Personal — Blog — Jenn Dumoulin

2020... Year in Review

Ah, 2020… it’s certainly been a year like no other. The pandemic has impacted many of us to an unprecedented and unexpected degree - personally, professionally, financially, psychologically - and I know that many people reading this are keen to see 2020 head out the door, but I think if we each took some time to reflect, we’d see that 2020 hasn’t been all bad news.

So, in the spirit of the New Year, I thought I’d take a moment and reflect on some of the big things that I’ve accomplished this year (and I hope that, if you haven’t done so already, this will inspire you to do the same).

End of Summer Update: Because It's Been a Minute

WOW! Is it almost the middle of September already? I can’t believe how quickly the summer went by. Before diving into some substantial content - I’ve been quiet for a while because I’ve been working on some big projects - I thought I’d take the time to give a bit of an update on what’s new and exciting.

Read on to hear about what’s been happening on the academic, professional and personal front, and to see what I have planned for the coming academic year!

How to Write a Dissertation: Some Not-So-Preliminary Thoughts

As a Ph.D Candidate in the second semester of my fourth year of study with my admission scholarship quickly running out and my desire to finish my degree increasing exponentially, I’ve been working on developing a plan to write my dissertation. For the past 4-5 months, I’ve flip-flopped back and forth over which chapter to start with; I’ve also started reading for all of them and stopped, turning back to my data instead for inspiration. These months aren’t lost time by any means - among other things, I’ve come up with chapter titles, have a paper in progress because of a conference presentation that I did with my data set, and have figured out how I want to present my dissertation - but I recognize that continuing on without a solid plan won’t help me to make the progress that I want to make.

So… where to start?