Managing Oneself: A Lesson in Herding Cats (except it's actually only one cat...and the cat has acute time management issues that the vet is starting to think are less of a professional weakness and more of an inherent character flaw)

In this semester's final blog post, we celebrate an as yet distant dream, now fulfilled.

After many years, the day has finally come where I can turn my relentless, self-deprecating inner dialogue over for academic validation. We've reached the central slice in my Venn Diagram of favourite things. I'm too excited to even spin up my usual long-winded introduction. Let's just skip straight to the free therapeutic outlet! 🥳

Starting off with the first set of provided prompts...

What did I learn/not learn? Can I … 

– … read / understand a scientific paper? 📖

I'd like to think so, mostly! I now have an internal guide for how to approach reading and what substance & format to expect given a typical paper's structure, which is a tremendous help. However, it ultimately still depends on the paper, its intended audience, and my level of knowledge going in. 

It may be more accurate to say - I can now read a scientific paper and understand when I'm not understanding it! That could be for various reasons on my part or the authors'. Either way, it's been great to have a more sensitive radar for disengagement that indicates when I need to re-read content before things click or do a deeper dive on supporting context.

– … obtain more information / do literature research? 🕵️‍♀️

Yes! Although it was challenging to scope and direct the research for the final survey paper - i.e., curating/pruning sources to align with the question at hand, I had no shortage of tools and the actual acquisition of information was no problem. The AI-augmented research apps we looked at made initial searches much easier too. In other words, I have new bookmarks now! 🔖⭐😊

– … put research in context (with respect to current state of the art in the field)? 🤖

Hmm...partially. I got some decent practice in throughout the semester, especially when writing the final survey paper, but that's really only a single artefact, topic, and field (with a single contextual landscape). 

On one hand, I wonder how I'd fare with other subjects that have narrower, broader, more complex (messier), or simply different descriptions of the SoTA. On the other, I expect I'd run into the same difficulties regardless - deciding what context is important to include, what's still relevant, and what that context actually means for the research I'm examining - does it make the results that much more impactful? Limit their impact (the word "incremental" comes to mind)? Or just carve out a nice little niche for the work to belong?

All in all, I suppose I'd need a reader to tell me how I did before assuming my application attempt was good enough to warrant a yes here. For the more general effort of contextualising material though, i.e. when trying to understand my topic paper, I think I did well enough for my purposes.

– … form my own scientific opinion/judgement? 👩‍⚖️

I have opinions. I definitely have judgements. How scientific they are? Hmmm...another matter entirely. Just kidding. I'm better at this, yep! But, interestingly, I think it's the learning goal here that took the least conscious effort to improve?

When you find yourself knee-deep in research material, at some point you begin to get pretty passionate about what you're looking into, then somewhere along the way, that feeling + the scientific information you're collecting = opinions! Excited opinions! About what should've been done, what could be done now, and what you could do to push things along.

I'm trying to make it sound like magic but I think having structural and substance-related criteria mentally imbued from this seminar was a key ingredient. By the time I was reviewing sources for the final survey paper, I had a solid reference (and examples) in my head of good & not-so-good paper characteristics that could be used for critical assessment. That made all the difference when it came to forming a justifiable/evidence-backed scientific judgement vs. your run-of-the-mill judgy judgement.  

– … present scientific results in different ways? (Blog, oral, presentation, written doc) 📝

I can! Or at least, I absolutely tried! In retrospect, it was quite fun to figure out how to approach each medium. Because the actual topic remained unchanging between forms, that variation was especially apparent throughout the creation process. It's something that's easy enough to understand when discussing but is only fully experienced through application - where you have to answer identical questions ("what do I need to say?", "who am I speaking to?", "how do I say this?") in completely different ways.

Reminds me of the very first seminar where we discussed channels of communication & their respective purpose. Which feels weird to get nostalgic over just a few months later?..still... :'))

– ... engage in a scientific discussion, express my view, formulate criticism? 🗣️

Discussion, expression, and criticism! My three greatest enemies! For they imply the most interaction with a deeply rooted, insidious fear of mine...probably instilled during childhood and therefore outside of this blog post's scope to unpack healthily....other human beings! 

Seriously though, I've seen some improvement, especially with our blog critiques on style, substance, and the consolidated peer/journal review attempt. The linked seminar sources were very helpful when it came to wording and guidelines, so I'd say formulating criticism has become much easier. Where I have my doubts is the delivery and expression of that criticism, which is easy enough to do from the safety of an anonymous blog where you can repeatedly preface that you are but a lowly Master's student whose opinions are to be taken with a quarter-grain of salt.

In real life/face-to-face, though? Especially at crucial moments or at pre-publication stages when key ideas are being discussed? Based on the periods of silence during actual seminar meetings, probably not, so I'll conservatively bank this one in the "did not learn" category. Although I do think some of that learning occurs with experience-fuelled confidence, I still believe there's independent progress I can make now by practicing in other courses/projects.

How do I assess my performance, compared with my colleagues?

– What did I do better/worse than my colleagues? 🤝

I could definitely contribute to discussions more + ask more questions! I also noticed how much more effort others put into rehearsing their presentations or preparing their blog posts (including references and everything! So impressive!). I think this seminar is one of many academic experiences where you get out as much as you put in, so in hindsight, I wish I had engaged with the level of enthusiasm I got to watch in my peers. 

In terms of things I did better...? I honestly couldn't say. I'm seriously coming up blank. If anything, I guess this gap in self-assessment is a really good segue to the next prompt...

– Where do I still have need for improvement? 💪

A lot! Which is sort of exciting. Just from this reflection, it looks like:

• Contextualising complex research in terms of SoTA in the field.
• Developing discernment when it comes to content inclusion & verbosity.
• Giving & accepting constructive criticism.
• Focusing/scoping personal & academic goals to encourage better engagement.
• Reflecting on my strengths as well as weaknesses^ (still blank, sorry!)

– What could I learn from my peers? 📚

See the above re: engagement. When I really turn it over in my head, I think some of my peers had a very strong idea of what they wanted to get out of the seminar, which drove that engagement. Despite goal-setting all the same, I still had the generic attitude of "let's just see where this goes" as the semester went on, which probably lacked the focus that helped drive others' motivation and curiosity.

Oh, also! I saw some great examples of people saying more with less (words) in blog posts. That's always been a struggle for me, but others make it look so effortless! I'm only slightly jealous...I swear..

– Am I able to give & accept (constructive) criticism? 🙊

Refer to the previous prompt set when it comes to giving criticism 🥲 AKA I have people-pleasing tendencies to work through. It's actually a pretty interesting matter when it comes to peers. In my other life back home, I was a GRC consultant, where you learn quite quickly that not all your criticism is worth expressing (lest you irk the wrong boss and become a budget bid saboteur). In your head, there's this whole sociopolitical environment where you need to crunch the numbers on whether to open your mouth. It felt somewhat similar here - "is making a critical comment, albeit constructive, really worth the social cost of breaking an unspoken rule on kicking up negativity?". Academia has quite an intrinsic reputation for celebrating controversial opinions/challenging the status quo, so I wonder how it works in scholarly upper echelons...

Anyway, it's similarly tough to self-evaluate for accepting criticism but only because I can't actually recall receiving any constructive criticism?! Maybe this means my covert narcissism has reached a point where I can't even recognise criticism, let alone accept it? Or maybe I just have less malignant but arguably more annoying tendencies toward forgetfulness and overpathologising. Who's to say? Okay digressing - when it comes to constructive criticism as a whole - more research (work!) needed 😄

Last Word! 💝

Thanks for coming along for the ride with me over this semester's blog installations. Double thanks if you took the time to leave a comment. I've read at least a couple blog posts from each of my seminar peers and heard everyone speak in the tri-weekly sessions, so can say with credibility that they (you included) make up an exceedingly clever crowd. I'd be very interested to see how your various research projects and theses turn out. 

Have a great summer! For getting this far, here's a bonus picture of my cat, who is equally difficult to herd. Not because she's desensitised to her academic priorities or anything. Just short on brain cells: