Student Speaker Panel
Things I Wish I Knew: Advice from PhD students
Completing a doctorate is a years-long, often challenging process, with rewarding moments scattered throughout. It is often described as a “peaks and valleys” experience, where certain stages are marked by moments of great success, and others by difficulty. This year, the theme of the symposium is centered on support and creating a network of care within education. This panel hopes to foster a network of support amongst PhD students, not just for the difficult moments of the process, but also for the mountaintop moments. The panelists, all at different stages of their doctoral journey, will share advice and the things they wish they knew about about one of the following “mini milestones” of completing a doctorate: the completion of courses and integrating into PhD life, comprehensive exams, the dissertation proposal and ethics approval, and finally, the writing and defense of the dissertation itself. While this panel can’t possibly cover all the small moments of completing a doctorate, we hope that sharing what got our panelists to the “milestones” will encourage the audience to build and/or expand their network of support.