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Advice Topic: Resilience

Practicing the Art of Saying No

Spring Quarter is finally here, and we at Core Programs extend a warm welcome to you as you continue to focus on your personal, intellectual, and professional goals!  We ourselves have lots of projects, collaborations, and dreams in the works.  It can sometimes get overwhelming and things you had hoped to do “sometime this year” are not yet happening.  Whether you are completing your very first year of graduate school, drafting your thesis or dissertation, or currently doing a job search, Spring Quarter is a great time to clarify your priorities and make room for what is really important to you.  It’s a great time to practice saying no.

Say No to Create Space.  You may have heard the expression, “The work will always be there.”  This is true for those of us who are in academia whether we are students or administrative, teaching, or research staff and faculty.  There truly is no end to the work and additional opportunities for professional development!  But this doesn’t mean we are actually capable (nor should we try) to do work constantly.

Not only is this unhealthy, it is unrealistic.  In order to manage yourself from the temptation to overwork, make a list of your current commitments, prioritize what needs to be done this quarter, and set aside tasks or projects that can truly wait.

Example of Saying No: “Thank you for thinking of me to participate in this project.  I can’t commit right now, because I have several projects that I am working on already.  Would I be able to participate later (in the next few months, next year, etc.)?”

Say No to Be Real.  Is someone making a request of you, but the task is completely unrelated to your skill set?  Ever find yourself doing work for others, because that is easier to do, rather than focusing on your own work which can be challenging at times?  Knowing your own limitations—and areas of growth—are important for helping you to say no. Making sure that you focus on your priorities isn’t being selfish – it is what you need to do now, so you can help others going forward.

Example of Saying No:  “Unfortunately, I am not the right person to respond to this request.  However, (blank) is someone who may be able to assist you. Reach out to them, and see if they are available.”

Say No To Make Time for You.  Many times we have to say no to other people’s requests, because we need to put aside time over the course of a week to devote to our friendships, relationships, or families.  Or maybe you have been neglecting activities or hobbies that nourish you on an individual level like hiking, cycling, reading, cooking or playing video games.  Saying no to requests and projects that are not at the top of your priority list ensures that you will have time for loved ones and interests.  The only thing to remember to do is schedule times for yourself and loved ones on your calendar.

Example of Saying No: “I really appreciate you reaching out for my participation on XYZ, but my plate is full.”

Saying no is an art that takes consistent practice over time.  The more you can try out these strategies, the better you will be at managing your time and energy to concentrate on things that matter most. What are your strategies for saying no?  Let us know, so we can share them out!

Best,

Kelly, Jaye, and Ziyan
Core Programs Team

Strengthening Yourself for the Last Leg of the Quarter

We at Core Programs recognize and respect all the hard work you’ve been doing as graduate students during this winter.  We know that Winter quarter can be especially challenging given the weather, the darkness, and the usual stressors of navigating a graduate program. The good news is that the light is returning and the quarter is coming to a close!  For this final push, we offer a few strategies. Maybe one or more will serve you:

Saying “Not Right Now”.  We know that many of you are balancing personal and family time, school, and work responsibilities, and we encourage you to take a pragmatic look at your schedule for the next few weeks.  What can you absolutely hold off on doing for now (that you can then return to later)?  What do you absolutely need to make room for?  Whom do you need to say no to?  With the rhythm of the quarter system, there are time intensive moments where you have to keep your head down and focus. There’s a lot to do, but it will pass by quickly.  Then you can once again say “yes” to other things after the quarter is done.

Schedule your needs. Put the most important things you need to accomplish in your calendar, including self-care practices. When it comes to working on those final seminar papers, consider setting aside 30-60 minutes a day to work on a draft versus trying to do it all in one sitting.  Writing in smaller chunks will help you feel better knowing that you are making regular progress. Believe it or not, scheduling yourself for 30 minutes of exercise, or connecting with someone important, can make a difference in your overall productivity.  So can getting enough sleep!  While many people do gain energy from looming deadlines and big pushes of work, suffering isn’t a requirement of graduate school. We just can’t do our best work, if we are constantly in a stressed and exhausted state of mind.

Ask for help.  Now is as good a time as any to reach out for help.  Do you feel stuck on an individual project and don’t know how to move forward?  If you haven’t done so already, connect with peers in your program who are further along in their graduate work.  More often than not, they have strategies that worked for them, that you can then try out for yourself.  If you are having a hard time finding someone in your department, get a list of peer referrals from your Graduate Program Advisor or a student organization on campus that you relate to.  Or maybe you need to reach out to your professor for an extension all together—because life happens. There is no shame in this at all.  Asking for what you need is a sign of honest self-assessment and shows you are taking responsibility for yourself. But you have to act fast.  Either drop in during your professor’s office hours or send them an email with your extension request, with a reasonable deadline for when you plan to submit your work (this may have to be negotiated depending on your professor’s upcoming schedule).  If you’re communicating by e-mail, you can put “Time Sensitive Request” in the subject line and follow up with your professor as needed.

Reward yourself.   Make room in your schedule to celebrate yourself for all the work you’ve done—however small or big the milestone.  Recognizing your achievements is so important, as no one else will make time in your schedule to do so except for you.  When you have many important deadlines at the end of the quarter, consider allowing yourself a small celebration after a project is done–before you turn to the next task or project.  Plus, it really allows you to be present with your progress in graduate school.  You are doing a ton of work!  Go for a walk with a friend.  Make yourself a nice dinner.  Go dancing (and get to the venue before the cover charge).  Take a short dive into Netflix.  Schedule a game night in with friends, or 21 other affordable examples of treating yourself.

We love hearing from you!  Let us know your strategies for getting through Winter Quarter!

Best,

Kelly, Jaye, and Ziyan
Core Programs Team

It’s a Long Road: Take Care of Yourself

Winter quarter is often a time when energy can get low and isolation can get more intense. This year especially there are more events and unknowns that can add to the already high anxiety of being a postdoc. At the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs, along with Core Programs in the Graduate School, we’ve been pulling together tips that we hear about and continue to practice ourselves. Here are just a few insights to share:

Resilience. These times, and this work, require resilience—and this means investing in yourself and those practices that fuel you.

Beyond “Self-Care.” We often talk about self-care, yet we can also work toward “communities of caring.” Those are acts of self-care that involve connecting with others, finding ways to reach into your network rather than merely escaping.

Get What You Need. Ask for support, ask for an extension, practice asking for what you need with trusted allies.  That said, there are times to escape.  Take a social media holiday, embrace solitude and quiet, completely let go into a Netflix moment, or whatever allows you to unplug. Pay attention to activities that calm you, restore you, re-energize you, and remind you why you are doing the work you do.  We all need some of each.

Be (Self) Forgiving. And be gentle with yourself, and others.  Everyone is tired, stressed and stretched at varying levels and for different reasons.  We will each make mis-steps. Acknowledge your own limitations — and those of others — and give yourself a generous read with compassion.

Keep It Real. Finally, you need to give yourself room to feel the full spectrum of emotions like anger, frustration, overwhelmed-ness, fear. Yet staying triggered in these states can exhaust and deplete you.  Work with trusted friends to vent and then identify ways to move forward that work for you.

At a January event with First Gen graduate students, staff, and faculty — people who are the first in their immediate families to earn undergraduate degrees and who are now working on obtaining (or have obtained) advanced degrees — brainstormed ways to do more to invest in ourselves and each other. We share these concrete practices here with you in hopes they might inspire a new commitment of your own!

  • Be okay with stepping back & saying no – you deserve space and time too
  • Embrace a guilt-free mind when it comes to self-care
  • Give time over to you: take a spa day, join a team, play video games, balance your finances, journal, get exercise….
  • Put yourself on your calendar so it happens!
  • Reach out to your community — inside and outside of your research group
  • Hold each other accountable to self-care practices
  • Reach out to mentors and advisors
  • Go out and be politically active on issues that are important to you

Caring doesn’t have a to be a big project.  It can be as simple as checking in with someone and asking how they’re doing (for real).

And check out these additional resources for more ideas:

 

Making UW Your Own – #UWGradSuccess

Recently, two graduate students from Chemistry, Sarah Vorpahl and Nick Montoni, organized and led a day-long gathering focused on Strengthening STEM through Diversity. The meeting brought together leaders from UW student organizations, as well as faculty, staff, and community partners to collectively discuss issues of equity in STEM and to develop concrete strategies that will promote a climate of inclusivity for multiple underrepresented communities studying, researching, and working in STEM disciplines.

Core Programs attended and gathered several pearls of wisdom from the plenary speaker UW bioengineering faculty Wendy Thomas, and from the student leadership panel, with representatives from Women in Chemical Sciences, oSTEM, SACNAS, AISES, and the student union UAW 4121. We will be sharing highlights and insights, and working on larger institutional guidance, over the next several weeks as the ideas and opportunities identified at the event will contribute to a larger learning environment where all students can thrive at UW. Here is just a start:

Imposter syndrome. “Imposter syndrome” is familiar to many in Graduate School (and beyond): that feeling that you aren’t smart enough or that you might not have what it takes to succeed. Here’s the thing, you are not alone! Surrounded by smart people, many of us may feel we don’t fit in. Some advice has been to “fake it til you make it.” We agree and yet this should not be confused with “suck it up and deal.” That is, if there are things within your grad program or research group that seem odd to you – ask questions, talk to a peer or trusted colleague to check out your observations, seek allies to support you and who can also speak up and ask for changes. Asking for what you need to thrive is a big part of making your graduate experience your own and one in which you can shine. Shifting our academic culture and landscape to a place that encourages human connection and growth will take all of us–from interpersonal changes to institutional, structural level changes.

Develop a growth vs. fixed mindset. Fixed mindset is the belief that “some people just have what it takes,” while others will never have what it takes. It is the thinking that some individuals are automatically good at understanding concepts and theories in their discipline, writing, acquiring research funding, public speaking, and so forth. This is simply not true. Being a graduate student is about developing and honing your skills, knowledge-base, and competencies over time. It is a process. In this regard, we encourage you to shift towards a growth mindset. If you are experiencing a roadblock in graduate school, it is more than likely that a peer or faculty has experienced a similar challenge. If you are part of the 1-in-3 graduate students who are coping with issues related to mental health, utilize campus resources like the DRS. DRS staff can help you draft an accommodation plan that is personal, confidential, and can set you up for success. Graduate school is a marathon, not a sprint, so pace yourself and give yourself permission to grow.

Find a mentor. There are numerous reasons why you seek out mentors in graduate school. An advisor can give you research direction, but a mentor really invests in you. National guidelines are now pointing to building a mentor team for academic direction, career guidance, and personal support. Mentors can make the difference between surviving and thriving – seek them out and invest time to build your team. As keynote speaker Dr. Thomas shared, when she finally had a mentor who was equally excited to talk to her about her research results, as well her feelings about the research, she knew she could stay in academia.

We thank the student event organizers, student organizations, and the UW programs that signed on as co-sponsors, for their dedication and hard work in investing in making UW a better place for all of us! Keep it coming. #Together #DiversifySTEM #UWGradSuccess

Best Regards,

Kelly, Jaye, and Ziyan
Core Programs Team

Set Yourself Up for Success

Welcome new and returning UW graduate students at all three campuses! Whether you are beginning your very first quarter, in your second and final year of your program, or currently doing lab, thesis or dissertation work, Core Programs is here to support you by connecting you with tri-campus resources, professional development events, and wellness programming. As you begin the new quarter, here are some strategies that that can help set you up for success (your success):

You Belong Here. Some of you are the first in your families to earn a Bachelor’s degree, and now you are going even further by pursuing Master’s or Doctoral degrees. Some of you have moved hundreds, or even thousands, of miles away from your families and communities to attend graduate school. And while many of you are feeling excitement, anxiety, fear, or homesickness (totally normal by the way), the impact of these feelings are experienced unequally based on race, gender, sexuality, economic background, ability, and citizenship. A sense of belonging while you are in graduate school can greatly reduce both isolation and feeling like you will not be smart enough (aka imposter syndrome). We encourage you to reach out and connect with community, as this is vital to your success. Seek out peers, get curious. See below for a list of events and opportunities to connect.

Take It One Day at a Time. Think about what you need to thrive each day. For many of us, this can include time for exercise, enough sleep, time for connecting with a friend or family member, and time to get some work done. Take a look at your daily calendar and plan blocks of time where you can accomplish things from your priority lists and to-do lists, even while sustaining yourself. Graduate school is a marathon that can feel like a sprint sometimes. Keep the big picture in mind – why are you here, and where are you going next? You might have bigger projects you want to (or need to) accomplish. Break those down into manageable and realistic tasks and do just a little bit on the project each day. Before you know it, you’ve made progress.

Take Control of Your Schedule. This one may feel challenging to do when you have so many demands on your time – perhaps classes, research obligations, work responsibilities, family life, etc. And yet, your calendar is your own. Make note of the essential elements in each day and then look for the available spaces that might lie between other obligations. Even with a 15 or 30 minute time block, you can make progress on something that is important to you. Perhaps that is marking off one of the bite-sized tasks from your priority list (it can be energizing just to cross something off!), or stretching or going for a walk, or just resetting with some needed down time. Make sure you are getting what you need, even while you are being responsive to others’ needs. You can set boundaries on your time too. Give yourself 60-90 minutes of productive time and then reward yourself with a 30 minute break. When time feels out of our control, it can add to our feeling of being overwhelmed. Take it back – time is yours.

At Core Programs, we are right there with you – balancing many competing demands and needs and passions. We will keep sharing out resources and tips as we find them, and if you find things that really work for you, we want to hear about them too! Write us at cpinfo@uw.edu or post a photo on Instagram at #UWGradSuccess.

Best Regards,

Kelly, Jaye, and Ziyan
Core Programs Team

Additional Resources:

Ground Yourself These Last Few Weeks of the Quarter

We see how hard you’re working.  You’re running here and there, juggling multiple responsibilities related to all aspects of who you are as a graduate or professional student.  In the midst of this spring quarter chaos, we want to offer you some tips to help ground you in these last few weeks of the quarter.

Connect with your body.  Feeling accumulated tension in your muscles?  Are you having trouble keeping your energy up?  Maybe you’ve been agitated the last few days.  These are all signs that your body is stressed.  We know this is common knowledge, but isn’t it interesting how we can easily ignore bodily feedback and try to plough through the day or week anyway?  Try taking 10-15 minutes out of your day to connect with your body (this is very possible as we can easily spend 10 minutes on social media).  Go for a brief afternoon walk on campus or outside of your home.  Sit in a quiet place such as the library, close your eyes, and take several deep breaths.  Match your caffeine intake with hydrating water (we won’t tell you to cut back on coffee, not now!) .  Keep healthy snacks on hand to make it easy to stay fueled with vitamin rich food. Connecting with your body allows you to be more mindful of your stress level and to actively respond to decrease it.

Shift from distraction to purpose.  It’s easy to get caught in a negative feedback loop of feeling bogged down, frustrated, or depressed about all the things you have to do to close out the year or complete your graduate degree.  And your feelings are totally valid and real.  Yet you are also a whole person and not just the sum of stressful experiences.  In those moments, it’s helpful to remind yourself of your purpose for earning that graduate degree.  You want to contribute to innovation in your field.  You are seeking to impact change in collaboration with your community.  You want to better support yourself and your family.  You want to make a unique contribution to knowledge and research.

Good enough is good enough.  Academia has the capacity to make us feel that we aren’t doing or achieving enough.  Yet in reality, we in Core Programs know that this is just not true.  We have the privilege of collaborating, and engaging in conversations, with a range of graduate and professional students throughout the year.  We get to hear about all the amazing things (no matter how big or small) you are involved in, projects and interests that go above and beyond your degree programs.  We also know that you have families you’re taking care of, working at one or two jobs to make ends meet, or that you are not always validated or seen on campus.  We too have projects that are not yet done, and a long list of things we want to get to.  Your work is never done–this is why the world (and your loved ones) needs you!  We’re telling you right now, you are enough.  And we see you.

Anchor yourself in community.  Make the time in your schedule to hang out with friends, colleagues, or family who care about your well-being and success.  Spend time with people whose well-being you care about.  Reach out to people who share your hobbies and interests.  Go hiking with your best friend.  Plan pizza and a movie night with peers in your cohort.  Make plans for connecting after your last deadline this quarter.  If you’re new to Seattle, consider joining a meetup group based on your interests.  Anchoring yourself in community reminds you that you are a whole person!

Warmly,

Jaye Sablan, Kelly Edwards, and Ziyan Bai
Core Programs Team

Getting Unstuck, Moving Forward

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
– Winston Churchill

We know what you’re thinking: why are you already giving me tips on how to move forward from feeling stuck so early in the quarter?  Well, we thought we’d offer you some preventative tips to help you pull through, no matter where you’re at this quarter or what year you are in your degree program.  Besides, everyone gets stuck in life, and graduate school is no exception by any means. There are several factors that can contribute to feeling stuck from getting our work done.  We’ve put together a short list of these, including ways you can move forward.  So let’s begin:

Relieving the pressure.  Looming deadlines for school and work.  Family, community, and financial responsibilities.  Preparing for job searches, interviews, and possible relocations—near or far.  Those pressures can make us feel overwhelmingly stuck.  One way to relieve this weight is to re-focus your attention on what you need right now:  Do you need to slow down and take a few deep breaths (repeat every few hours)?  After that deep breath or two, and in a calmer state of mind, identify a single step you can take for one of your tasks that would help you feel you have accomplished something today.  Each task is just made up of a whole series of steps.  We have to start somewhere, and it often helps relieve the pressure to just take that one step.

Finding value in yourself (despite imperfections). We all struggle and have shortcomings. Indeed, in a job interview a common question is, “Tell me about your weaknesses!”  Being honest about your own limitations – not critical, just descriptive – can sometimes give you the awareness you need to move ahead again.  More often than not, we need a trusted conversation partner to help us see this perspective.  Reach out for support from peers, departmental staff or advisors, loved ones, or campus resources (whomever you feel most comfortable with).

Facing the fear of failure.  Academia can perpetuate the myth that we must be highly productive, all of the time.  And if we’re not, we must be failures.  Not only is this unrealistic and unattainable, this kind of culture obscures actual strategies for how to do our best work—and it can keep us from trying in the first place.  So how can we best manage this?  First, it’s helpful to think of failure in terms of progress over time—so you can grow into being that better professional, practitioner, or scholar.  It’s a process, not an end result.  You try, you learn, and you move forward—all the while validating and/or rewarding yourself each step of the way.  No matter how big or small the milestone.  It’s also vital that you build a support system of people who’ve got your back and will recognize your achievements along with you.

Remembering your purpose.  Feeling stuck can make you forget why you are in graduate or professional school in the first place.  It can also keep you in a false feedback loop that makes you believe that you are unsuccessful or unworthy of achievement.  Whenever you feel this way, remember that you are working hard towards your degree for many amazing reasons and focus on those—whether it’s to making a contribution to a field of knowledge, impacting policy that improves lives, getting a job that you love and that helps you provide for your families.  Remembering your end goals helps us focus on what really counts.

Warmly,

Jaye Sablan, Kelly Edwards, Ziyan Bai
Core Programs Team

Being Intentional Throughout the Spring Quarter

It never hurts to do some intentional planning and mapping out of the most important tasks and goals that lie ahead of you.  This is especially true for Spring Quarter as we know that many of you will be graduating, seeking internships, taking the next step in your program, and transitioning into a variety of career paths.  So why not welcome spring with some intentionality, and start out the quarter on the right foot?  Here are some tips to help you do just that:

Set goals.  You can’t do (and be) your best while attempting to do everything at once.  Your first step?  Take a step back.  What?  We know this is really hard to do in the midst of a tsunami of work, but it really does make moving forward possible.  Make a list of short-term goals that will help your reach long term goals—for the coming week, month, the end of the quarter.   Identify time constraints that are out of your control versus deadlines that you can manage and set for yourself—you’ll have a more accurate picture of a schedule that is actually yours.  Try out the following resources and see what works for you:  individual development plan, decision making, and SMARTER.

Be resourceful.   It’s true—in many instances, completing goals and projects are ultimately down to you.   They run the gamut from writing a thesis or dissertation to gearing up for multiple job searches.  But this doesn’t mean you have to do this work in isolation, nor should you.  Create opportunities for you to get and/or give support.  Co-organize a writing accountability group with peers, who are inside or outside of your field. The important thing is making a commitment to each other.  Check out these guides for writing accountability and dissertation support groups. Seek out opportunities for networking, job shadows, or informational interviews.  Schedule meetings with advisors or mentors (community, professional, academic) that you trust, so they can be your sounding board and help keep you on track.

Make commitments. Sometimes we need an extra push to move forward in our work, and creating external deadlines to participate in events that help us grow intellectually and professionally can help.  We’ve had graduate students (Masters and Doctoral) say that participating in Scholars’ Studio really helped them organize their thinking about their research in important ways.  Just like taking a step back, it can help to pull yourself up from the weeds of your work and communicate with others about it.  Whether in a rapid exchange with peers, a lightning or research talk, or ways to showcase your engagement with service and leadership, get inspired or refreshed by participating or attending UW events happening this quarter at all three campuses.

Stay present.  We know what you’re thinking, “Yeah right!”  Because it feels like crunch time, this can coincide with persistent worrying about the future.  Taking time for yourself to slow down at several points throughout the quarter prioritizes your health and takes focus and energy away from anxious thoughts.  This can look like doing only one task at a time (as multi-tasking never works), spacing out time between tasks and appointments (so you’re not rushing all the time), decompressing by going for a run or doing yoga following several hours of work-related tasks, or doing absolutely nothing for a few minutes (try focusing on the rhythm of your breath or visualize a soothing image).  The purpose of these activities is to help re-ground you and bring you back to your intentions and the present moment.

Warmly,

Jaye Sablan, Kelly Edwards, Ziyan Bai
Core Programs Team

Break?! Making Time For Yourself

We know that depending on your graduate or professional degree program, “spring break” looks very different from your days as an undergraduate–at least in terms of the work. You may be doing fieldwork locally or globally, applying for funding, preparing for job searches or qualifying exams, writing your thesis or dissertation, or working at a practicum site.

All this is true, but this doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate all that is you. In fact, given the tips we share below, you don’t have to wait for an official break to honor–and take care–of yourself. You can make that happen any time of the year.

Press pause. We move at break-neck speeds, going from one task to the next, barely allowing ourselves to just be. So go on, give yourself permission to slow down and breathe deeply, take several deep breaths–for however long it takes. The world will not end, we swear.

Appreciate yourself. Isn’t it funny how it can be easier to treat our friends and loved ones better than we treat ourselves, especially when they’ve been working hard or going through a rough time? So what’s stopping you from treating yourself to a nice meal or new pair of shoes? Why not buy a book you actually want to read? Why can’t you go on a staycation? You know what? There’s absolutely no reason why you can’t, so go on and do it! Do more than one. It’s not selfish. It’s self-love.

Laugh at yourself. You all work incredibly hard in your respective fields, and you are also awesomely, brilliantly human. Both are true. We all can’t help but be imperfect, so we might as well laugh at those embarrassing moments where we aren’t always our best selves.

Let go of guilt. Give yourself permission to not feel awful for taking care of yourself. By taking some time out for you, you’ll be able to return to longer term projects feeling energized. Also, taking time for yourself benefits everyone in your circle, because you’re all the more happier for it!

Warmly,

Jaye Sablan, Kelly Edwards, Ziyan Bai
Core Programs Team

Building and Maintaining Momentum

It’s nearing the end of winter quarter, and we know it can be difficult to keep your spirits and energy up as you work to fulfill on and off campus responsibilities.  We are right there with you.  Here are five tips to help keep you going:

Set achievable goals.  Rather than promising yourself that you’re going to spend 5 full hours in one sitting to work on a paper, approach time management realistically.  Try writing in 30 minute chunks.  Take a short break and pick it right back up.  This approach can be a great stress reliever, because you can make progress one step at a time.

Set boundaries.  Set healthy boundaries on campus, at work, and at home–and if you haven’t done so, now is a good time as any to practice. Take stock of what you have to get done in the next two weeks.  You can hold off on any tasks and responsibilities that can realistically wait for the next few weeks or month. Boundary setting helps you realize that you do have control over your schedule.

Meet with your support system.  Have you checked in with people who’ve got your back?  This may include faculty, graduate program advisors, loved ones, student peers, or work colleagues. More than one person in your support system is better. Check in with faculty via e-mail or in person and focus on one or two goals you have for the rest of the quarter.  Meet with a peer at the library or a coffee shop to write and go over ideas and drafts.  Connecting with loved ones and community is important and can remind you that you are more than just a graduate student.  Call, text, skype, share a meal, and/or make plans to spend time together.

Keep yourself nourished.  What keeps you going and energized?  Do you need a glass of water? How about a snack or meal?  A short nap or a good night’s sleep?  Is there a song, movie, hobby, or activity that restores your motivation?  Is there something you are looking forward to during Spring Break? Post an image or word in your work space or apartment that reminds of you of what you are looking forward to–to keep yourself moving toward that finish line. And it’s always helpful to reflect back on why you’re here in graduate school in the first place (insert personal, intellectual, and professional goals here).

Have faith in yourself.  You do have what it takes.  Really, you do!  You can do your best now and it will be enough.

Warmly,

Jaye Sablan, Kelly Edwards, Ziyan Bai
Core Programs Team