YouAlberta
I have attended several retreats at the Academic Success Centre (both in person and online during the pandemic) in 1-80 SUB. I have been grateful for the time and attention the Centre’s staff have given to not only the process but also to each student’s success.
When in person, the sessions are an oasis of calm, interspersed with ideas about writing, presentations by experts, and snacks. At the end of each day, I feel celebrated, cheered on, and best of all, heard. When online, they are a way to structure my day to achieve writing goals, take appropriate breaks and learn from subject matter experts.
Apart from the attention to detail from the staff, I have learned several things that have helped me while writing my thesis.
The first is that it pays to show up every day in whatever way works for you as a writer. I don’t just mean show up to the session, but show up to your project. Persist in doing what you can daily. It might look like fixing the formatting. It might look like checking your references. It might look like tackling that difficult section you’ve been fighting with for the past few days, or heck – even the past few weeks.
The second is that articulating ideas and communicating what you mean can be challenging. The retreats give you an opportunity to hone your skills in those areas. You can raise issues you are experiencing while writing. You can ask for help with figuring out the best way to frame the idea.
The third thing I learned is that these retreats, online or not, build community. Doing graduate work can be a lonely endeavour. You might feel your only contacts in the world are your supervisor, your roommates and the librarian. You might feel like you are the only one experiencing this particular angst, but you are not! We’re all around you, wallowing in our own work, feeling the same, but at the same time eager to talk about it (ad nauseam)!
The fourth thing is that as monkeys see, monkeys do. Being on a writing retreat means that everyone in the room is writing. That energy, the very act of being able to see other people doing what you are doing, is heartening. Time flies by, and before you know it, you have wrestled that difficult phrase onto the paper, written several pages or even crafted the most beautiful of sentences.
The final thing I learned is that when you are encouraged by others who believe you can achieve your goal, you can achieve it. The Academic Success Centre staff embody the idea of “lifting up all the people.” While writing a thesis can be challenging, it can also be a tool to build community, learn new skills, network, and position yourself to be the best you can be during your time at university.
I was also delighted to join an Academic Success Centre writing group, and I cannot say enough good about it. My experience with putting words on pages in some coherent fashion for my dissertation is that my enthusiasm ebbs and wanes. However, the very act of meeting weekly gives me a chance to regroup each week, set goals for my writing and celebrate my progress (or lament my lack thereof) with peers who are at the same point in their journey as me. This weekly commitment has become a bit of a beacon in my academic career. I can check in with my peers and reflexively consider the resource that’s provided by the host – so often, the resource is either immediately pertinent to what I am doing in my studies, or I can see how it will benefit me in the future. I am able to set aside several hours for dedicated writing, then do a final check-in to see how I’ve progressed over the time we met.
It’s been one of the best parts of my academic career thus far.
YouAlberta is written by students for students.
Karly Coleman grew up in small towns located in northeastern Saskatchewan and central Brasil, giving her an eye for exposing the taken-for-granted in people’s lives. She seamlessly blends practicality with humour and so returned to university to pursue her Ph.D. in 2015. She’s travelled across Canada by bicycle, wrote and performed poetry during Edmonton’s stint as the Cultural Capital of Canada, and for over a decade helped organize month-long celebrations of bike culture. She’s interested in bikes, cats, cozy murder, and history. When she’s not writing about bike lanes, life in general, and her life specifically, she’s renovating her home, quelling cat fights, or performing random acts of gardening.