Tag Archives: academics

Finishing That Pesky Dissertation

Written by Brenna Gormally, Biology Ph.D. student

Graduate school — and in particular Ph.D. Programs — are strange because at times you feel like there is an indefinite amount of work to do and that you might just be in school forever. But at the same time, that feeling of permanence can be comforting. Once I settled into my routine, Tufts became my home and I’ve loved every minute of it. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. And with that comes a whole bunch of emotions — the excitement for the next step, the sadness for leaving my Tufts community, and the stress of finishing degree requirements.

I am currently right in that sweet spot. Over the summer, I had the good fortune to accept a postdoctoral fellowship which will begin in early 2020. That means that I get the opportunity to finish my Ph.D. Without the added pressure of finding a job. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that my success in finding a job is a testament to the experiences I’ve been afforded at Tufts. Not only did I receive world class mentorship, but the professional development opportunities (Graduate Institute for Teaching and the NOD Workshops) helped me hone my marketable skills. I am incredibly excited for my next step, but over the next few months I have a LOT to take care of — namely finishing all that writing. I’ve decided to give you some of my tips for getting down to business and finishing that pesky dissertation.

1. Schedule, schedule, schedule

I cannot overstate the importance of planning. When I have a lot of projects going on, it sometimes seems easier to just do things and be productive. When all you have to do is writing, it can be difficult to focus. Staring at a blank page and thinking about how you have to ill it up is… daunting. I have found that the best way to avoid this feeling of desperation is to have realistic, scheduled goals. Focusing on one section in the morning and one section in the afternoon has helped me not get bored with the material and continue progressing.

2. Write in different places

Although I love my desk, sometimes you need a change of scenery. Luckily, there are at least 5 different coffee shops within a 10 minute walk of campus. My favorite coffee shop for writing is Tamper: it’s nice and quiet, serves delicious food, and offers beer options for later in the day. I’m also a huge fan of working in Tisch Library. There’s something about being surrounded by stressed out undergraduates that motivates you to get your own work done. By switching up my physical writing space, I have been able to make progress even when it doesn’t feel like it.

3. Get the blood pumping

Most people know that when you are stressed, making time for physical exercise is crucial. This becomes even more important when you’re writing your dissertation, which should be a marathon and not a spring. I try to make time and head down to the Tisch Fitness Center or go on a run along the Charles River. These are great opportunities to clear your head, which always helps with writing.

4. Don’t forget to have fun!

Most importantly, I think, is remembering that writing your dissertation should have some elements of fun. This can be the hardest task, because you’ve spent years in your program and you might feel jaded with your topic. But after all, these will be the final months of your time at Tufts. For me, it has been the perfect opportunity to reflect and remember where my passions first began. Tufts has been a fantastic chapter of my life that I will remember fondly.

Ready-to-Use Advanced English Learning Tips

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Written by Amanda Wang, Innovation and Management M.S.I.M. student

I still remember my first day as a Graduate student at Tufts: doing self-introductions with my 33 classmates in M.S. Innovation and Management, which to me was something way outside of my comfort zone. Despite almost 20 years training in English and a decent TOEFL score, I could not even do a self-intro with confidence and fluency.

One year later after the orientation, I no longer have to organize sentences in my mind several times before I start speaking. Looking back, I wish I could have known some of the ways to improve my oral English before I came to the States. This is how I got the idea for this blog: to help my peers consider multiple ways to improve their English speaking. I picked four of the most important rules that I found essential. You do not have to follow what I suggest here, as they can be very personal experiences that may not apply to everyone. However, hopefully you can still find something that ‘clicks’ for you, and figure out your own magical way!

Rule #1. Mistakes ≠ Failures

Yeah, I still make mistakes sometimes, but after all, I am not a native speaker, so it is totally fine. Being afraid of making mistakes is due to our high self-consciousness: ‘I MUST sound like a dumb person.’ Let’s take a step back from this scenario – have you ever talked to a non-native speaker of your mother tongue? Did you think in the same way about them as you imagined people would think about you before talking in English? No, because we tend to overthink that we are ‘being judged.’ Therefore, keep in mind that making mistakes is very natural. Plus, do not feel embarrassed if someone kindly points out your mistakes – that actually helps you improve way faster!

Rule #2. Talk, talk, talk

This sounds like a nonsense: how can I keep talking when I am not THAT good at talking? Or after all, I am an introvert. I don’t even enjoy talking to people endlessly using my native language. Why do I have to do that?

The best way to learn a language is to live in an environment where you have to use that language to live. Now you are a student in a university in the United States, which means you have the perfect opportunity to practice. Try to speak up in the class, talk to your professors and peers, or greet the barista you meet every morning. It is not difficult at all if you follow Rule #1. Being an introvert, I finally realized that ‘introvert’ means that you spend energy when you gather with a group of people, like at a party, but you can still want to do small talks. Lower your ego, don’t be too self-conscious, and start the chat. The merit of talking is that you also gain input from other people, so your brain will pick up some colloquial expressions and turn them into your output in no time. Talk is a great and easy way to learn new terms, as you do not have to memorize a vocab list.

Rule #3. Build a real network

Sometimes, becoming an international student also means you left most of your old friends at home. Do not let loneliness in a new place overwhelm you. Instead, build a real network here so that you really feel like part of the community. How is this related to language skills? First, you have more chance to talk, as said in Rule #2. Second, you can talk about the things that you have a real interest in, make new good friends, and enrich your life experiences.

At the same time, as you naturally catch up with people in your network, you will feel that your feet are more to the ground, and more confident because you are more an insider of life here. I tried to catch up with my professors, mentors, and friends this summer, and I can feel that I am improving again. More specific to English skills, I also get to know people’s interests and passions, and opportunities keep popping up during conversations. If you’re not sure how to start the networking, check graduate school calendar and go to events to add people to your network!

Rule #4. Reading and writing as a daily routine

You are being educated, and you want to speak intelligently. Sometimes, small talk seems to be fine, but what if you have a presentation or interview coming up? My suggestion is to benefit from reading and writing, and make it a habit. In the Tisch Library Tower Café, you can find all kinds of magazines and newspapers to keep yourself updated. Or simply download some news apps (FYI: all Tufts students have access to the New York Times through the Tisch Library). Do you have some novels written by American authors that you liked when you were a child? Find the English version and re-read it in English, you will remember better as you have the scenes in memory. The ability to generate pictures while using a language helps internalize the language and apply it quickly when you speak.

Like listening and speaking, reading and writing are great companions. I have honed my English skills by being a blogger at Tufts Graduate Blog. Writing as a practice gives me the time to organize my thoughts in a logical way, and thinking in English while writing is a ‘double language drill’ for both speaking and writing. I am always talking to myself in English while writing, and so both things become natural gradually.

To sum up, make the most out of your graduate journey at Tufts, and always be confident as you are already a bilingual person (yay!). As you practice, you will see a door to a broader world opening in front you.

Effective Communication: How to create a working relationship with your advisor

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Written by Michael Ruiz, Bioengineering M.S. 2020

We often find ourselves isolated in books and papers while in graduate school. It is easy to forget how to communicate effectively or openly with other people, but the one person you need to communicate effectively with is your advisor. I encourage graduate students to foster a culture of open and effective communication with their advisor. In my experience, communicating effectively with my academic advisor is one of the most important factors which will determine my success and happiness in my graduate education.

The first step towards developing an effective communication strategy is to define a set of ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ from your program. This may seem like a daunting task, but it will help you later down the road when you want to translate your experience from your coursework, group projects, thesis projects, and experiments into transferrable skills to list on your resume.

Ask yourself questions like: “After I graduate, what is my ideal job?” and “What skills will I need to be successful in that role?”. These are difficult questions to ask, but it’s important to take the time and think it out. As a result of this practice, I was able to adopt more open and effective communication methods with not only myself, but with my advisor. These methods have contributed to success within my graduate program. The more independent you become, and the easier you make it for your advisor to support you by communicating your wants and needs, the better your relationship will be. By becoming more self-sufficient in your graduate program, you will become more prepared for your future career.

In a culture of effective communication, it is important to be direct. It is essential to focus on work-related issues and state the objective realities that concerns you. Clarify your thoughts about the situation, and why it bothers you. Are you concerned that your project is not being completed properly? Is it taking too long? Is it too expensive? Is it difficult to get along with someone else on the project? Explain what your goals are and how you would like the situation to be resolved. Before the meeting, plan out your thoughts and ideas to make the most of your time.

As students, we can sometimes forget that professors are busy people. Most of them teach, serve on committees, write grant requests, travel to conferences, and mentor graduate students. While problems with your research and coursework are central to you, they are only one of the many items on your professor’s radar. This makes effective communication central to a working relationship with them. If you feel stuck in your research or academic work or the writing of a paper or manuscript, then it is time to utilize your effective communication skills and schedule a meeting with your advisor.

Being a full-time employee and part-time graduate student: A week in the life

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Written by Penelope Seagrave, Human Factors M.S. 2019

I work full-time as an Engineer at Cognex and am also a part–time graduate student. This semester, I’m enrolled in two evening classes at Tufts as I work on my masters in Human Factors Engineering. I thoroughly enjoy these courses, and find the assignments interesting and worth the precious time that I forfeit to work on them on Saturdays and Sundays. Occasionally, I may work through lunch on an assignment, but typically I am able to manage by finishing assignments exclusively over the weekend. Weekends are now my productive time. Honestly, it’s encouraged me to be more responsible and disciplined in my life overall. While it does mean that I spend more Friday or Saturday nights at home, I’ve come to realize that having an entire weekend day full of productivity is a truly fulfilling experience, and worth the potential FOMO. Working on a Sunday makes me feel like a responsible adult.

While I could choose to do homework assignments in the evenings during the workweek, I find myself extra inclined towards procrastination after I’ve spent the whole day working already. So, for me, it’s easier to plan to devote a weekend day. During the week, I prepare by reading over the assignments and getting a solid sense of the expectations so I can predict how long I will need to complete it, and then I save the work for the weekend.

There are some projects that are better broken down into steps over the course of many days. This goes for studying too. Especially for design courses that encourage an iterative process, I tend to work on my assignments after work and sometimes during my lunch breaks. This allows me to space the time better and also solicit feedback from my coworkers, which I have found to be an incredibly helpful and unexpected bonus.

So far, I have been able to manage working full time while in graduate school very smoothly. And the best part is that I have an income while in school. If you are considering this option, check to see if your company offers tuition reimbursement. Having money coming in while I’m in school is fabulous. There is no way I could go back to my old college days of ramen noodles.

I will say that the consequences of being a part-time student are felt primarily in the length of time it takes to complete the program. For example, if I were a full-time student, I could have graduated in two semesters. Now I’m completing my fourth semester and looking forward to my final full semester in the fall, with a one-course summer session in between.

But the upside is that I get to be a Tufts student for a longer period of time. I love being a Jumbo! And because I’ve been attending classes here for so long, I feel it has a stronger place in my identity. I am really proud to be studying at Tufts.

The Do’s and Don’ts of Being a TA

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Written by Priyanjana Pramanik, Economics M.S. 2018

I’ve been a TA now for a little more than a year, which means that I have wisdom to share (not really, but I’ll try). Being a teaching assistant has been exhausting, rewarding, and, much to my surprise, quite enjoyable. Now, this might be a little disorganized, but I’ll try to make it as educational as possible. I’ll skip the basics: you know the absolute no-no’s! I’m going to go straight to the stuff that I think is making me a better TA than I was before.

When I started out last year, I was absolutely terrified. I remembered every tiny bit of advice that I’d been given, including ‘never apologize’, ‘don’t let them know you’re afraid’, ‘never give out your cell phone number’, and loads more, but honestly, all that stuff just scared me more. My first recitation didn’t go well. Nor did the second. In fact, I don’t remember feeling like I’d done justice to a single recitation session the entire semester.

Which brings me to my first don’t. Don’t make the recitation about yourself. It’s very easy to do that because you’re in front of a classroom, and you have performance anxiety, and you feel continuously judged. But it isn’t about how you do. Your job is to get through the material that you’ve been told to cover, because the students in your recitation need help with it. They’re struggling with concepts that you, the grad student, already know, and you can help them! It’s all about them. While it may seem pretty basic, making my recitations about the students and what they needed, instead of focusing on how I was doing, improved my performance in recitations a great deal.

However, all the best intentions in the world aren’t going to help you if you aren’t familiar with the material. This is especially true for concepts that you’ve known for a very long time. For me, as an economics grad student, that includes things related to probability, random variables and other statistical matters that I’ve been working with now for about five years. (Yes, five years.) And the problem with being over-familiar with concepts is that they seem simple to you, and you don’t simplify them enough when explaining them. You skip steps because in your mind, they’re obvious. The way out is simple. Prepare for recitations! Especially if it’s stuff you know. Sometimes I practice my spiel for lab sessions on my classmates. Occasionally I’ve practiced over Skype on my long-suffering boyfriend.

There are two other very good reasons for preparing for recitations. One is that it makes you feel less nervous. The other is that you can focus less on the material and more on how students are responding to it. You become more aware when they understand something you just said, and when it wasn’t clear enough. Making eye contact also helps. For someone like me, that can be a challenge, but it’s extremely useful.

Try and make things interactive. This year, for example, when I’m doing practice problems with my recitation section, I’ve had them make little groups. I give them a few minutes to work on it, and then we go through it together. Students feel more comfortable sharing their work when they’re not alone. They get nervous too!

Last pieces of advice. Don’t sweat the grading. Put some music on, be as consistent as you can, and don’t think too much about it. Set boundaries. Don’t set a precedent for always responding to emails in half an hour, or having extra meetings for students who can’t make it to office hours. I try to be as accommodating as I can, but it’s important to get the message across that you have a lot on your plate too. A lot. Don’t look at other TAs and think, I wish I could do such a good job. Be yourself, and you’re going to find a teaching style that makes you absolutely awesome. Finally, ask for help whenever you’re unsure. The professor you work with will be happy to clear up any doubts you have.

Anyway, remember those horrible recitations I was having last fall? When I got back to school for the Spring semester, I found a card in my mailbox from one of my students, thanking me and telling me that they really appreciated what I’d done in recitations. Guess I wasn’t such a bad TA after all.