A Cluttered Desk and a Cluttered Mind

cover letters are so hard! as someone just getting back into the swing of things in terms of applying for jobs, and since i’m not sure what kind of work you’re applying for, i’m not entirely sure how helpful i’ll be (i am untried! untested!), but here are the ‘rules’ i follow:

in terms of structure, keep it simple!

first paragraph is what job you’re applying for, how you found it, and maybe a quick (quick) line about why you’re qualified/perfect for it; something to keep ‘em reading.

second paragraph is a more explicit ‘let me brag about myself’ paragraph: show them why you’re qualified, using statistics or examples if possible. keep ‘em pithy, but indicate the skills and experience you have that the employer wants or would find useful. don’t just repeat what’s on your resume - they can see your resume! tell them, directly, why you’re great for the job, and try to use phrases and words from their job ad to show them that you know what you’re doing, you read their ad carefully, and that you understand what they’re asking in terms of the position requirements and what the position entails. depending on what kind of job you’re applying for (ie. academic cover letters will differ greatly from a cover letter for managing a retail store) this can potentially stretch into two paragraphs. typically, though, you want to keep your cover letter to a single page in length. give them only the most important and convincing info, the stuff that applies to that particular job, rather than a list of every single skill you’ve ever learned.

third paragraph is practical information plus a big thank you: repeat your phone number and email when you let them know you’d love to hear from them, and thank them for reading your letter. don’t get too fancy here, but feel free to express your enthusiasm for the position or the company if it’s something you’re really excited about.

things to remember:

people who look at resumes and cover letters already have a pretty solid idea of where they’re going to find the information that they’re looking for. you can mix things up a little bit to set yourself apart, but you don’t want to confuse them if they’re trying to see what job you’re applying for and you’ve hidden it somewhere in the middle of the second paragraph.

be pithy. a giant wall of text is not doing anyone any favours. it’s kind of like writing an essay: you want to make sure every single sentence is doing important work for you, whether that be communicating your enthusiasm, illustrating a skill, or listing a statistic. 

be specific. avoid vagueness! vagueness is hard for future employers to understand in a way that they can measure you up against other applicants. give short examples, explain how your experience gave you the skills you have, and be specific about what those skills are.

watch out for being generic. it is okay - it is good, even! - for your personality to shine through your cover letter. so long as you’re keeping it professional, giving them a glimpse of you as a person can help your cover letter stand out. 

Morning walks to work at 6am, York, England.

This is my first “aesthetic” post on my gradblr, and I thought I’d take the time to introduce myself.

Who am I? I’m Amy, I’m 24 and I’m from London, England.

What do I study? I’m currently doing my MA in Medieval Studies at the University of York, part-time.

I prefer coffee, I work in coffee shops and I have a coffee plant tattoo.

I pull all-nighters every deadline. I always find something that needs to be said - as a perfectionist, I can’t help but work right up to the deadline.

My most memorable teacher was my Lit teacher all through school. He managed to inspire the most troublesome members of our class and was my own inspiration for wanting to teach... but I don’t have his tolerance for young teens so I want to teach at uni!

I only ever write in black pen, and I use mildliners. My handwriting varies from illegible to downright average.

I’m currently trying to write my masters thesis and apply to PhDs in the USA, with the goal to go to NYU!

My studyblr/academic blog faves are @delphicoracle @blackgrad @studyquill @studyandtea @post--grad @hymnsofheresy

Ed stage: graduate/doctoral

Country: America

Ed Stage: graduate/masters

country: Germany

“i’ll tell you how i’ve learned to deal with this sort of thing. i didn’t develop a sense of joy in my academic study until i realized that what really matters is the work itself. it’s not about trying to impress anybody or trying to earn a specific grade. it’s all about loving the work, the reading, the writing, the critical conversation. and i think you do love those things, and you do enjoy your academic work when you can get out of your own way about it. now, where i’m at in my career, i have to think about what gets me up in the morning, and that’s not publishing 20 articles a year or seeking external approval. what it is, is writing, reading, and teaching about what I love, my own little academic world that i’ve created.” – prof c

 “i wrote shitty papers in college, and i still got a phd. you’re not supposed to know everything yet! you’re still learning! you know what, write that on a post-it and stick it on your laptop. you don’t have to know it all yet. you don’t have to be perfect.” – prof s

“while i can assure you that you should not feel like an imposter, i can also confess that the syndrome is common at all levels of academia – so you should not think yourself abnormal to be experiencing it.” (x)

“i hate to say/write this, but it’s sort of true: that you having these impostor-syndrome reactions, these worries about disappointing those you respect … to me, that sort of signals that you do have traits common to many successful academics! even people who have masses of success behind them – and, come to think of it, particularly the people who have a lot of cred *and* outside affirmation of it – suffer from impostor syndrome *if* (and the if is important) they genuinely care about the quality of their work. so: if it’s possible to think of these feelings as symptomatic of a characteristic many good academics share, then please do.                                                                                          (…) the important thing is this: how counterproductive it can be for self-sabotaging people to think of themselves as being ‘born’ to do something. it makes any possibility of missing the mark immediately existential. academic work is something one chooses because one has a strong interest in a certain field of study, an ability to study and produce credible work (as judged by ‘authorities’ in said field), and a social possibility to choose to proceed in that direction. sometimes, i, at least, find it helpful to remind myself of the simple facts of this.                       (…) i do think it’s important to put the activating gesture of entering grad school very firmly in your own hands. you are choosing this. you are choosing it because you want it, others have said that you are capable, and you have the practical possibility of choosing it. this is enough. the work will be enough without the existential heft, and the existential heft will not make the work better.” – s

Hi anonymous! Thank you for your question!

Okay so here is the skinny: I didn’t actually bother doing a masters. I graduated from my BA in July 2017 and i started my PhD in September 2018. HOWEVER I do have a few tips for studying effectively.

Find a schedule that works for you. Seriously. Okay so some things will be timetabled out of your control according to your profs availability or whatever but take control of the rest. I spent my first year of undergraduate studies trying to stay up late at night to work because I thought that was the done thing at university. It doesn’t work for me. I get up at 6.30am every morning and i start my work day at 7.30/8am. I go to bed at 11pm. People think I’m crazy but that’s when I’m most productive. Obviously this works in reverse too, don’t sit at your desk at 6.30am if you’re a late night worker - do what works best for you!

Follow your curiosity! Again, I wasted a lot of time producing mediocre essays on topics I thought my professors wanted to hear about instead of chasing the things that made me tick. Since I’ve started doing that the quality of my work and my enjoyment of it have sky rocketed.

Remind yourself breaks are PART of the process not an optional extra. Take five. Do a meditation. Eat something. Drink some water. Your work will be better for it.

In terms of how I actually study a TEXT the process goes like this: read the text, annotate as I go anything that looks interesting or weird or is repeated a lot. Write a lot of questions in my notebook. Finish the book- return to questions, select most interesting one with the most relevant textual evidence, search those key words to find out if anyone else has written an essay on this, if they haven’t i attempt to answer the question, if they have I read it and see if I agree, and if I don’t I write a response to their paper with my own answer to the question. If i agree with them i usually just pick another question lol

More on how to approach a text: look for patterns but also deviations and inconsistencies, look for where it is using other texts like novels or even songs or advertisements, think about tje context of its production, if all else fails go back to basics and close read the first page to see how it sets up the concerns of the text- then think about how well it follows through.

Ask for help and guidance. Professors are scary and you want them to think you’re smart but not using them as a resource is dumb af. Go to office hours or send them an email if you have questions.

Tip for editing essays: read it aloud if you have time. Actively force your brain to engage with what you’ve written. Does it make sense? Does it flow? Most fun if you pretend you are giving it to a conference audience that will supply rapturous applause.

Find somewhere you can actually study. If you get distracted working in your bedroom don’t work there. If the study commons or coffee shop is noisy and you need quiet don’t work there. If the library is cold and it’s distracting you don’t work there. Find a space that will keep you on track (this can be hard depending on your needs but if it is hard TALK TO YOUR DEPARTMENT / UNI ADMIN- personally I had real difficulty adjusting to how noisy American university libraries are so I talked to a prof and he was like ‘you can work in this disused classroom’ - solved!).

Hand writing notes helps retention and also you will not be tempted to copy and paste note style writing into an essay. Again this really depends on what you are like as a student but I used to have this massive hang up that EVERYTHING I typed had to come out PERFECT. Now I am queen of The Draft™. I free-write/brain dump everything I think about my topic into my notebook. Then I type a first draft - even if some of the points are literally analysed by me typing “bla bla something about sun tanning and the beauty industry’. Then I print it out and go through and mark it with a coloured pen. THEN I type it up. Not edit it. I type it up from scratch. Then I read it aloud and make minor edits and submit.

Do your readings and go to class! Not sure if you have classes but if you do hijack that shit when appropriate. Obviously don’t be That Guy. But if you are in a class and the discussion is moving towards talking about the presentation of Hollywood in F Scott Fitzgerald’s work and you want to write an essay on that then speak up and utilise the hive mind. Say 'what do you guys think about how this guy uses a megaphone in this part and what does it tell us about different kinds of "directing” going on in this book?’ Just say it- maybe someone else has noticed something you haven’t and it will help!!

2019 pt2 Journal Set Up ✨

Is this my most low effort journal set up in recent memory? No question. Is it also my new favourite? Very very probably.

I didn’t do a lot of pre-planning on this one, just sat down with a couple of pens, an empty notebook and figured out what felt right.

From top to bottom and left to right I’ve got a six month calendex, planning spillover and notes, my adventure zone relisten and Italian practice, and my monthly reading stats and challenges.

Good question.  Here are some thoughts; I hope they help.

1) Accept that this is hard.  Learning a second (or seventh) language as an adult isn’t easy for most of us; you will want to beat your head against a wall on a frequent basis. :-)  Just remember why you’re doing this and persevere.  I believe in you!

2) Flash cards are your friends.  You can do paper or electronic (I like Quizlet), but make flashcards and study them regularly.  If you jog, take them jogging; if you take public transit, use them on the bus; if you hunt Pokemon, study them while you’re waiting for a raid to start.  You get the picture.  Make flash cards part of your life.

3) Etymologies (true or false) are also your friends; take the time to connect new vocab words to an already familiar word.  This is especially true if you’re studying a Romance language or Greek — if you stop and think, you can often find a parallel English word.  A surprising number of familiar words or names come from Semitic roots, too — check out this link for a list.  But even if you’re studying a language that has little in common with English, you can make up false etymologies to help you along; for instance, the Hebrew word nafal isn’t historically related to “falling,” which it means, but it sounds like it.  Remember to include your etymological link on your flashcard!

4) Use the language as soon as possible, as much as possible.  I can’t stress this enough.  Even at an early stage, you can often make your way through basic material, like a newspaper article, with the help of a dictionary.  Find a reason to use the language, whether it’s articles you want to read, familiar fiction in translation, or a friend to talk to.  I try to invent excuses to translate things, because it’s the only way to keep sharp.

5) Use Google Translate … but use it wisely.  Obviously, you should try to translate something yourself before resorting to software.  And Google Translate isn’t always correct, either.  But when you find yourself stumped, it’s better to plug it into Google than it is to give up in frustration — especially if you then go through Google’s translation word-for-word, to ensure that you understand how and why they translated it the way they did.

6) Find a friend.  Ideally, you’ll find someone else who’s studying the language as well, so you can encourage each other and practice together.  A tutor is also invaluable, if you can find and afford someone.  But if nobody you know is studying your language, you can still find a friend who’ll hold up flash cards for you, or check your translation against a standard translation.  I’m serious here; I’ve had language “tutors” who didn’t know the language at all.  The point is for there to be another human to hold you accountable and keep you encouraged.

I write this bcz I’m a huge language enthusiast and I’m frustrated about the way most methods and language classes/courses approach the process of learning. I’m not a professional but I have a lot of experience in studying foreign languages: I have taught myself Lithuanian and reached the upper intermediate level (B2) in 4-5 years without much help from others, and in Spanish reaching the same level took me only 2 years bcz I simultaneously studied it at school and already knowing French helped me a little. I want to help everyone who wants to start a new language, does not have the possibility to join a language course or just feels frustrated of the stagnation they might experience in the early phase of learning a foreign language.

So, if you want to learn a new language, I suggest following tips:

• Immerse yourself from the beginning! This is really important so that you can get yourself familiar with the intonation and pronunciation of the language. Listen to radio or tv and try to read whatever you can (ingredient lists from the food packages, newspaper articles, whatever!) it doesn’t matter if you can’t understand much yet, it will come! If you start a language with a new alphabet learn the alphabet really well first thing.

• Get an overview of the grammatical structure of the language! This is often not properly done in language courses where you learn some vocabulary and greetings but after 60 pages of the textbook you still have no idea how many verb tenses or noun cases the language has. Take a look even at the “hardest” topics, bcz they might not be that hard after all. (for example the Spanish equivalent of past perfect is much easier than the present tense) 

 • With that being said, learn to recognise past tenses even when you are still learning the present tense! I find it absurd that most courses expect you to master present tense _perfectly_ before even taking a look at other tenses. Most of the time, in everyday communication, past tenses are used more frequently than the present tense + in some languages mastering the past tense can also help you to form the conditional. So, learn the past tense earlier than most ppl would recommend!

 • In general, study the easiest things first! If you find something particularly difficult you gain more confidence and knowledge if you first focus on what you find more interesting (however, you can’t postpone studying boring topics eternally, especially if you are preparing or hoping to prepare for an exam at some point) In Lithuanian, I taught myself a lot of grammar before learning how to tell the time… and it was ok.

• For material: usually the country’s universities have a reading list on their website which proposes what books one could use to study the language. These are often preferable to handbooks aimed for tourists and some language methods for beginners because those mostly focus on useless vocabulary you might only need when you rent a car or book a room in a hotel. The grammar is often also relatively poorly explained in those “tourist language books”, whereas books that are aimed at immigrants or university students usually focus more on the efficient language acquisition and are written by professors and specialists. If you are persistent enough and google all possible search words in both English and the target language,  you can probably find whole textbooks in PDF format, which you can then save on your laptop.

• Don’t get stuck on vocabulary! Remember that grammar is the skeleton of the language and that vocabulary is the muscles hair and eventually the clothes you use to dress up and embellish your apperance. Vocabulary is useful once you know how to use it. For me, learning vocab is the hardest part of a new language, especially bcz I like starting languages that are not really similar to any other languages I know (consider Lithuanian and Greek when I previously knew Finnish, English, French and Spanish) ofc you need to learn some of it to be able to form sentences but most traditional methods focus on that too much. My suggestion is to read a lot: start by children’s books and comics and gradually get more advanced material. When you read them, make notes!! Look up the words you don’t know and don’t be afraid of using unconventional, seemingly challenging ways to learn, such as buying a bilingual poetry collection and trying to decipher what the original poem says and compare it to the translation. 100% recommend, even for the beginner level + it’s a nice way to connect to the culture but still focus on the language itself, not on the way ppl make breakfast in that country. (That’s something that irritates me a lot in most Youtube’s language videos where ppl are just discussing the traditions of the country in English when you had come there to look for the explanation of grammatical structures or just to hear the language being spoken. smh.)

• A really important thing about vocabulary is to learn all the abstract words, such as conjunctions, really soon! For example, if you find yourself in a situation where you have to use the words therefore and otherwise,  it is almost impossible to try to explain those words without first translating them to another language. 

• Make vocabulary learning more interesting and deep by learning about the etymology of the words you learn. It can be mind-blowing and it helps you to remember the words better.

That’s it!