Musings of a Ph.D. student

I would like to talk about Balancing Life and Work this week. Since I had a health scare, I need to dramatically change my life and lifestyle. I need to learn how to say no sometimes to my friends and create boundaries. There is only one of me to go around; so it is no good if I am not here. I appreciated this much-needed discussion we had this week! From this week’s reading and discussion, I also learned that I would learn about Effective and Inclusive Instruction in the Effective College Teaching class. Here are some guidelines: Learn Students’ Names, Be Mindful of How You Interact with Students, Uncover the Hidden Curriculum, Set the Tone Early, Start with Low Stakes, Share your Experiences, Choose your Questions Carefully, Validate Students’ Answers, Acknowledge your Limits, and Avoid Putting Students on the Spot. I also learned about Effective and Inclusive Mentoring. The best kind of mentor is a fierce advocate for their students. Advocacy is not merely showing up, but rea...

Sorry for the late post! I was admitted to the hospital last Thursday and was discharged on Tuesday. For this post, I want to talk about self-care. My goal is to take care of myself better while going through the program. This includes eating on time, taking my meds on time, exercising 30 minutes for 5 days a week, and refraining from drinking coffee, which will elevate my blood pressure. I didn’t expect how difficult the Ph.D. program would be, especially Advanced Statistics. It is a lot more work than I expected. I feel like I work on it every day, all day. What are y’all thoughts?? I want to know your thoughts on what to do for self-care, such as a hot shower or bubble bath, reading something fun, eating out with family or friends, cooking, meditating, or doing some kind of exercise. So my point is, reward yourself after a grueling week of work! Michelle

  I want to define and demonstrate an elevator pitch. An elevator pitch has two components: the headline and the elaboration. The headline is a concrete, one-sentence summary of your work. If the person asks follow-up questions, then give the elaboration, which should take no longer than a minute. Michelle- Human Development and Family Sciences Headline:  I study if teenage boys and girls have the same experience with chemotherapy-related baldness. While little girls, college-age women, and grown women have been studied with their counterparts--little boys, college-age men, and grown men, there is scant literature about the population that I am proposing. Elaboration:  Girls and women tend to have a bigger impact on self-esteem from chemotherapy-related baldness.   I focus on adolescents/teenagers because, according to psychologist Erik Erikson, this is when a person's self-identity develops.  It is also when small things have a big impact on self-esteem. A...

  I was pleased to find a multitude of articles for my Literature Review Charting Project.   I have found close to 20 articles.   I have found that while there is a lot of literature on certain parts of my topic-I have to craft my own, specific topic and do all the work of digging a hole to plant the tree.   For example, I would like to study psychosocial/family support for children or adolescents with chemotherapy-induced alopecia. I have come across two dissertations about the family system and the alopecia.   However, the first dissertation I am interested in reading is for alopecia-areata, an autoimmune disorder.   The other dissertation is about women breast cancer survivors in the UK, and it studies familial disclosure. Another article that is close to my topic is “ The lived experience of stigmatization due to chemotherapy-induced hair loss for young women with cancer who attend college” I am interested in this topic because of the word stigmatiz...