#academicignorance

Guess who is baaaack? Me.

hiya, so i'm working on my thesis right now, and a lot of things intimidate me but it's going alright. i want to quickly jot down some things i have notices in my work process that might be helpful to think about yourself if you're working on a thesis or larger project yourself.

keep track of what you want. this might seem so simple, but don't get caught up in the details and communicate with yourself clearly. If you're a very organised person this might be simpler, but i am bad at following lists. how i approached this is having pen and paper in front of me at all times and jotting down small lists. might sounds just like a to do list but it is not. it is to orient yourself. 'what do i want to get out of this data collection?' jot that down. while collecting your data, if you feel yourself slipping in, refer back to the paper in front of you and recognise if you are doing something you need to do or not.

do not do everything at once. be kind to yourself, this is a longer process. every step will take time, and not having words on paper in week two when you've been collecting data all of week 1 is okay, normal, where would you have found the time? that was not what that time was for.

keep track of the date, how much work have i delivered in how much time?

clear communication with your coach, don't serve them all your material on a silver platter but plan meetings and talk through some interesting things. if you find something curious (and you've established you want to keep contact up between meetings) message them about it, let them know what you think, what you find curious, ask them what they think. this is your project, yes, but you also get judged by them on your end product and your behaviour throughout the project. make sure you deliver the type of work they expect and figure out what they want.

take breaks. you are getting a headache from staring at the screen and thinking too much. go take a walk, drink some water, in this state you will not deliver anything.

backup your documents and data. every night.

if you cannot figure out how to write something (the discussion) immediately, sometimes it is good to just start. in my case, i just started as if i am having a little discussion on how i'm not clear on anything yet but i do have some ideas. no one is reading this yet. this is all for me and i need to keep track of what i think. that will not stay in your head until you're at the deadline.

be flexible in your time where you can. if you are having a rough morning, but you usually take walks at night after your work, switch it up. take a walk in the morning and work a little later if you need to.

my desk is... something

and while it's never super neat or empty even, it's too much for me to comfortably study at

it's important to show that no one is perfect and sometimes you just need to clean shit up

i have an exam on tuesday that i'm very nervous about

even though cleaning up felt like it took away study time, it was needed to

a) clear my space

b) clear my head

it's easy to get stuck in a stressing spiral of 'i need to be working or i'll fail', at least for me

my problem is, is that i don't actually achieve anything when i'm in those spirals

so i shook myself a bit from it at least by putting some time and effort into a different activity (the rest of my room needed some cleaning too after a week)

and now i'm more ready to get stuck into it

this is the reality of taking notes sometimes guys

that might sound incredibly entitled but I often heavily rely on everything logically clicking in my brain during lectures and then revising a bit and practicing some exercises

but this course has been very difficult and I have an exam tomorrow morning that I'm decidedly not going to do well in

it is depending on the exact questions how it will really go

but it's at the absolute least bad for my standards

which has been difficult to be okay with

but I need to resign myself to it

I'm holding out hope that the material that I do grasp decently will be part of the test and that I'll just luck out and get a passing grade

it's not how I usually do things but it's starting to sink in

we can't be stars in everything (with the same ease)

this is humbling