{"id":273,"date":"2016-07-12T15:20:40","date_gmt":"2016-07-12T15:20:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/?p=273"},"modified":"2016-07-12T15:20:40","modified_gmt":"2016-07-12T15:20:40","slug":"this-summer-is-extremely-busy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/this-summer-is-extremely-busy\/","title":{"rendered":"This summer is extremely busy…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blog_Meghan\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This summer is extremely busy for me. I\u2019m doing two classes, working on one Graduate Assistantship, and I\u2019m also a TA for an undergraduate level course. This is all on top of a part-time job that I\u2019ve taken on so that I can be prepared for the end of my fellowship funding. A lot of this year has involved being very focused on the now<\/em>, but as I reach the end of my program I\u2019m starting to plan for what\u2019s next. I\u2019m glad that I\u2019ve been developing and refining my time-management skills over the course of the year, because while this workload is heavy, I find I\u2019m better able to balance it, even in the final \u201ccrunch time\u201d that we\u2019re entering now. I\u2019m also far better at asking for help than I ever was before, and I really try to find time to balance work, exercise, a healthy lifestyle, and personal time.<\/p>\n

My program will be done after the fall semester, when I\u2019ll be taking a 6999 course \u2013 that\u2019s the registration number for an independent study. I\u2019m trying to transition gradually back into working, and in preparation for that, I\u2019m giving myself a six-month buffer before I expect to return to my previous career, teaching ESL. For the next few months my focus will be on taking everything I worked on this year and developing an academic CV and a teaching dossier with the help of Career Development and Experiential Learning<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve worked hard to consider how the skills I\u2019ve learned this year can apply to both academic and non-academic jobs. I\u2019m a firm believer that a graduate degree in the humanities can be useful to both academic and non-academic-track careers; I think of it as opening doors that I can\u2019t even see yet. It has also let me leave the door open on the possibility of pursuing a PhD later on. I feel that now I have a much better understanding of my field, the skills needed to succeed in it, and where I fit in the overall academic world.<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s very important to prepare for the immediate end of the program in terms of practical tasks, because I\u2019m anticipating an identity change to come sneaking in and I know from experience that it will probably take me by surprise. We change a lot over the course of our programs, but most of the time, it\u2019s so incremental we don\u2019t really notice it. It wasn\u2019t even until the end of last semester that I had a moment of, \u201cah ha! I\u2019m really a graduate student, and I got this.\u201d<\/em> I was leaving the Arts building with a pile of books from last semester, returning them at the end of the four-month loan period that we get them for, and I was really feeling the weight of all the ideas in them \u2013 literally and figuratively. It\u2019s during these moments of practical activity that the ideas and theories we\u2019ve learned settle down and take a permanent place in our worldview.<\/p>\n

As I walked my books back to the library and thought about the key ideas that had taken root in my identity, I thought about the symbolic act of returning the knowledge in the books back for some other student to take out and go through the same process as I had. The sense of continuity in the academic world happens outside of the papers and the presentations and classes that make it up, although these are important parts of our degrees. But the moments in between where we stop and think about ourselves in relation to the whole of learning and other learners are important, too. This is something that\u2019s always been at the foundation of my philosophy as a teacher, and I find that while I enjoyed returning to the student role again and that moment where I really felt like a graduate student was great, I miss being on the other side of that process, pointing students in the right direction of academic continuity.<\/p>\n

The next few months will go by in a blur, I know. It\u2019s only July, but I\u2019m thinking about the end of the term already, with only four weeks left to go. Then vacation in August, then the last term.<\/p>\n

September is always my favorite time of the year, as it signifies new academic opportunities and beginnings, but I\u2019m anticipating a bit of creeping nostalgia as my year as a graduate student draws to a close and I find myself on campus less and less. The next time I take out library books for a four-month loan puts a definite timeline on the end of my program and signifies the next step of my life as I go back to teaching. I\u2019m measuring the time I have left in my program in pages of papers, chapters of books, and library loan periods.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This summer is extremely busy for me. I\u2019m doing two classes, working on one Graduate Assistantship, and I\u2019m also a TA for an undergraduate level course. This is all on top of a part-time job that I\u2019ve taken on so that I can be prepared for the end of my fellowship funding. A lot of … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-meghan-loch","4":"post-273","6":"format-standard","7":"category-student-blog"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":277,"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions\/277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}