Adelaide9216

I was in the same situation, but was lucky that the school I chose had offered me SSHRC. But I was concerned for those same reasons. It's something that definetly needs to change...

Hello, is it okay to present unfinished work at a international congress? It's not a student organized congress, it's a congress with 600+ participants and stuff. Like some of you know, I have to change a lot of things in my research project and it's going to be clearly not at the stage I wanted it to be by the end of August.

Lemonade came out like 2 years ago, and I'm still not over how awesome that album is! Haha

Yeah, I guess that's the positive side of it. I feel grateful for having been able to do everything I wanted professionally speaking. I feel like if I was in a relationship, a lot of stuff that I wanted to do would've been compromised. However, I still wish I had someone close to support me through this along the way. Isn't a partner supposed to support you when you want to achieve goals/dreams?

wrong thread I think

I think the reason why I find it increasingly difficult to be single is that I lack true intimacy in my life in general. The only person I truly feel close to is a college teacher I had a few years ago, who became a mentor to me after I graduated. We write to each other regularly and he supports me in anything I do. And he's been part of my life for the last four years and he has seen me at my lowest and stayed in my life despite that. I often feel that if I would not be doing conferences or media interviews, if I did not win awards, that no one would care about me. I have friends, but I often wonder 'If I make a mistake, or something terrible happens to me, who's truly going to be supportive? Who's going to truly care?". Those questions create the fact that I don't let anyone get close to me, out of fear of being dissapointed or rejected. I may come across as rude in the sense that when I have people wanting to be my friend, I don't always return the steps they make towards me. But I just feel like I have to be selective in terms of who I can be friends with and who I can trust. I experienced bullying as a child and as a teenager and I just get very anxious when people come towards me to be my 'friends' now that I'm grown up. I feel like I can't truly rely on them and that they come towards me because of those things that I do, not because they actually care about me as a human being. I live with a mental illness and I speak very openly and publicly about what I went through when I was younger, but a lot of people don't understand that I still have bad days. And when I try to tell people that I'm going through a bad day, I rapidly see that they don't want to hear it. I feel extremely lonely and I feel trapped in this image that people have of me. Sometimes, I'd like to say out loud that even if I am in recovery, I sometimes still struggle even if I come across as having everything together. But I'm afraid I would sound like I'm full of myself if I did that.

I just PMd you rising_star, thanks

After having completed the first year, how are you guys doing/feeling/enjoying (or not) your program?

I have zero motivation today.

It's a good idea but I am afraid that even that could be perceived as disrespectful for this population because the study design will not be made in collaboration with any grassroots organizations I'm very afraid to keep the same topic since I am faced with such resistance from the community...I would need to talk about that with my supervisor.

Yeah, I would need to discuss that with my supervisor, because I feel like there is so little information on my specific topic that I have to change topics if I'm not collecting primary data. I'm unsure about what you mean by 'developing a model study design' ?

I am turning 26 this year. thanks for your kind words.

Good luck everyone!

And I have explained to them why I wanted to study this, but they felt like my reasons weren't deep enough. They felt like it was a way for me to 'run away' from studying my own community or something that's closer to myself. I literally don,t know what to respond to that, I feel like I should have the right to study whatever I want...

Because one year is not realistic to create those links to address the issue. I feel like it will be impossible to achieve, especially since I have approached a few organizations informally (including one I was a volunteer for) and none of them have gotten back to me and I don't want to 'harass' them, especially if they feel like the project won't be relevant or helpful to them. I feel like that would be even more disrespectful, and would do a disservice to me as a young scholar and to them as well. I feel like I should take it as a sign that none of the organizations have gotten back to me. And if none of them have given me the permission to work on this topic, I feel like I shouldn't do it, because otherwise, it would be extremely disrespectful. I basically have no project that's feasable within one year, I feel like I need to change everything in it. Plus , the member that wasn't at the meeting had someone who passed away and she's on a leave of absence for an indefinite period. She would have been a good resource since she is based at my uni, but I feel like right now, I shouldn't be talking about my research project to her (her husband passed away). About studying a community you're a part of, I don't want to argue with the member that brought that point up. She mentionned that I was somewhat 'taking the place' of a scholar of her own community who could be doing this research. I agree with you, but I don't want to make her feel like I'm an outsider who's giving her a lecture about this because she's probably tired of it already, she has to confront outsiders all the time and I can only imagine how exhausting and frustrating that must be on a daily basis to have outsiders speaking for yourself. I just don't want to get into a confrontation about this for these reasons. I felt uncomfortable during the meeting because I did not respond to any of the criticism, I just sat there and listened and tried to absorb it. I wanted to listen to what that member especially had to say because I feel like these things and dilemmas are not being said enough in academia.

That's very good advice! And you're right, a master's thesis should be about learning the research process rather than coming with something entirely original and new.

Although I still live with my family, and even if I pay out of my own pocket for the vast majority of my expenses, I don't know how to save money or to put money aside... I hope I'll learn that skill when I'll move out for PhD programs...it's definetly something I struggle with (and feel ashamed of as well).

I am also doing my MSW right now, which was right after my BSW. However, I have a CEGEP degree in social intervention as well which allowed me to work during that degree and during summers (I'm from Quebec). I also had a lot of prior volunteer experience, and had a lot of field placement experiences as well (in CEGEP and as an undergrad). Those did count as 2-year experience from what I remember.

Hello, so I may have another idea as a project, but still linked to this idea of sexual violence. I've taken a quick look to see if what I want to study has been done before and what are some of the gaps, and I saw one master's thesis in the departement of political science in my province. and a lot of stuff from the states from different social sciences and humanities departements in the States. So, I've got two questions. (I'm gonna address those with my supervisor as well). 1) Does it matter if I am conducting my master's thesis on that topic even if it seems to have been somewhat studied before (but in another field, from another perspective)? 2) If I decide to go down that path eventually, should I email the congress organizers about the change in my topic for the conference in August?

Easter break! Four days! Yay! I need it.

Hello, It's normal to feel this way. I do too sometimes. And I think a lot of us do as well, especially when we've just started our programs.

Yes. I got hired as a RA for my supervisor a year ago, and it was very destabilizing because the process of research is messy and I was not used to that at all. I think having that experience helps me for experiencing this again in my own research project. I am destabilized, but a lot less than I was a year ago.

Yes, I think it's good to receive criticism. In my life so far, (I am only 25), the times in which I have failed or received criticism have helped me a lot. It makes you grow as an individual and as a professionnal, and as a researcher. And I just want to get better at this. I'm a tough skin, I know I'll get through this, but I have to admit that I am destabilized because I literally don't know what I should do about my project now. It was a tough meeting now that I look back at it. I was good to just sit back and hear the criticism without responding immediately because I needed to process it. I know it had nothing to do with me personnality or my ability to do a project, I know the criticism was aimed at the actual project.

Hello everyone, Thank you for your kind words and for your wisdom. I will respond more in detail later because I am in public transit right now, but just to give a bit of background: I have worked directly with female survivors of sexual violence both in paid jobs and as a volunteer. I also was a volunteer (for a short period of time, I admit) for an organization that works with that population. My research project was about interviewing workers who work with survivors from this population. Not the actual survivors. Also, I am also from a marginalized community and there are a lot of parrallels between what my community has experienced throughout history and the ongoing effects of that history... I also got grants for my project which gave me the confidence that it was perceived as feasible. Thats why I am a bit surprised that I am facing such resistance. I feel like I literally have no project now. I don't know how to go about it. If no one wants to work with me, probably because of a misunderstanding on my background/experience, I have no project. and I have zero idea what I am going to present at the conference. I literally dont know what to do now.

Yeah, when you,re not eligible, you will know it way before April 1st. That's what happened for me at one of the univeristies I applied to out of three.