The Good, The Bad, The Ugly...What 2018 has Taught Me.

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It's been close to the 2-year mark of my "big" move from Michigan to Pennsylvania, and I've learned a lot. I've learned who my real friends, my biggest and weakest supporters, I've also learned to protect my peace and uphold my standards I always maintained but somehow dropped the ball during the last few years. Nothing is ever easy in life, people can say things are...but a lot of the time, it's not and we just have to take those as lessons to learn from and do better for ourselves.

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What Being a 1st-year PhD Student Taught Me: So, here we are at the end of 2018, and what exactly has occurred and changed for me? Well, I'm approaching my 2nd year of being a PhD student, which has taught me to get my time-management skills under control and that this journey is far from easy. I literally had an initial research topic set before presenting it to a faculty member who was in the mentor role, a representative from the IRB, and a qualitative methods faculty member. Basically, I had to scratch that idea because it didn't belong in my specialization and start from the beginning. I literally felt defeated and tried to fight back tears, but I was determined to get a research topic that would get the approval of the IRB and still included something that was close to my heart. Moral of the story: Don't let setbacks define who you are and your purpose, learn to go a different path to achieve your goal.

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What Being a Research Assistant Taught Me: I've been a research assistant to a faculty member for about 6 months, and it's been teaching me quite a few things. Even though, the research topic is not close to what my research topic is, there are still takeaways for me to be a better researcher and scholar. Being a part of the research team, provides multiple opportunities to develop speaking in front of peers and others in the field, refining literature searches, and working with faculty and others who are wanting to gain the experience. Also, working with my research supervisor, it has provided me more help with working with IBM SPSS, which I have a love/hate relationship with, but right now our relationship is good. So what I can suggest is, if you are interested in gaining that research experience, take advantage of the opportunities presented to you, whether it's in your area of interest or not. You can always learn something new.

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What Being a Teaching Assistant Taught Me...and Made Me Realize About Myself: Here's the thing, I've always wondered how many times teaching assistants have dealt with difficult students, how prepared they must be to work with learners, and all that good stuff...well, I found out. I would say, for my first semester of being a TA, it was successful although there were a few occasions where I did get annoyed of answering repeated questions or when some felt that they were above receiving feedback. But hey, it comes with this role, and it's prepared me on knowing how to go in to the next semester/quarter with the next group. A goal I've set for myself is to be an instructor of a course, whether virtual or on-campus, and being a TA gives you the chance to see if it's really for you or not. I still want to do it, and it challenges me on how to have difficult conversations at that level, because I had quite a few. It also served as a reminder to put yourself in the learner's shoes and understand where they may be frustrated.

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Okay so, that has school covered...my personal life, hmmmm? Well, my family loss my uncle which was devastating and so heartbreaking, but his final words to me were "don't be sad, just celebrate life." That moment and those words have stuck in my head since August 16, 2018, and it just reminded me how short life is, and how little time we have for others' BS. Although I've started doing this, I'm cutting those who are toxic for me out of my life, because why not protect your mindset and your peace, right?! I've learned to be unapologetic for those who get upset about my decisions that are made only for yours truly. I'm refusing to let those talk to me any kind of way and who feel comfortable doing it...so basically, they get checked immediately if I feel they're talking down to me. Let's see...OH! I'm refusing to let others apply their standards on what or how I should be or act on me, I'm my own person, always have been and I've been doing pretty damn good by my lonesome, and sometimes people need a reminder of I was good before them. Let's see, let's see...what else...oh yea, I'm extra stingy with my free time, I hate my time being wasted, bruh! I think that's all I got for what I learned from 2018, but I expect to be better and do better for myself!

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Happy New Year, everyone and may 2019 be the best year yet for your personal glow-up!

Love,

Candace