These include the ability to:

• make a strategic plan
• build key relationships
• push through external resistance
• overcome internal resistance like self-doubt and imposter syndrome

However, no skill is more important than self-advocacy. Self-advocacy is the ability to stand up for yourself and the things that are important to you.

To be a self-advocate, you need to:

1. Constantly “look inside yourself” and become clear about what you want for yourself
2. Develop and carry out a plan to help you get the vision you have for yourself
3. Push through any internal or external obstacle until you get to what you want

This may sound like a lot of work, but it doesn’t have to be! Take small steps.

To help you become a better self-advocate during your match journey, you need to ask yourself one question every day: “How did I advocate for myself today?”

Since matching as an IMG will require that you become a staunch self-advocate , asking yourself these seven words,  “How did I advocate for myself today?”, will change the trajectory of your life. 

So, how did you advocate for yourself today?

• Did you sit and decide why you are going to match no matter what (or are you still “okay” with the idea of not matching)?
• Did you create a calendar for the week with protected times for studying and working on your application (or are you still prioritizing other people’s priorities)?
• Did you seek help for your USMLE prep or did you keep struggling on your own?
• Did you neglect to reschedule your Step date even though you’re not scoring how you want to, and you can feel you are not prepared?
• Did you stick to your work schedule for your application or did you allow yourself to be distracted?
• Did you ask a colleague who matched into a program you like to chat with you for 15 minutes, or are you still wondering from afar how they got in because you don’t want to bother them?
• Did you guide the person writing your Letter of Recommendation, or are you just hoping they give you an excellent letter?
• Did you seek help with putting together your personal statement and CV, or did you keep struggling with them alone?
• Did you send your programs Thank You notes in which you subtly addressed a question you fumbled on during the interview, or did you just give up on amending your mistake?

Asking yourself, “How did I advocate for myself today? at the end of every day will force you to re-evaluate your daily performance as it relates to your goal of matching. 

Asking this question also allows you to see how you can advocate for yourself tomorrow and make good use of new opportunities to do better!

Tell us in the comments, how did you advocate for yourself today?

The post Do You Have This Skill, Ambitious IMG? appeared first on Memorable Essay.

“Assess how you are going to pay for school, research scholarship opportunities, be frugal with living expenses if need be, and design a future plan for paying off loans that you are committed to working towards.”

Ashley Szczesiak describes herself as a visual artist, educator, and explorer. At Middlebury College, she earned a BA in Film and Media Culture Studies, with a minor in the History of Art and Architecture. She went on to pursue a master’s degree (MAT) in Arts Education as the recipient of a New Artist Society Fellowship from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

ME: Ashley, thanks for giving of your time to share with the Memorable Essay community. I am happy that others will be able to learn from your wisdom and journey.

Can you tell us what was your single biggest motivation for pursuing a master’s?

Ashley: I decided to pursue my master’s degree because I wanted to be my own boss. What I mean by boss is that I realized that I wanted to have more autonomy over how I spend my time and energy at work and over the course of my future career trajectory.

I am a visual artist who spends most of my time teaching. Initially, I began teaching to support my personal practice, but lately, teaching has become part of my practice of creating and managing what I see to be “social projects.”

For years after pursuing my bachelor’s degree, I worked in assistant positions to support the needs of other artists, art historians and art educators in professional studios, art museums, and pubic and private educational settings.

While each of those experiences proved to be very valuable in developing my art practice, and essential in teaching me the practical skills needed to apply the knowledge I acquired as an undergraduate, after four years of various apprenticeships (the equivalent of another undergraduate period of development and growth), it became clear to me that assistant positions were no longer appropriate for my skill level and the scope of my professional aspirations.

I noticed that I was approaching each day at work with an increasingly unsatisfied feeling that I was not fully exploring and applying my potential, that I was working too hard for too little pay, and that all my hard work was not actually going to pay off and lead me in the right direction to grow, because I was not on the right track; I needed to jump levels.

I distinctly remember working as an assistant again before committing to apply for that year’s application cycle and realizing, “You know what? I can do this. I’m ready to be in charge. I want to manage my own students, my own assistants, my own classroom. Boom.”

ME: Boom. And what was the biggest sacrifice you made to successfully complete your master’s?

Ashley: I left a city that I loved to move to a city that I did not love.
My homesickness was so severe that I often found myself crying in class during my first semester. A quick look at my resume could show that I might in fact be a professional vagabond, since I have moved annually all over the country — and even internationally — to take various social justice-driven art education positions. But the move I made to attend graduate school was the first move I made that felt contrary to the wishes of my heart.

I was heartbroken. NYC has always felt like home to me; at the time, I had a deep sense of connection to my family and friends who were there, and the last thing I wanted to do after years of moving was to uproot my recent sense of settlement and solace for an entirely new city (and culture) that I would need to make my home for at least two years.

In the end, I managed to heal my heart by merging my own personal experience in the midwest with my pedagogical practice by focusing my graduate thesis research on phenomenological and autobiographical accounts of how teenage Chicago Public School students also conceived of the concept of “home.”

ME: I understand. I think for many people who suffer from homesickness while in school, they choose topics of study that serve as its catharsis. I definitely did.

Master’s studies can be a trying road, so I am happy you made it! Tell us, what should anyone contemplating a Master of Art consider before applying?

Ashley: Be realistic and disciplined about your financial plan.

Assess how you are going to pay for school, research scholarship opportunities, be frugal with living expenses if need be and design a future plan for paying off loans that you are committed to working towards.

Graduate school is supposed to catapult you into a new social position that eventually affords you more happiness and freedom. Having a smart financial plan and sticking to it is one clear way to work towards that very freedom that we are seeking from our studies.

ME : You could not have said that more perfectly. Thank you. And what advice would you give someone who wants to successfully pursue their master’s?

Ashley’s Four Tips on What to Consider Before Starting a Master’s:

1. Be serious about your commitment. A healthy dose of doubt and readjustment to what could be a radical shift in lifestyle should leave within the first semester. Remember, graduate school might only be four semesters! You owe it to yourself to be solidly committed to your reasons for being there. Be serious enough to give it all you can and get all you can in return.

2. Build relationships with your professors to develop professional mentorships that will last after graduate school ends. Networking is not the right word. It was helpful for me to acknowledge that the relationships with my professors that seemed most special were not mutually equal “professional friendships” in which we took turns giving and receiving. They were ones in which expectations were explicitly established that one person would whole-heartedly give more, and the other would receive the wisdom and generosity of their shared experience as an act of goodwill that would then be passed on / paid forward.

3. Call on your colleagues (cohort members) for support and healthy competition. It was amazing how much harder I could work when I realized that I had a receptive audience to listen and constructively challenge me to think through my ideas/actions even further.

4. Devise a plan to take care of yourself by setting aside time for just you each week, regardless of what is due or demanded of you by others. The rigors of graduate school beckoned me to finally confront my tendency to run myself ragged and merely get to the end of whatever I set out to do. I took the time to finally figure out what it might look and feel like for me to practice healthy “self-care” and accept (and manage) that from now on, the nature of my professional career and personal life lies in the marathon category.

ME: Indeed. Life is not a sprint race. Thank you, Ashley!

Ashley Szczesiak, MAT, is licensed to teach visual art in the State of Illinois (Grades K-12) and holds Initial Conditional Professional Licensure (Grades K-12) in New York. She views travel as part of her personal practice and has pursued social justice art education opportunities in Vermont, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Arizona, China, Illinois, and Colombia. Currently based in New York City, Ashley works as a full-time visual arts teacher and advisor at a private Quaker high school for students with learning disabilities.

The post Earning A Master’s But Crying : Ashley’s Story appeared first on Memorable Essay.

“Never forget the good reasons that motivated you to pursue the PhD in the first place.”

Dr. Derron Wallace is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wheaton College (Massachusetts), where he studied sociology and the African diaspora. He recently received his Ph.D. in Sociology of Education at the University of Cambridge, where he was a Marshall and Gates Cambridge Scholar. For his dissertation, Derron was awarded the 2015 Distinguished Dissertation Award from the American Educational Research Association. Here are his five tips for getting your PhD done.

• ME:  Thanks in advance for sharing your wisdom, Derron. What was your motivation for pursuing a PhD?

Derron: Anger. I pursued a PhD because of an overwhelming anger, an unyielding frustration with the influence and impact of educational inequality in the Caribbean and its diaspora communities. To my mind, this was a productive form of anger—the generative kind needed for social change.

From my earliest days in Jamaica, I can recall being asked to leave school because my parents had not paid tuition on time (and in one instance, at all). Though but a child, I remember thinking to myself, how can a just nation say to its youth, say to its future leaders, that your participation in public schools is contingent on wealth?

My five-year doctoral study has been a critical and imaginative inquiry into the origin, development and maintenance of educational inequality. I am hopeful that the anger that still animates my questioning will ultimately lead to significant policy and programmatic changes in the field of education.

• ME:  What kind of social support helped you get through the hard times?

Derron: To ease my spirit, I avoided stuck-up nerds at all cost. I also threatened to discontinue my friendship with people who wished to talk about research day in and day out. For the health of my spirit, I invested in a network of leaders and bonafide friends who forced me to laugh about Portia’s never-shifting ‘helmet’, Jamaica’s three ministers of finance—each affectionately called ‘one-third’, or any of Ity and Fancy Cat’s antics. I should also add that I left the hallowed halls of Cambridge University every week after classes to live and work in South London. I searched for the company of fun-loving creatives with whom I could cook, play and laugh until my abdomen hurt.

• ME: Which one thing do you wish you had known about the PhD journey when you were applying to various programs?

Derron: You should not pay for a PhD. Accessing significant funding beyond what is needed for tuition and living expenses is extremely important to your development as a researcher and scholar.

The prestige of the university is arguably of value, but I believe the quality of the (financial) support offered can, in some cases, be far more important than going to an Ivy League institution. You will need resources to go to conferences, conduct fieldwork and collaborate on research projects with senior faculty. Make sure you have a strong financial aid package as part of your offer. Otherwise, find another school.

Derron’s Five Tips to Get to PhinisheD

1. Make writing a daily habit. Kiss the days of binge writing goodbye, and commit to writing less more frequently. In the long run, this will enhance the quality of your work.

2. Think of writing, not as a chore, but as an act of self-care. The more you write (well), the brighter your future will be, especially if you choose to become a lecturer or professor.

3. Find a very good supervisor who believes in you. There is nothing worse than working with the proverbial ‘negative Nancy’ who lives to demean you and your work. I got rid of a supervisor who, for some odd reason, believed she ‘owned’ me. Well, I don’t do colonial relationships of any sort and I made that clear to her one day until her cheeks flushed red. I ruined that relationship, but left freed to build so many more.

4. Avoid showing early drafts of your work to people you do not trust. Accessorize your lives with good ride-or-die people who can help you edit your work deftly.

5. Never forget the good reasons that motivated you to pursue the PhD in the first place. Whether it be the discovery of new knowledge, the creation of it, or the change that comes from it, always remember these important goals.

ME: Thank you, Dr. Wallace. Congratulations on being PhinisheD!!!

An experienced community organizer, Dr. Derron Wallace has wide-ranging experiences in educational activism, analysis, policy and research. He has worked with immigrant youth and consulted with local education authorities in London. He has also worked with nomads in Ethiopia, economically disadvantaged rural youth in Jamaica, English language learners in Thailand and gifted students in New York City. In addition to having worked with young people with disabilities in Rwanda, he has served as Special Assistant to the country’s Minister of Education.

Prior to his doctoral studies, Dr. Wallace was also a Fulbright Scholar, Watson Fellow, and Davis Projects for Peace Fellow. You can find him on Twitter.

The post How To Finish Your PhD: Derron Remembered Little Derron appeared first on Memorable Essay.

“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

Dr. Laura Edwards graduated from Yale University with a B.S. in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology in 2008, and from the Harvard Graduate School of Education with a doctorate in Human Development and Education in 2015. I asked her to share the wisdom she gained from her PhD journey, because she had been “vocal” on Facebook about overcoming myriad obstacles in order to complete that degree.

ME: Hi Laura, thank you in advance for sharing your wisdom. What did you pursue a PhD in, and why?

Laura: I did a PhD in education because I was interested in designing curricula for children with autism and other developmental disorders. As an undergrad, I had studied biology and participated in my school’s Teacher Preparation program. I spent time after undergrad doing autism research, but I didn’t have an extensive background in actual teaching. So I did my degree in education in the hope of getting the exposure necessary to do work translating neuroscience research into meaningful educational practice.

ME: What social support did you rely on to get through your program?

Laura: Pretty much everything I could find: I commiserated with friends and colleagues in my program, or in similar programs.  I also asked students who were ahead of me in the program, or who had already graduated, how they dealt with obstacles similar to those I was encountering.

I was very open with my advisors when I was having issues in the program, such as when I needed to pick up extra jobs for money. I asked them about which grants to apply for, and spoke with them about what I was struggling with both academically and emotionally. I was lucky to have advisors with whom I could talk about these things most of the time.

I took advantage of university health insurance and got a therapist to talk with regularly about personal issues. Perhaps most importantly, I made sure to have a life outside of my academic one, so that it didn’t feel all-consuming, so that I was regularly interacting with people in fields other than academia, and so that I was therefore able to keep the experiences I was having in the PhD program in perspective.

ME: I am glad you found the support you needed, but it sounds like much of the journey was not so fun.  What was the most enjoyable part of your PhD journey?

Laura: The autonomy that I had over my schedule and routines.

Laura’s Five Tips to Get to PhinisheD

1. 1. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

1. Keep up your work–life balance so you don’t get burned out; don’t apologize for or feel guilty about taking time off when you need it.

3. 3. This is not always possible, and it’s probably obvious but makes a huge difference: Take advantage of any opportunity you have to get paid for the research you’re already doing for your dissertation instead of taking on additional research assistant positions.

3. 3. Apply for any fellowships you might be eligible for, to eliminate the need to spend extra time “TFing” (being a Teaching Fellow) or “RAing” (being a research assistant) purely for money.

3. Break big tasks (qualifying papers, dissertation proposals, your dissertation) into smaller steps that get you to your deadlines with a bit of time to spare. I think it’s preferable to have daily goals, such as “Write 1000 words every day.”
   

   When you complete your daily goals you have made progress, you have a tangible stopping point every day, and you don’t have to feel guilty about stopping for the day even though you still have a long way to go.

ME: That daily goal method sounds efficient and encouraging. It reminds me of a book I recently started exploring, The One Thing.  Focusing on writing 1000 words each day is just one thing that makes your future work easier. I love it.

Thank you again, Dr. Edwards. Congrats on the thousands of words you have written to be PhinisheD!

Dr. Edwards’ research focuses on the neural bases of learning in children with developmental disabilities, such as autism spectrum disorders (ASD), in order to inform the design and implementation of developmentally-appropriate curricula for these students. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Educational Science Research Core of the Marcus Autism Center in Atlanta.

– Interviewed by Shawna-Kaye Lester

The post How To Finish Your PhD : Laura Used “Everything” appeared first on Memorable Essay.