Grad School: The Third Month of My Masters Degree
- Frau Hannah
- Jan 12
- 11 min read
I can't believe it's already the 3rd month of my Masters degree! Time has flown by! Let's talk about it.
Let's start the same way we usually do by talking about the events and perks of this month!
This month was honestly quite busy with academics, so the next section will be full for sure, but for events, I went to 2 workshops and one award event.
The first workshop was the first part of the Rock Your Thesis Program at the uni called Plan Your Project. This workshop is meant for students who are further along in their graduate program, - either MA or PhD - but since I'll be in Germany all of next year, I would've missed it, so better too early than late.
They gave all of us a plethora of online worksheets to do throughout the presentation and I honestly found them quite helpful. It started out with a thesis investigation which involved us looking at similar theses and picking through them to see what kind of formatting they have, what structures, what types of words are used in them, etc. Being someone who is definitely a visual learner, it helped a lot to see a real example, specifically a successful example, of what an MA Thesis looks like in my department.
After then we did some identifying of some milestones and created an informal timeline of milestones specific to each student. Due to the different faculties and stages of graduate programs at the workshop, each timeline looked different. My milestones involve writing a research proposal, a thesis prospectus, preparing an MA colloquium, and a few other steps.
In my department, they have a suggested timeline for these steps, but a lot of them I want to do earlier, so the day after this workshop, I had a meeting with my mentor and he helped clear a few things up for me. While there is a set structure for my MA program, it is flexible, meaning if I want to do some steps earlier, I can.
With all this in mind, the tentative plan for next year is to get my research proposal and thesis prospectus written, submitted, and approved by about June or so, since I plan to spend the beginning half of the year just reading a ton and taking a ton of notes. After that, I can work on actually writing my thesis. I also wanted to have my supervisor decided by the end of December, but beginning of January seems more likely now.
The following week, I had another workshop put on by the same people, but this time it was an online workshop. This one was all about publishing in academic journals.
We have been talking about journals and the publishing process all semester long in one of my courses, so a lot of the information wasn't super new to me, but there were still quite a few good details. Specifically, we went over the best practises when responded to feedback from the peer reviewers and how to decipher whether it's been rejected - cannot be resubmitted, sent back for revision with the possibility of resubmission, or sent back with a want of resubmission.
They also gave us some resources and advice on where to find journals to submit to, but this is something I've done with my professor already, so I already have a list specific to me.
At the end of the month, I did attend an event for the undergraduate language classes for German, Dutch, and Russian called the Boar Awards (the Arts faculty's mascot is a Boar). That was unplanned however, since it was on the last day of classes for me. Everyone else in the department was going, so I figured I should go too.
The purpose of the Boar Awards is to showcase some of the final video projects put together by groups of students in these language classrooms and vote for "best scriptwriting", "best props", etc. They each win a prize, there's some snacks, and the videos tend to be quite funny and entertaining to watch, even if I can't understand the Russian ones.
Other than those 2 workshops and the Board Awards, that's about it for events and perks this month, quieter in this area for November.
Let's talk the academics!
Things have progressed more with the German side of things thankfully. I finally have my housing sorted. I cannot begin to tell you how good it feels to know that I finally have a home to call my own in Germany. The amount of stress that has lifted off my shoulders knowing I have a place to live for the whole year I am there is huge!
I applied online through their portal and went back and forth over email solidifying details with the coordinator. I've ended up with a little place on my own, with my own kitchen and bathroom in Mannheim. I pay just under 500 Euros a month for the place which is roughly $800 CAD; that is half of what I paid back home (about $1400 CAD monthly).
I had the pay the first 3 months upfront while I was still in Canada, so I did a Global Money Transfer through my bank. I paid about $2500 CAD because of the conversion rate, still not terrible though. Of course the place is smaller, but I love micro-apartments and it comes with free WIFI and utilities included, so I think I'll really love my cute little place.
Unlike regular German apartments, it comes fully furnished, with a Kochnische - Kitchenette -, and some Möbeln - Furniture - such as a bed, closet, a desk and desk chair, etc. I already cannot wait to give you all an apartment tour in February! I'm gonna need help decking it out, so send me any and all ideas you have on decor for micro-apartments. I've been watching a lot of renter friendly makeovers lately and I'm currently toying with the idea of putting contact paper over my minifridge, could be cute.
This month is also when I got an email offering me a position as a research assistant at a lab in the university. I have yet to get all the paperwork sorted out for the position since I need proof of German health insurance and a German bank account, both I can't get until I'm in Germany. So, look forward to hearing more about that in later posts.
I also started grading for my cultures course this month. The students' first midterms were due at the end of October, so I got started on grading shortly after that. I wasn't sure what to expecting going into the grading, so the process was completely new to me.
Each midterm ended up being between 10-20 pages long and they were all written answer questions regarding the course content. Needless to say, they took quite some time to grade, 3 weeks to be exact, which is quite long honestly. But in my defense there were nearly 50 of them, so roughly 750 pages or so in total.
Getting to grade these midterms was such an interesting experience for me. It was the first time I got grade such long, culminative assignments.
As such, I left a lot of feedback on the students' assignment, which both my profs said was rather time consuming and to be mindful of how much time I invest as many students don't bother with the feedback, they just look at their grades.
However, as future me can attest to, the professor running the cultures course said he had no complaints about my grading but rather saw more engagement from the students - more emails asking how they can improve going forward, which is by far the biggest complement one can get as a educator.
I was still grading for my other course, the one on fairytales, but the grading for that course is easier since they assignments are short form essays (about 2-3 pages) even though there are about 50 of those too.
Let's talk about my work as a Masters student.
This month I had all my interviews with the available professors in my department. I met with 2 professors I'm currently being taught by and 1 other prof who I had in my undergrad. The interviews were really interesting. I honestly really love interviewing and getting to know people better on-on-one. I tend to be a pretty good listener and I'm always curious about academia, so this was quite fun honestly.
I noticed some overlap in answers such as having a plan B career since being a prof is really competitive and the market is really rough right now, which is valid and honest advice. It made me think about what else I would be happy doing if I can't make academia into a career and I came up with a few answers. I think I'd make a good flight attendant and the traveling would be great for the blog as well as improving my language abilities. I'd definitely a good ESL teacher - traveling or stationary, a private school teacher, and I'm sure it comes a no surprise, but a career in journalism also sounds like something I'd enjoy.
During my chats with my mentor this term about the process of publishing in journals, I learned how long the process can take - a year or longer in some cases. While my original plan was to do my PhD right after my Masters, I've decided to take 2 years off between them so that I can get some works published in that time. During this time off is when I want to try my hand at these alternative careers.
It's also during this time that I want to pick up another language, either Dutch or Korean or both. I need another language for my PhD requirements, 3 in total. If I ended up doing my PhD in the Netherlands like I plan to, Dutch would be the most beneficial. It's also the one closest to my own heritage being a 3rd generation immigrant from Holland. But I also really love Korean. I'm hoping I can do both without burning myself out.
I also had chats with my mentor regarding auditing psychology courses once I'm back in Canada. I want to focus more on linguistics that are specific to the individual, to be more in psycho-linguistics than socio-linguistics. Auditing the courses allows me to take the courses, gain all the material, but not receive a credit for it and possibly not do the assignments. I think it would be helpful for my focus of Linguistic Relativity.
This month is also when I had the second presentation of my Masters (same class but a different topic) on the topic of my final paper. I can't talk too much about it just yet as I hoping to present it at a conference this spring, but it's on monolingual language ideologies and second language educators.
I did the presentation in front of the other Masters students, all the profs I interviewed, and one of the PhD students. I think this presentation, while definitely still lacking in a few things, went a lot smoother than the first one. I think the other Masters students were more nervous with more profs there, but I actually felt better with more professors there. I think a big part of that is that I already knew and took classes with all of them in my undergrad and of course that fact that one of them was my mentor. I got some good feedback that helped to strengthen my final paper, so I left this presentation feeling good, not something I could say for the first one.
Overall, it was a busy month of academics.
Let's talk the personal side of things!
This was the second to last month I had in my apartment in Canada. It was busy with packing, moving my things to my mom's place nearly 2 hours away, and painting over my grey, light blue, and navy blue geometric patterns. It was so time consuming, but I had some wonderful friends come over to help paint. We chatted, ate some snacks, and chatted away while painting.
Honestly, it was such a challenging experience sometimes. Seeing the personality being wiped out by white paint and empty spaces was such a physical re-enforcement of a new chapter of my life. Thankfully, I did it in stages over 2 months, but it was still hard at times to come to terms with the change.
I've lived in that apartment for nearly 10 years - the longest I lived anywhere. Since I moved out at 18, I spent the majority of my 20's in that apartment. I had my first alcoholic drink there. It was the first time I lived with anyone other than my family. When I first moved in, I was still a teenager just about to start her Bachelors degree, and by the time I move out, I'll be a fully grown young adult who had just started her Masters degree and is moving continents. I've grown so much at the apartment, I think I really will miss it. But there will also be so many more memories to be made in my first German apartment.
I also got sick this month sadly. I hadn't been sick since February when I had pneumonia, so I was pretty bummed when I got sick. I ended up doing my paper presentation while sick. The people in my department are so serious about not getting sick that whenever one of us comes in sick, they are segregated away from everyone else. So, I was put in the far corner of room and no one sat near me. It's definitely not a great feeling, but I also understand why they do it and I think if I was the healthy one, I would appreciate the distance too.
Regarding mindset, in my second to last lecture with one of my profs, we discussed a topic we've been discussing for pretty much the entire term. It has to do with my confidence in my degree. I've talked about it in past posts already, but the synopsis is that I'm not very confident in my abilities as a scholar right now.
Something he's been telling me about any type of criticism I might be getting/will be getting is that it comes from a place of vested interest. Journals want to publish papers, so it doesn't do them any good to have a track record of rejecting articles often. The same goes with my profs. When I receive feedback on my assignments, presentations, research ideas, it's all done with good intentions to help me progress and succeed.
I talk about it with my mentor, but I'm not normally so 'sensitive' with feedback when it comes to my job. I actually look forward to the quarterly reviews I have with my boss because I want the feedback on where I can improve to become a better teacher to my students. When it comes to my MA though, I find the feedback really challenging at times. I've done some reflecting over the last 3 months and I think it comes as no surprise that my degree is very personal to me in a way my job isn't.
That's not to say that my job isn't personal, it just doesn't hit the same nerves in me that my degree does. I think I tie a lot of my self worth to my education, making it harder to separate my work from my personal feelings, especially since my thesis topic - linguistic relativity - is something that is strongly linked to a core belief of mine - that words have power, and so we should be aware of what we say and how it can impact us and those around us. My job simply doesn't have the same degree of personal connection.
He also has reminded me on a number of occasions that I was accepted into this program for a reason. It wasn't by fluke or accident, they saw my credentials and the same goes in the future if/when I get an article published, or invited to a conference. They saw something in me and in my work that they wanted.
I say it all the time right now, but I think it'll just take time and more experience for me to really believe that I do offer value, others see that value, and they want to invest in that to help me improve. I'm rather slow when it comes to these sorts of things, so I think I'll get there eventually, just at a different pace than perhaps those around me.
Long story long, it was a busy 3rd month of my Masters. So much happened this month, it really feels like a blur.
Next month is shorter with it being a half month. My last class was on the 27 of November and the final paper is due on Dec. 10th. After that, it's just end of term grading, so there'll be more independent work which will hopefully be a nice change of pace.
Let's see what next month has in store!
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