Grad School: The Fourth Month of My Masters Degree

The final month of my Masters degree while I'm still in Canada has finally come to an end! I leave for Germany on December 29th, so let me tell you all that's happened this month leading up to the move.

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Let's talk the events and perks (and some personal)!

We had our last classes at the end of November, so December started with the 11th Annual German Language Teaching & Learning Workshop in Toronto. This workshop took place on December 5th, was organized by the University of Toronto, and funded by the DAAD. It focused on 4 main topics presented by 4 pairs of educators across 3 Canadian universities; The University of Waterloo, University of Toronto, and McGill University.

The 4 presentation were on tools to create grammar activities (H5P), how history is incorporated into DaF teaching, teaching using retrieval practise activities - based on the book Powerful Teaching by Pooja Agarwal & Bain (my personal favourite), and AI in the classroom.

The second last presentation was based of a book called Powerful Teaching (a book I'm definitely going to read) and talked all about the benefits of retrieval practise activities as well as the different types that exist. As I understand it, it's the act of retrieving information on a given topic without the supports of class notes or other aids. It's simply, "How much do you remember on the topic?". It helps to point out to students and educators where the areas of weakness are and is said to strengthen the neural pathways between long term and short term memory through repetition.

During this presentation, I found myself thinking of one of my adult ESL students. I thought how beneficial this would be for vocabulary practise, since retrieval is a huge part of this, and the ways we already employ retrieval. We use activities such as flashcards and spaced out retrieval practice (space between learned material and retrieval), but this presentation gave me more variety of activities such as content maps, brain dumps, 'two things', and so many more.

Two things is something we actually already do at the center I work for, but we call it Last 6. Essentially, each student (3 in this case) spends 2 minutes (collectively the last 6 minutes) talking about what they've learned from class today. Usually, instead of getting them to tell me something, I ask them question related to what we learned that day as a kind of unsupported retrieval. The idea behind it at the centre is to help develop an active mind when learning - not just going through the motions of learning, but being actively engaged in the process.

At the workshop they suggested using this activity as a 'ticket' to leave the classroom, which is also similar to how we use it at the centre since it's at the end of class. It's definitely a good strategy for retrieval practise and definitely one I want to continue incorporating into my teaching going forward. I wonder how I can modify it for my adult learners?

Anyway, let's talk food! It was a long day of presentations. They started at 9:30am, after a short catered breakfast with everyone, and continued until about 5pm. In between there we had a lunch break, catered of course, had 2 more presentations then went to dinner at The Duke of York, which went until about 8pm. Thankfully, the whole time we had endless amounts of coffee, tea, juices, and yummy catering, which did have gluten free and lactose free options!

For the breakfast section, I had some fruit, a gluten free/vegan carrot muffin, some coffee, and orange juice. For the lunch section, they set out a bunch of different kinds of sandwiches and a salad along with some pastries, but I brought my own salad to be on the safer side. They did however, have a gluten free/vegan chocolate chip cookie.

If you remember my trip to Virginia, I similarly stashed the gluten free/vegan goodies in my bag so that I would have munchies for the next day. I totally had another one of the gluten free/vegan cookies for breakfast the next day and another carrot muffin as a snack before the train ride home.

Whenever I'm out and about like this and they have a gluten free/vegan option for me it's always either Udi's or Sweet Of The Earth and they've never let me down. I really need a sponsor from them lol.

For dinner, the restaurant had a set meal for us since we were a party of 30+, but the staff there were so kind that they were willing to make me something special since I couldn't eat anything on the set menu. They specially made me a garden salad with grilled chicken and balsamic on the side, which was yummy and quite filling. They did serve some desserts afterwards, but I think by that point, everyone so super full.

It was at this dinner that I had the chance to see the DAAD representative for Toronto again for the first time since New York. To my surprise, he remembered who I was. I also had the chance to chat with the grad students a bit more and met an ambitious young international student. He was an undergraduate at an event full of Master/PhD students, and Professors. I don't know if I would've been as brave in my undergrad as he was, but he was lovely to meet.

After dinner, there was some socializing and chatting away with everyone, but I left the dinner earlier than the rest of us from my university. I wanted to head back to the hotel to relax after an 11+ hour day, to help my sister with a paper she was writing for school, and to enjoy the hotel pool.

Hotel pools are always a hit or miss. I find they are oftentimes too cold for me and too crowded, but this pool was actually nicely warm and wasn't too busy.

The hotel room was on the smaller side, but was still quite nice. There were 2 beds, a desk and desk chair, a wall mounted TV, a mini fridge in the front closet, and a nice, though small, bathroom. They also had a coffee machine with coffee, tea, and some complimentary water - a fairly standard hotel room. Most hotels have a random brand of shampoo and soap that no one has heard of before, but this hotel used Dove products which was a nice surprise. It was close to a grocery store and a station on the TTC, so the location was pretty nice too.

We stayed from the 4th to the 6th since there were quite a few out-of-towners (me included) and an event the day before the workshops for the grad students in my department, but more on that later.

I roomed with one of the other grad students from my university and, similar to New York, it was a nice pair up. It was nice getting to know one of the grad students outside of classes better. We ended up spending the Saturday together, waddling around Kensington market, shopping at vintage clothing stores, and eating breakfast at this cute film cafe. I'd never been to Kensington market before, so it was nice getting so see another side of Toronto.

We also ended up checking out the Christmas Market happening at St. Lawrence market and it was really cute, though super busy on a Saturday.

On this trip, I had many more opportunities to chat with all the grad students in smaller settings than I had all semester long. I've never been good in big group settings, especially when I'm not familiar with everyone, so getting these little one-on-ones with them while, for example, walking to the venues, was a nice chance to learn more about them.

I've had some pretty loud thoughts of self doubt this entire semester and so many people have be telling me that they aren't true, but I'm hard headed, so I don't listen easily. Getting to chat with the grad students in more personal settings on a more personal level was really needed on my end I think. I've known for quite some time that I am a visual learner academically, but I think this is true in more avenues as well. I think I'm someone who has to see it to believe it otherwise I'm prone to think and believe the worst of a situation.

Like I said earlier, before the workshops started on the Friday, all the out-of-towners, like me and those from my university, came in the day before. There were 5 students and 2 professors in total coming from my university. I went into Toronto on the GoTrain with a friend of mine, who happened to be catching the same train as me, and had some time before I could check-in to the hotel, so we spent some time shopping and grabbing lunch.

She's leaving for New Zealand around the same time I am leaving for Germany, is also going for school, and will also be gone for a year. It's been really nice having someone going through something similar at the same time as me. It's not just complaining about the stresses of moving abroad, it's complaining with understanding which is always nice to be able to share.

Once all of us could all get checked in, we didn't spend much time at the hotel since we were all heading off to a professor's house. She lives in Toronto and planned a "Gradwichteln" event for all the graduate students to go to the same weekend the workshop was happening. I wasn't quite sure what this kind of event was prior to going. I assumed it was a sort of potluck/ blind gift exchange kind of thing. It turned out to be a sort of white elephant kind of thing. I'd heard of events like those before, but never actually participated in them.

If you're like me and didn't/don't know what white elephant is, then let me enlighten you based on my experience with it. Essentially, everyone brings a gift that can be really anything: funny, unique, practical, etc. (though most people seem to enjoy the funny ones). People then roll a dice that decides who gets to pick a gift (it's possible to get more than one or get none at this stage). You then open the gifts so that everyone can see what's available. From there, we would roll the dice again and if we landed on certain double numbers, we could steal a gift or all the gifts would have to move to the left. There was a time limit for this and once it's up, the gifts you have in front of you are yours to keep.

It was quite fun honestly, even if I ended up with my own gift by the end. There was a lot of trying to push 'interesting' gifts on a certain person, or re-gifting of gifts that had be won the year prior.

One of the gifts had a holiday song humming game in it which we ended up playing. We split into 2 groups to compete with each other. We had to pick up a card and hum that holiday song and our team had to guess the song. It ended up being harder than we thought it would be since many of us didn't know the songs or not enough of them to hum them. Still fun though.

That's it for the perks and events this month.

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Let's talk the academics!

All that was left in December was the end of term grading for both the courses I was T.A.ing for, to complete the final paper for one of my courses, and the final reflection for the other.

The final reflection went well. Back in November, I did 3 interviews with professors in my department to learn more about a life in academia; what the teaching is like, the research process, and the mentorship they provide to their graduate students. All the interviews were really informative and gave me a lot of food for thought for not only the career, but also as I progress in finding a supervisor for my thesis.

The final paper for my other course was actually quite fun to write and research for. The last 4 months have been quite challenging on a personal level for me, but going through the writing, brainstorming, and editing process for this paper reminded me why I chose the thesis route. I really love writing, in all avenues - academic and non. I think, the further I get into the thesis writing process, the more I'll enjoy my Masters.

So long as I can get the approval to publish the data I used for the final paper outside of my course, I plan to submit the paper to a conference happening in May. I don't think I'll actually get in since I'm a Masters candidate with only 4 months under her belt and I'm competing with seasoned researchers and professors, but it's a good exercise to get real-world experience with conference paper proposals. Perhaps, I could still go to the conference to see it from the view of the spectator too? I think it would be a good exercise in seeing what got approved and how it's presented, but we'll have to see how it progresses. I'll know in January whether or not I've been accepted to present at the conference.

End of term grading went by a lot easier this time since I had a better idea of what to expect and look for. It was still a ton of grading - 41 essay and 46 midterms - but it took less time to complete and went smoother. I did most of my grading for one of the courses on the train ride back from Toronto and the rest after I finished my final paper. I think everything for this semester was finished by December 15, which is not bad timing I think.

That's it for the academics for this month.

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Let's talk the personal side of things!

I've had some feedback all semester long that I've been struggling with. I think I talked about it a little bit in the first post of this series, but essentially I've been told I'm a pretty quiet person. This isn't news to me, I've been pretty quiet and introverted since about middle school. It takes me longer to warm up to people and I can be sensitive when it comes to certain topics in my life, school being on of them. Because of this, it can be hard to for me to be open to criticism or playful jabs and offer my thoughts in group settings. I'm typically good with constructive criticism when I can see a way to work through the feedback, but when I'm unsure how to proceed or unsure if it's something I'm capable of, it's a lot harder to swallow.

I think I am a fantastic teacher who is not shy with her students, be it my younger or adults students. I'm confident in my writing, my teaching abilities, and the opinions I have on certain topics. But when it comes to expressing them in graduate settings, I feel very inferior to everyone else in the room. That's not a feeling I struggle with much however. At this stage in my graduate studies, I'm okay being inferior because I accept that I am. I know that, compared to everyone else around me, I have the least experience and so I have the most to learn. That doesn't bother me, I like learning.

What does bother me though, is being told that I have to act as though I am not, as if I'm on even footing with everyone else, when I know that I'm not. I'm not personally bothered by being at a different stage than everyone else, but everyone else seems to be. I've never been good with putting on a persona - "faking it till you make it" kind of thing you know? People have said to take the energy I have at the centre and use it in my grad studies and I've tried, but it's not the same. I'm confident at work because I genuinely know and believe I am a smart and well versed educator in this setting. I know what I'm doing and have strategies for when things get tough. I wasn't like this in the beginning though, it took time and experiences to develop that.

I've said so many times over this semester that maybe that's what I need here too to feel genuinely confident in my abilities, and it just feels like I've been pushed to adjust faster, which is not something I can or want to do. That doesn't mean I won't be a good academic, it simply means I have my own pace and there's nothing wrong with that.

This kind of feedback hit me really hard in September, but since going through the book The Crafts of Research, I realized that my 'audience' may not be the people I'm currently surrounded by, and that's okay. Being able to stand your ground is part of being an academic, and I need to learn to better advocate for myself instead of trying to bend to the wants of those around me.

I talked with my dad recently, telling him how everyone tells me to talk more in discussions, but when I do, I'm constantly interrupted or shut down. I said it seems pointless to share my opinions when they aren't ones that want to be heard. He told me that if I feel that way, I at least need to make it clear to those in the discussion that they aren't acting like they want to hear my opinion. I think that's easier for me to do that to constantly fight to be heard.

That said however, I've been told recently that German education is quite different; they don't grade for participation (not forced to talk if I have nothing to say) and there isn't much group work or presentations. Things are slower paced too with the longer semesters (ours are 4 months and theirs are 6 months), so I'm hopefully that my classes next year will go better than they have this semester.

Needless to say, personally speaking, I'm glad the semester is over and that I'm moving into the next chapter of this degree.

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All that's left now is to finish packing up my apartment, move out, pack for Germany, and hop on a plane. As of writing this, I have 15 days left before my flight. These last 4 months have gone by in a blur and time only feels like it's going faster the closer it gets to my flight.

The next chapter of this journey is just about to start ya'll! I'm looking forward to continuing this monthly series, but also to starting another where I just talk about living in Germany. What should I call it? The Germany Journey?

Let me know you ideas in the comments below!