you can get from the 5 paragraph essay structure we are taught in high school.

As a TA for undergraduate classes, most students are adequate writers. Do I try to give students feedback on writing, especially if they give me drafts to review, absolutely. Because we can always tweak our writing and become aware of new bad habits. But especially if the point of a class is not writing but ideas (like many poli sci classes), I'm more concerned with whether a student understands what they are talking about then are the best writers. Now, the technical writing course I TA for? I'm much more strict on the writing and less harsh on the content. My students need to come across as their best selves in their writing, because that's the point of the class. High school, I believe, should ( and sometimes does) be about giving the foundation to communicate successfully (and the foundation to do a bunch of other stuff but that's for another time...). College writing is about honing particular skills that will serve you best in your career path. In English classes, that's absolutely honing your writing craft. In poli sci classes, it's about ideas and concepts.

Also, there's just the reality that some professors and TAs wear multiple hats and don't read too carefully after the first paragraph. Especially at a research institute, the unfortunate reality is we are told to "publish 0r die." But to end on a high note, having read through numerous students essays. If you've completed the work without obvious errors right off the bat, 49 out of 50 students deserve at least a C, usually higher, because you've learned what the professor wanted from the assignment, whether you realize it or not. The other 1 student usually missed some huge aspect of the assignment and went off script, which even then, is not a sign they dont understand or can't but just that they had one of the whoopsie moments we all have occasionally.

My essays as a senior in highschool: structured, outlined, five-paragraphs, one sentence quotations MAX otherwise it’s too long, the conclusion is a neat summary

Teachers: eh it’s aight, B

My essays as a senior in College: No outline, 8 pages of stream of consciousness, new paragraph every couple of lines, paragraph-long quotes, comment on society in the conclusion no matter the topic, no proofreading we submit like men.

Professors: Very good, very insightful, A

[thelearningcat]

Me as I'm held in the grips of grad school

[thelearningcat]

This is usually a tip for academics, but I think everyone working from home could utilize it:

Time your work! Not just your "work work" but also all the other things you do that you can't really not do ever, like chores and exercise.

As someone with severe anxiety, timing my hours in the day being productive, in any way, has really helped me be realistic and reasonable about whether my days have been productive. Academic work involves a lot of research that can take months, if not years, of work. The "done" moments can be really few and far between. Timing my work shows me that even if I haven't knocked off that "finishing coding commencements", I have worked on it for two hours, on top of doing other important things like laundry and meetings with other academics.

It is really important for graduate students to track time, especially if they are like me, and don't work "normal" hours. I am a night owl, and my partner isn't. So I will work from like 10-2 or 3pm, take off some time around dinner to spend with my partner when he gets off, and start working again around 7pm and work another 2-4 hours to try to get 8 hours in every day. This has proven the most successful breakdown to do a good amount of work. Timing assures that when it inevitably varies by an hour or more because of odd activities here or there, I can still keep to that average 40+ hour week I aim for.

I know some academics work more then me, but I put a lot of value on my relationships with others and my mental health. It's taken me three years of graduate school, realizing I'm successful, maybe not the most successful, but definitely not bottom of the barrel, to realize I don't have to live up to an impossible standard because most people don't. Most academics don't work 24/7, even if they talk like they do.

Everyone is different in their needs and what takes more mental work. I've had a full time professor tell me and other graduate students that lectures and meetings don't count as real work time in a day. I call bullshit. On days when I spend 5 hours straight interacting with other people, that's all I can do. I'm an introvert, so that's way more work then my research. I can work for 9 hours straight on research or a paper before my body declares that the next day has to be a rest day. Luckily, most days are 2-3 hours socializing and the other 6-5 on alone work, so I balance it. But that's me. Timing it has made me more aware of what counts as mental work and when I will need to take breaks and for how long.

It's important you also count the normal life work too. Chores can be draining as well. Even if you're like me and take some relaxation from a task that you can complete, it's important you're aware that isn't truly you sitting back to take a breath and just enjoy things. I count all the time I spend cooking, doing laundry, going grocery shopping, etc. Because its stuff that even if my partner shares in the task, I still have to split the chores as well because I don't want to make him bare the whole burden.

I use a timer like toggl. That is free and has both a web browser extension and an app. The extension is nice because it reminds you to time or catches you when you've been idle. If you leave the timer running for a really long time, it also notifies you and reminds you to stop it.

Let me know if anyone wants any other tips or tricks to working from home. I only go to university to work when I have to, so I'm well versed on what works for me, as well as what has been suggested by others and didnt personally work for me.

[thelearningcat]

The Path That Takes us Where We End Up is Insane

Excuse me while I ramble once again about how my past did not often set me up to become the political scientist I am.

I'm going through some old notebooks from my childhood to try to sort memories from trash. I'm currently going through a notebook from 4th grade when I was nine. Throughout my childhood I collected notebooks for various purposes. Doodles, journals, stories, drawings, none sense. Notebooks were the ultimate entertainment and creative source for young me.

However, looking at these, I could easily have seen myself going down a series of different paths then the ones I went down. This was right around when I stopped drawing. I always enjoyed the idea of it and always found my drawings unsatisifying (words were more accessible), but 9yo me loved drawing people and clothes. I have pages of single individuals just so I could imagine hairstyles and clothes. I wasnt a good artist (still am not), but I could have easily taken a path to clothes design or something else had I continued on that path instead of moving into a realm of story writing (which translated to my impatient mind to research eventually).

This was rambly because I'm still thinking through it, but it's just fascinating to look back at what I spent so many pages doing when now I find drawing an unsatisfactory way to Express myself and I don't do more then the occasional doodle on the edge of a piece of paper.

[thelearningcat]

I've just accepted that my finals are going to be the below standard of what I had hoped at the start of the semester. And that's okay. If the professors who are grading them judge me for these finals, then they arent the ones whose opinions I value anyways.

[thelearningcat]

"I like staring at walls better when you're in the room."

"They should put that on a hallmark card."

[thelearningcat]

Three years into grad school...

And there are things that even a year ago, I never thought I'd feel.

I never thought studying and taking my comps would actually make me feel more confident and assured that I belong in academia and do know my stuff.

I never thought passing my first (of two) comps would feel less like the win and relief then having managed to get through the anxiety of taking it in the first place.

I never thought I'd feel so relaxed waiting the full month to get my results back.

I also never thought I'd still be annoyed by the fact one of my peers failed by the smallest margin possible, when she should have gotten passed as well.

I never thought the small things would also reassert the weird skills I'd gained and make me feel weirdly proud.

My ability to stay organized with fifty million things on my plate (as well as pay attention to them all), or the ability to step back and realize when I'd let things get utterly unorganized (thanks Overcooked for making me realize I had these skills)

My ability to skim text at ridiculous speeds, because I've had to consume words on pages faster then I ever thought humanly possible. (Which I realized playing video games with friends and them complaining how fast I was clicking through dialogue windows).

My regained ability to talk in class, even when I haven't read whatever is being discussed.

An ability to search for R coding fixes and find them efficiently (okay, this is only some of the time. But I blame this in part on Google for not actually knowing how to build an algorithm around R forums)

All in all, I'm feeling very smart at the moment.

[thelearningcat]

PhD student: "I have a story like that where I had to call the landlord to get the... oh I can never remember what it's called... Nsyncenator?"

The rest of us: "What?"

"Insinkerator"

*blank stares" finally someone pipes up: "garbage disposal?"

"Yeah! You know, I always call it that when I forget the real word because everyone can always figure out what it is"

All of us realizing that her word is way better than garbage disposal:"in-sink-erator"

Like. What. It sounds so dumb but it makes so much sense linguistically. It's in the sink. But also. It sound alike incinerator which has a similar purpose. It's just a better word.

[thelearningcat]

In one of my classes, we literally had everyone with cats pick them up and show them off. I managed to get one of my two cats on camera (Indy laid on my lap for awhile under the table but failed to poke his head up enough to make it on screen)- Storm made the showing of the perfect boy he is by looking the happiest as I gave him head scratches on camera.

My professors daughter showing up three minutes before the end of class to inform him their movie was over was the best moment of class.

[thelearningcat]

The problem with midnight deadlines?

Sure, it feels less stressful then trying to wake up and get something turned in. But now I'm exhausted but also exhilarated because I'm. Finally. Done.

But I have to go to sleep because I've gotten very little sleep lately and my body is going to go into shock if I dont catch up on that beauty rest

[thelearningcat]

Being an academic is spending 2 and a half hours for literally 12 characters of difference in your R code to fix what was messing up your data but damn does your graphic look great now.