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"In Memoriam: Rich Milich, PhD" by Ignacio D. Acevedo-Polakovich

12/2/2020

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For about half of my doctoral studies, I had three co-advisors; Tamara Brown, Betty Lorch, and Rich Milich. How I wound up in that (turns out, fortunate) situation is its own story, but what prompts me to write about it today is that--as of a few days ago--I have only two co-advisors left. A few evenings ago, a good friend and fellow Rich Milich mentee--Paul Rosen--let me know that Rich had passed unexpectedly. 

I did not do the best job at keeping up with Rich. My research developed in directions that took me away from shared professional circles and my jobs took me several states away. I saw and heard less and less of him, until I eventually lost contact. I understand that this often happens, and I have grace with myself in that regard. That said, I regret not saying a number of things to Rich that I should have and now cannot. Foremost among these is how thankful I am that he worked with me, and how invaluable I found the lessons that I learned from him. Every single one of my students has received pieces of wisdom that I learned from him. 

The lesson that I most often pass on to my students is the importance of good, fundamental science. In his direct-but-nonthreatening way, Rich would often remind me that impressive statistics cannot overcome the deficiencies of a limited design, and that a good design can be incredibly powerful even with the simplest of mathematical analyses. This lesson lives profoundly in the work of my lab, where--despite the challenges of implementing these when doing engaged work in applied community settings--quasi-experiments are a regular occurrence (along with the occasional randomized trial). 

Through his approach to mentoring, Rich taught me to be compassionate and professional with students. He mentored so many students, and did it so well, that he is my archetype of a good advisor. He was timely and thorough with feedback, direct-but-welcoming in his tone, and maintained excellent boundaries. Any good advising that my students receive indirectly comes from Rich. 

Through his approach to life and work, Rich taught me not to make work the sole feature of my existence. Rich worked as hard, or harder, than most faculty members. However, (at least during the time that I was in graduate school) Rich traveled somewhere spectacular for a healthy portion out of each Summer. Rich’s example has landed me all over the world, and I am a better person because of it. 

Throughout his career, Rich published almost two hundred scholarly publications, primarily on issues surrounding the development--and experiences--of children who are affected by attention disorders. Because of his work, we better understand the way in which children with these disorders develop over time and how to help them better enjoy the game of baseball. I think he found both to be important aspects of his legacy. 


Rich was a remarkable scientist and, arguably, an even better mentor. I am incredibly thankful for his influence on my life and career. If there is an afterlife, I hope it gives me the chance to get to sit with him again, enjoy his dry, sometimes awkward wit, and thank him profusely for the incredible influence that he had on my life and career.

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"Kahunaman, the Super Indigene" by Malu Castro

2/26/2020

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Welcome back avid readers and obligatory narcs. Lladito Biter here with another installment of Is this Decolonization? For this week, I have been reflecting on a strange phenomena that I have been experiencing since joining the academy. Namely, that I am a superhero called Kahunaman with superhuman scholarly abilities. I have found that regardless of what I speak on I am generally right. Moreover, I am lauded as “truly” scholarly because I have read from more than a handful of authors in a single discipline (I read 10 pages a day, people. That’s nothing special). Finally, people say shit like, “mind blowing” with regards to common sense points I make. Imagine how crazy it is that I can blow peoples’ minds away with some basic reflections? Everytime this happens I imagine how Neo felt when he woke up in that H. R. Giger Duracell ovary and how that all happened from a pill. No one goes up to my colleagues who aren’t as interested or labeled as interdisciplinary as experts on both their field and White Settler Studies regardless of how true that statement is. You might be asking yourself, “how do I know I have these abilities?” It is because they are all based on a magical relationship—I show up and things happen. The chain of cause and effect breaks down through my otherworldly might. No longer am I bound by the constraints of rigor or humble scholarship. I am the scholar supreme of interdisciplinary magic. Those of you who share similar genealogies of colonialism, trauma, and academic proclivity might recognize that you have these powers as well. 

But where did we get these fantastic abilities? Was it from some freak mutation born deep within our genetics or was it from the bite of a radioactive graduate student? It was none of these. Instead, our powers come from being the last children of dying nations which might as well be light years away. We are destined to translate the arcane practices of long dead civilizations to create a brighter future for the remaining masses...or at least that’s the story. Prop buildings, laws, and books have been made to help actors play out this story, but these props buildings are made of bricks and prop laws can kill will impunity. This story is so powerful it has made a witchcraft out of skin pigmentation and blood. For example, you can be killed because of your skin color. If that isn’t magical thinking I don’t know what is. So, in a way the story is true. We have been jettisoned from our homes into alien hands, but we aren’t the last of our nations and we never left the planet. Instead, we are stranded in a fiction. A tale where the reality of your people has been vivisected and placed in antiseptic examination rooms called “departments.” Out of fear of messing with the narrative flow, these departments rarely interact. Now us superheroes come from a reality where the world isn’t separate so when we try to navigate this story we end up reconnecting old pieces to build an escape craft back home. We aren’t even interested in finishing the story. Most of us just want to get home. But in our efforts, the actors find our work and scream “NOVEL!” “INNOVATION!” “MIND BLOWING!” “NEXT CHAPTER.” In the cacophony they clamour over your ship they dismantle it and add it to the props. Another chapter in the story. So, you are probably wondering how are you supposed to avoid this fate when the people who are substantive experts in the political and economic cultural realities you are interested in are physically housed in a separate department? When your willingness to meet other people who might be able to help think about something from a different angle is seen as catastrophic? When the screaming praise of actors fills your ears to the point you can’t concentrate? You can’t.

That would presume that a story can be changed when its ending has already been outlined and published. An ending where you are a superhuman...the last son of some far off planet. Destined to death. The best you can do is remember that back home you aren’t special or unique or magical. You are not having wonderfully novel ideas. That is not our future. Our’s is a future where the ideas and ways of being we have are normal, boring, and commonplace. Where we remember that we suck at hunting and fishing. We don’t know how our uncle knows when the taro is ready. That we are helplessly just trying to do what we can to get back home.
Thank you for taking some time out of the Matrix to share in the glorious splendor of our apocalyptic present. We will be back next week with a lesson from the course Visiting for Settlers 101 titled “How to be comfortable with not being on time to your next meeting.”
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As always, It’s probably not!

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"Dealing with Career Uncertainty" by Maggie Jenkins

1/29/2020

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“And what do you want to do after you graduate?” — the dreaded question. Soon enough, any college student develops some pre-packaged answer to this question, something that will satisfy nosy relatives and prevent too many further lines of questioning. After repeating my own answer enough times, even I believe myself when I say that I’m confident in what I want to do: be a therapist for children and adolescents. This confidence quickly fades once I allow myself to reflect on it for longer than five seconds, and waves of doubt set in. There are so many things that I find interesting, so how do I know that I’m picking the right one to focus on? In fact, am I even interested in the things I claim to care about? Will I really be happy doing what I say I want to? In an attempt to combat these panicked thought spirals, I’ve begun to reframe the way that I think about my future career in several key ways.

#1: Embracing uncertainty
Even though a part of me hates not knowing exactly what comes next, in a way it is actually quite thrilling. The sheer number of choices is at once overwhelming and exciting — there are jobs that I’ve never even heard of before, jobs I could have that do not yet even exist. Instead of being scared of this concept, I’ve begun to think of it as a wonderful thing. After all, I don’t have to commit to only one job for my entire life. With so many possibilities to explore, I can change my pathway many times throughout my life.

#2: Taking new experiences and passions as they come
Although exploring activities outside of my comfort zone initially brings me a lot of anxiety, it has also brought some of the most meaningful experiences of my life. Last fall, I began volunteering with 4th Wall Theatre Company, an organization that provides theatre classes for youth with special needs. I was hesitant to join at first, being one of the only non-theatre majors there and feeling unsure as to whether I would be any good at helping the students with theatre. However, it soon became one of the highlights of my week. At the end of a busy day, the pure joy in that class energized me. This experience broadened my view of not only which populations I may want to work with in the future, but also of the wide range of ways I could incorporate creativity into my work. Embracing experiences such as this one creates opportunities for the development of new passions that may influence my future pursuits.

#3: Realizing that career isn’t the only important part of life
Your career may take up a lot of your time, and it is definitely an important part of your life, but it is not the only part of life that has value. There are so many parts of life that can bring you joy — expecting your job to bear the burden of fulfilling you is unreasonable. It’s also unreasonable to think that every single thing you’re interested in can be incorporated into one singular job, but that does not mean that you cannot still engage with these things. Career isn’t everything, and your life outside of your job can be just as, if not more, fulfilling as your job itself.

I won’t pretend that I don’t still experience anxiety when thinking about my future, but I have found ways to reframe this anxiety into a more productive train of thought. Knowing that I have many options, being open to exploring new interests, and accepting that my career isn’t everything has soothed the fear I experience when I look forward into the unknown.


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"Rekindling your academic flame" by Sara T. Stacy

1/15/2020

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            Community-engaged research and scholarship is—in many cases—like a relationship. For instance, it is important to have honesty, trust, and respect with our community partners. We must maintain open lines of clear and consistent communication. We have to be willing to go the extra mile and be there when they need us. We need to demonstrate loyalty and commitment to ensure our partnership will stand the test of time. If I continue, I could practically write a romance novel about a community partnership. I’ll leave that idea for another day… but in this post I would like to discuss the importance of one specific relational practice that I have found is important to maintain within academia: Find ways to rekindle your flame.
            Rekindle. Definition: To excite, stir up, or arouse anew. The term “rekindle” is often used to describe ways of sparking with romance or passion in a marriage or personal relationship. People often describe how important it is to never stop dating your spouse, or to find ways to re-invigorate your relationship by doing new things together. While I without a doubt echo those statements for personal relationships, over the past year I have thought about how important it is to also practice this within academia.

Why you should rekindle your academic flame
            Over time, relationships can grow tired and stale. Relationships can often become routine. You wake up, eat breakfast with your family, and you’re out the door. You work all day, come home and make dinner, relax for a minute and head to bed. You wake up the next day and do the same thing all over again, day after day. If you don’t find ways to break outside this routine, you might begin to question: What is the point of all of this? The same can become true within academia. You go to work every day, attend the same meetings, work on the same projects or reports, and interact in very routine ways. That project that once excited you suddenly becomes just another thing on your never-ending to do list.
            If we don’t put intentional efforts to maintain relationships, they can gradually fade over time. I imagine most people have had the experience where they failed to routinely check in with a loved one. You become busy with other things and you forget to call on Sundays or you miss the birthday gathering. Perhaps you moved away or you just stopped making the time for them. While this is a natural experience with relationships, the same is true for our academic interests. We can get so caught up in the coursework, the projects, the deadlines and we can forget to read those articles that excite us. We stop doing the things we enjoy because we feel we are too busy. We wonder who has the time or luxury to do the things we love when there is so much work that has to be done?
            If any of this sounds familiar or relevant, then perhaps you need to rekindle your academic flame. You deserve it to yourself to be so brilliantly passionate about your work that you cannot wait to get back to it. As community-engaged scholars, often our work is driven by a desire to positively impact a social issue. Our ability to get things done is often fueled by a pure passion for our work and the change we hope to make. To maintain this focus, you need to recognize the small changes your work is making. You need to reconnect with your passion. You need to re-ignite the fire within your soul that made you want to do this work in the first place. Remember all those romantic ideas you had about the impact you wanted to make? Remember the vision you had when you were first getting started? This is the type of mindset that you need to channel when the work becomes overwhelming. You need that kindle burning inside of you to keep you warm when the going gets tough. You need to rekindle the flame.

How you can rekindle your academic flame
            To keep the metaphor going, here I’ve provided some suggestions on ways that I have found to rekindle and keep my academic flame consistently burning. These are by no means a prescriptive approach, but rather suggestions for what has helped me throughout my time in graduate school thus far.
            Keep dating your interests. I try to find new and exciting ways to keep in touch with my academic interests. Try to find different communities of scholars, activists, practitioners, teachers, or people that share your same passions and keep up to date on the conversation. Sign up for ListServs and follow organizations on social media that are doing similar work and sharing good content. You definitely don’t have to attend all the events or read all the articles, but make time here and there to do something just because it sounds interesting. Attend a webinar from a scholar you admire. Read a book about your interests. Go to a training or a talk just because it sounds fun. I never regret taking time to explore my interest in new ways.  
            Make time for your interests. This suggestion goes hand in hand with my last one, but I think is so important that it bears stating in another way. Seriously, you need to make time for your brain to think about things in new ways. Make time for yourself to read, attend events, explore online, whatever you need to do, and then DON’T feel guilty about it. Don’t get caught up thinking that this is time wasted because you don’t have a tangible product from it. (This is that academia mindset creeping in to your life to think that you are what you produce. Ignore it!!) Even if I don’t come away with something that is immediately relevant, often these are the types of things that plant seeds in my brain that I can’t always see. These are opportunities for you to grow in exciting new ways and you must make time for them, or they won’t happen.
            Rest when it’s needed. If all of this sounds overwhelming, then perhaps your best strategy for rekindling your flame may be to just rest. Take a day, a week, or whatever you need to rest your brain and reconnect when it feels right. We often trick ourselves that if we just keep working harder or power through our personal needs that the work can still get done. But your body normally knows when it needs a break and the best thing to do is to listen to it. Graduate school or careers in general are a marathon, not a race. The work will continue and it needs you to last the test of time. Rest when you need it, and come back fully alive with that spark that drives you. 

​Rekindle your academic flame and keep it burning. The world needs your spark to make a difference. 
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"A message to current and prospective doctoral students: Do you need a PhD?" by Jen Gruber

11/26/2019

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I am two and a half years into my doctoral program and still struggle to articulate why I’m here. I moved to Michigan and entered the Ecological-Community Psychology program in Fall, 2017, after spending my gap year as an Americorps member at an elementary school. After being exposed to some of the dysfunctions of the U.S. education system, I decided to transition from direct service to focus on systems-level work. I applied to graduate programs with a specific interest in promoting health equity amongst youth through school-based initiatives. Thus far, graduate school has been filled with ups and downs and I have spent ample time reflecting on whether this educational experience is necessary. I have come to the conclusion that I probably don’t need a PhD to do the work I want to do, but it might help me do it better.

Part I: Getting a PhD is hard, and you might not need one
My first two years of graduate school were disheartening; I was completely removed from youth- and education-related work. In my department, people often ask your  “area of expertise.” If you do not have one, you are encouraged to find one. It felt disingenuous to answer that question when I had little work experience and most of my knowledge came from reading scholarly work. Other graduate students who struggle to find alignment between their work and research interests echo these sentiments; how can we claim competence in these content areas with such limited experience? I strongly oppose the position that obtaining a PhD makes you “an expert” in an area. Firstly, I think it’s impossible to achieve that status after five years, if at all. Secondly, only engaging with material related to one topic will not prepare me to work in cross-disciplinary, multi-sector, collaborative spaces. 

After two years of misalignment between my graduate education and the experiences that motivate me, working to improve the lives of students, I asked myself, do I really need a PhD? In retrospect, I should have asked myself this question before applying to graduate programs. It was instilled in me as an undergraduate student that if I wanted to major in Psychology I would need to go to graduate school to get a job, and if I didn’t want to be a mental health counselor I would need a PhD. In the frenzy and excitement of the application process, I don’t think I ever sat down and did a simple job search to see if there were any positions that could offer me similar opportunities for growth and skill development. Although I have found my place now, I would encourage anyone considering graduate school to thoroughly deliberate whether a graduate degree is necessary and why they want one.

Part II: Getting a PhD is hard, and you might want one
During the spring of my second year here at MSU, I had the opportunity to join the Community-AID Lab and work on projects related to service integration in education systems. Being a part of Community-AID rejuvenated the passion that initially led me to apply to graduate school. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for graduate students to explore opportunities with folks who share your values and substantive interests. I still, and always will, miss directly working with youth, but have found an environment that challenges and inspires me to be the best collaborator possible to those engaging in this important work.
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Although I am sometimes tempted to leave with my Masters and enter the workforce, I have embraced being here by understanding what purposes my graduate education does and does not serve for me. A PhD will not make me an expert of any kind, nor will it qualify me for every job I could dream of. A PhD will make me a better consumer and producer of knowledge and research. I see it as an opportunity to gain as many skills as possible and capitalize upon the resources available to me at a large research institution. My end goal is to support individuals doing amazing work to address adolescent inequities, and my graduate school experiences are preparing me to do this. A PhD probably isn’t necessary to accomplish my end goal, but it might position me to do better work.


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"Path to AmeriCorps and Community-AID Lab" By Emma Booth

10/30/2019

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I have spent the majority of my life in a classroom, preparing for the day that I would graduate from college and start a “big kid” job. In my head this would be simple, I would work hard in school and a job would just create itself for me. As my last semester of undergrad came around, it became pretty clear that a job would not just appear out of nowhere. I felt completely unprepared for the world outside the classroom. I had done everything that people said you were supposed to do to guarantee a job after graduation. I had held several internships, kept decent grades, studied abroad, and finished in four years. Still, I felt that there was something missing. Looking at job postings I was either significantly underqualified or overqualified for the positions that were remotely interesting to me. I think this was one of the most unsatisfactory experiences of my life. I had just spent so much time and money on a four-year degree and a job didn't just land in my lap. My friends around me were finding jobs right away and seemed like they had their lives put together. I, on the other hand, was struggling to decide what my next step would be. Moving home vs. staying put. Graduate school vs. “big kid” job. It was hard for me to conceptualize the fact that I would not be returning to school in the fall. Up until this point, my path was pretty laid out with only a few choices, elementary school to middle school to high school to college then a job. I was having trouble with the freedom of job hunting. I thought at this point in my life I would know what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I didn’t.

     So after graduation, I took a break from thinking about the long term and picked up my usual summer job. For the past three summers, I have spent my time in a classroom for students with Autism as a paraprofessional. It was the first time that I maintained a full-time job. For four weeks, I greatly enjoyed my time as a parapro, and it’s something that I’m happy I was able to do, but it was not a forever job. Knowing that this position was only temporary, I went back to the drawing board on the job hunt. 
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    The job search was overwhelming because I had no idea what I wanted to do. I enjoyed my time with my internship in the nonprofit sector, but the positions that I wanted were nowhere to be seen or were at organizations I was not interested in. Then, I stumbled across a position online that caught my interest, which happened to be an AmeriCorps position. AmeriCorps had never been out of the realm of possibilities, but I didn’t think they had a position that quite fit. It turns out, I was happily incorrect; it opened a whole new world of possibilities. All the AmeriCorps VISTA positions caught my attention. I felt that AmeriCorps’ focus on capacity-building complimented my undergrad degree in Community Leadership where I gained communication and time management skills. The AmeriCorps positions seemed as though they would provide the hands-on experience I felt I was missing regarding those skills. I ended up applying to about nine openings and hearing back from two. One was the Community-AID Lab, where I could not be happier. I feel that I will be able to develop research and professional skills that I had previously been lacking. I was looking for a place that would be a good transition from school. While I am not in school anymore, I go to work at the university which keeps me in my comfort zone while gaining skills that take me outside that zone. The work we do every day allows me to incorporate what I learned in undergrad into the “real world.” We serve students and programs in Lansing and all the way to Florida. I’m so excited to support organizations whose projects are so inspiring. I can’t wait to see where this year leads me!

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"From Riding the Rails to Community-Engaged Research: A Difficult but Rewarding Road to Travel" by Nick Demott

10/9/2019

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When I started undergrad, I intended to go straight to graduate school with the goal of becoming a professor. However, my fourth year saw me in an interdisciplinary major program at the University of Minnesota, completely unprepared to actualize the steps necessary to declare the major but also not wanting to switch to “just” a cultural anthropology degree. 

On a lunch break between classes, I walked over to Dinkytown for some pizza slices. In between the pizza shop and grabbing cigarettes, I saw a young man sitting on a hiking backpack holding a cardboard sign. I was intrigued; he didn’t fit any of my assumptions about “what homeless people look like.” Curious, I offered him the remainder of my pizza and started chatting; “I rode here from Chicago on a freight train,” he told me. 

With this, my jaw dropped; I thought freight train hopping was something from the movies. It was certainly in my cultural lexicon, but not as a living practice. Yet here sat a young, slightly dirty KID who said he had literally done it the previous day. Combined with my love of travel, my desire to see the west coast, and my lack of direction in school at the time, I was sucked in. I begged him to show me the ropes.

 Little did I know that this adventure would consume the majority of my 20s, take me all around the country via rail and thumb, introduce me to countless friends, and help me find the confidence to sing and play guitar (and make money while doing so!). But those are stories for another time; what I ALSO didn’t know was that I would fall in love with that lifestyle so completely that it would become extremely difficult to return to my academic pursuits, look for a career path, and re-enter “normal society.” 

I dropped out of University of Minnesota to travel for awhile; after a couple of years, however, I figured that having 110 credits and no degree was probably a little silly and decided to finish up. I transferred to Western Michigan University where, after three semesters (I was only allowed to transfer 90 credits), I graduated in 2014 with a BA in Cultural Anthropology. At this point, I probably should have been looking at internships or jobs, fostering closer relationships with professors whose classes I really enjoyed as potential mentors, and teasing out more of what I wanted to do with my life. Alas, the road was still calling me, and, while I knew I wanted to be involved in some sort of social justice work, I couldn’t see a clear path to creating a career around it. 

 I spent so much time wandering aimlessly that, for a while, it felt as if I’d never break free of that lifestyle. My last “big hurrah” was hitch-hiking all the way to Alaska, from June to September of 2016. After that amazing trip, I attempted to settle down in Olympia, Washington. However, trying to get off the street when you’re living out of a backpack and haven’t had a job on your resume in over two years is a little difficult. Eventually, I took off for Austin, Texas, where I had a friend who was working a renaissance fair and said he could get me a job. 

I made it to Amarillo, most of the way to my destination, within a couple of weeks, but there, I fell from a train and broke my heel. This meant I was unable to walk for months, so my parents, very graciously, bought me a plane ticket back home to Michigan. I ultimately landed in Lansing, where my mom lives. Once I was finally able to walk again, I spent two years delivering pizzas, all while looking for opportunities to get back into some sort of field that would allow me to work to make the world better. During this time, I also did a little bit of volunteer work, helping organize and attending some protests and being fairly involved in running Lansing Food Not Bombs. Finally, I discovered AmeriCorps. That brings me to where I am now.  

I’m barely two months into my term of service, but I’ve already gained invaluable experience in my position with the Community-AID lab. I’ve finally been able to reenter the workforce in a way that is meaningful to me and do work that connects some of my passions and skills. I don’t have a clear picture of where I will go when this year is over. However, this experience in and of itself is transformative. After spending so much time disconnected from academic pursuits, it’s refreshing to be in an environment where people are passionate about making the world better, and are using their skills and knowledge to actualize that vision. 
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I honestly can’t even remember if I’d heard of community psychology prior to starting this position. My limited experience with it so far, however, has been very exciting. It speaks to many of my interests from cultural anthropology, but seems even more engaged in actually trying to implement solutions to problems, rather than merely observing and documenting them. I’m very excited to see where the coming year will lead me, as I continue doing work that I find meaningful and connecting with great people.


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"What They Didn’t Tell Me" by Rosy Lopez

7/24/2019

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Now that I am at the end of my undergraduate career, there are many moments I can look back on. What I have realized about almost all of these moments, is it was the things no one told me that were the most valuable in building up the person I am. The first of these was sacrifice. I still remember having the CAMP recruiter come talk to us at my high school. Hearing his story and all the wonderful things about the program, I had convinced myself in that moment going to Michigan State University is what I wanted to do. Not necessarily the educational part, more so the trips and events is what intrigued me. What they didn't tell me, was leaving my sunshine home would be one of my first biggest sacrifices I would have to make on my own account. Yes, it all sounded great, but coming to MSU meant leaving a whole life I knew up to that point. Spending time with my family, seeing my siblings grow up and guiding them through the first transitions of life, seeing my nieces and nephews grow from babies to teens, being with friends who are like family to me, living in a stable house, and much more. Giving up my comfort was a big sacrifice to make at 18, especially when you know no one and have nothing. Yet, I chose to make the sacrifice and take those first steps in making a life of my own.

    One of my first true moments of defeat was at the end of my freshman year. I failed almost all my classes that semester. I was just a .001 away from going into academic probation. I remember feeling so beat and like I failed at my first big step of living life on my own. “Why did I come here”? . “What am I even doing”? “How did this happen”? These were the thoughts running through my head. I made this tremendous sacrifice to leave and I was not taking advantage of the opportunity given to me. Almost reassuring me school was not meant for me. You see, it is in these moments of failure where all dreams and visions you had for yourself begin to become blurry. You start thinking you don't have what it takes to do things. It makes you want to blanket yourself in a sheet of comfort. Through time and experience, I learned two things about failure. One, failure is not taking a step back, it is taking a step in a new direction. Not every idea will be a success, not every exam will be your best, not every action will be the most impactful. Our failures allows the opportunity to develop a better version of you and your skills. Failure sometimes means we have to go back to the drawing board. Two, if you're not failing, your not living. Not saying all of life will be full of failure, but it is also not all success. The best success stories come from the worst failures. We fail to learn lessons in life, we fail to improve those ideas we have, we fail to create successes.
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    For the last two years of my undergraduate career, I started to focus on my overall career. Using my love for the social sciences, I was determined to discover the world of research. What they didn’t tell me, was it is actually not as easy as saying you want to do research. Let alone finding research positions on your own. For these last two years, I searched for positions in many ways, such as reviewing  handshake, talking to people I knew, emailing past and current professors, looking for flyers on the wall, or whatever seemed to be a useful resource. To my avail, nothing was successful. It seemed my dreams of working on research were not going to happen anytime soon. Then before all hope was lost, someone pointed me in the direction of Dr. Ignacio Acevedo-Polakovich. I anxiously awaited for his reply because I was really excited about finally having a promising opportunity. I had no clue what Community Psychology was, but I did have maintained liking for Psychology. I met with him and some of the lab members to discuss projects and coming in there lab. Finally, someone was willing to give me their time of day and grant me my first steps as a researcher. I was and am very grateful to Dr. Acevedo-Polakovich and his team for supporting me and allowing me the opportunity to work alongside them. Although, I still have a way to go, I am thankful for the experience. What they never tell you is that in order to gain the things you want, you have to be persistent in obtaining them. I stayed persistent because I knew research was something I really wanted to do. I persisted because I knew I had the capability  to help contribute knowledge to the world, and I'm glad to know someone believed in what I had to offer as well.


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"Lessons I’ve Learned in the First Year of my Ph.D. Program" by Rosaura Dominguez-Rebollar

4/26/2019

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This time last year, I was planning my move to Michigan for Michigan State’s Community Psychology Ph.D. program. This was a major goal I had worked very hard to achieve, but I never really thought about what would come after. Even though I applied to grad programs both in and out of New York City, I hadn't really given any thought to what it would be like to actually have to move for grad school until I had to when I ended up choosing to go to a grad school program outside of New York.
I will soon be finishing my first year in grad school. I managed to live by myself in a different state without burning my house down or giving myself food poisoning. It’s definitely been an interesting journey settling into my Ph.D. program, so I thought I'd share some lessons I've learned in my first year.

Keep contact back home
You will get homesick. Even when you talk to your parents at least once a day, as I do, you will get homesick, trust me. If it's not something you haven't experienced before, you won't know what you're feeling when it first hits you. It will feel awful, but it's normal to feel this way, especially if it’s the first time you’re away from home, like me. It helps to talk to someone who's already been through it. I talked with a friend who had gone to grad school the year before and he helped me identify that it was homesickness I was feeling. Cry if you feel the need to. And most importantly, connect with your family. Even if you are out on your own, that doesn't mean you are alone. Your family misses you too, so they will be more than happy to hear from you.
Homesickness will be something that comes and goes, but it’s easier to deal with when you know what it is you’re feeling. Contact your family as often as you need to. There are no set rules that limit or dictate how you connect to your family. Funnily enough, I feel more connected to my parents now that I’m actually away from home. We now talk more than ever before! My mom has also become one of those WhatsApp moms that sends an encouraging poem every day, and I've learned to look forward to them every single day.


Don't compare yourself to others
The thing about grad school is that everybody here is conventionally smart. Coming into grad school, you may be shocked that you are no longer the “smart one” of your group. It's easy to fall into the trap of imposter syndrome and feel like you're one sentence away from being discovered and getting kicked out of grad school. However, you have to keep in mind that everybody’s research is different, they all have different goals, and it's normal to be moving at different paces, so it doesn't make any sense to compare yourself to fellow graduate students.

The importance of accountability
For me, grad school has been an exercise in adulting. I knew I could keep up with classes relatively well, but I wasn't prepared for the sudden loss of the routine I learned to keep during undergrad. Grad school keeps you busy, but it also creates more free time than you know what to do with. It was easy for me to get lulled into a false sense of security that I had plenty of time to finish everything I needed to get done.
You can have a life in grad school if you plan accordingly. There won't be anyone assigned to keep an eye on you specifically. Remember you are a grown up and you have to be responsible for yourself -- after all, you chose to apply to grad school, so now you have to do the work. However, that doesn't mean that you can’t have a little help. Depending on your work style, you might be more comfortable scheduling time where you and a group of friends work together, say in a coffee shop or in someone’s home. Some people like setting up deadlines for themselves, usually before an actual assignment is due. Others recommend getting an accountability buddy. You know yourself best, so if you feel that something works for you, go for it.

Make friends outside of your program and discipline
Grad school is great because you get to meet like-minded peers. However, you have to remember that there is more to grad school and to life outside of your program. I know sometimes it becomes easy for grad students to stay within their program or department, as they often don't need to go elsewhere on campus to get what they need, and I have to admit I'm also somewhat guilty of this. But I've also learned to take advantage of the, very often free, events on campus, which usually also have free food, a topic I will touch on later as well. This way you get to do something fun (as defined by you) and you get to meet other students outside of your discipline. I especially like meeting other grad students outside of psychology, because I get to learn about other cool topics as well. For example, hyenas!
Go for the free food, stay for the talk
    People will often make jokes about grad students and free food and these jokes are not completely unfounded. I've certainly gone to events where my first question was “Will there be food?” instead of “What is this event about?” But honestly, who hasn't done the same? Even if this is the method you use to decide what events you go to, you can actually learn a lot of cool things once you're there. Because I was promised free food, I've gone to job talks, brown bags, and union meetings, among other events. Apart from good food, I have also learned about the university hiring process, gotten the break down of the application of cool methods, and participated in union strategizing, just to mention a few things. So, go for the free food, but stay for the talk.

These are just some of the things I’ve learned during my short time in grad school, but I'm sure I still have many more lessons to learn and I'm excited to see what those lessons will be.

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"Lessons Learned in the Community-AID Lab" by Meg Normand

4/16/2019

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I started at the Community-Aid Lab almost two years ago as an AmeriCorps VISTA, expecting that I would stay for a year. It was my first job out of college, and I didn’t know exactly what to expect. I knew that I would be gaining research and professional experience in a field closely related to my future career path in the field of public health, but I didn’t expect that my one-year position would turn into a two-year position. Although I’ll be leaving the lab in the fall to begin graduate school in a field outside of community psychology and academia, I’ve learned many lessons in the lab that I will use for the rest of my career.

1)    Importance of work-life balance
Before I started working at the lab, I thought being passionate and successful in a career meant dedicating all your time and energy to the job. I assumed that successful people must eat, sleep, and breathe their career because that type of approach  is often glamorized in academia and beyond. However, in the lab I’ve learned that it’s important to have a work-life balance. The members of the lab taught me that investing in your life outside of work is key to creating successful work. I’ve learned that a life lacking work-life balance,  -- even if you’re in a career you consider fun and fulfilling-- is going to lead to burnout.
2)    Letting go of perfectionism
When I first started at the lab, I was scared to turn in or show my work to a more experienced lab member  until it was perfect. As a post-baccalaureate right out of college, not much work I was producing was going to be perfect. This disconnect created issues because I would spend hours trying to perfect something that I didn’t yet have the skill set to perfect. The expectations I set for myself soon created debilitating stress and missed deadlines. With the help of lab members, I eventually realized that the lab environment was intended to be a place to grow and learn. Instead of expecting perfection, the lab was expecting me to give projects a try. This realization led to more growth and learning because I was able to openly collaborate and ask questions on my projects.
3)    Collaboration
Before working in the lab, I’d never worked on a team in a professional setting. I had worked on teams in college classes and in internships in which one person ended up taking over the work for the whole team. In the lab, we’re working on much bigger projects and have to rely on others to assist with the completion of a project. Using the concept of integrated decision making, I’ve learned how to work with others while being respectful of others’ time and responsibilities.
4)    How to get out of my comfort zone
During my time in the lab, I’ve had several experiences that made me go outside of my comfort zone. Chief among these experiences was working on my fear of public speaking. Coming into the lab, I was terrified of public speaking. When I first started in the lab, members encouraged me to present on topics I’m passionate about to other lab members. This practice made me much more comfortable with public speaking. I eventually was comfortable enough to present research at conferences to other academics and evaluators. Although I’m still working on overcoming this fear, the lab has given me the tools and support to address this fear.

Although I don’t plan on continuing a career in community psychology or academia, I believe these lessons learned in the Community-AID Lab will be applicable to any career path I pursue.


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