This post, I think, has been long overdue. I wrote last 12 January my plans for 2023. Last 15 January, I wrote the action plan for my trivial hobbies. It's only now, 13 February, that I'm writing my action plan for my PhD career goals. So it's been a month. Let's see what I've done so far.
I've written six goals: 1) Publish at least one paper this year; 2) Finish data collection for TRACE Alaska; 3) Get at least on A in Spring 2023; 4) Get accepted into another PhD program; 5) Present in at least one conference this year; and 6) Actively participate in the Arctic T-SLIP group.
1) Publish at least one paper this year. How will I do it? Well, I'm currently in the process of doing it. Here's what I've done so far:
a. I've reached out to potential co-authors for the Maxent paper. Because I am not receiving the proper guidance and support from the senior author, I took it upon myself to actually contact and ask other scientists, who are well-versed in this field, to help me with the paper. I'm glad that both of those whom I reached out to agreed to help me, and they've already done so by contributing their substantial inputs for the abstract I submitted to RAD.
b. My lab mate and I have devised a workplan to write a paper this year, and get it published in the first quarter of 2024. She'll be a first author in one paper, and I'll be her co-author. And in another paper, I'll be first author, she'll be my co-author. We've also set 7hrs worth of time per week to get our tasks done What we're working on is not necessarily a topic I'm passionate about in pursuing, but if my other plans don't pan out, I should be ready to embrace this research on Alzheimer's Disease.
2) Finish data collection for TRACE Alaska.
a. I should find a social scientist who is willing to co-author with me on this project and have the technical knowledge to carry out this survey. For this, I'm glad that I'm learning the ropes on how to conduct a proper survey. Proper meaning I need to identify the target population, the sample frame, the sample design, the mode of data collection, etc. Before I worked on this survey, THERE WAS ZERO INFORMATION given to me about the correct way of conducting surveys. All I was told to do distribute the survey, collect data, and then process it. Now I see how COMPLETELY INACCURATE and IMPRECISE this can be. You just can't hand out a survey to random people and ask for their perception about the risks associated with a landslide. How do we know that the questions we used in the survey correctly measure the construct? How do we know if it's valid? Ugh, so many flaws and inaccuracies!
3) Get at least one A this Spring 2023. I only have two subject where I can be graded with a letter, the other one is just either pass or fail. So let's see how this pans out. But right now, I'm still in good standing with EPID; I've aced my assignments so far. As for BIOS, I don't have any grade yet because our assignment is still being checked. Let's see. I'm hopeful to get an A in one of these subjects, provided that I maintain my focus and discipline in studying for these subjects. Technique is to study at least one chapter per week so that during midterms and finals, I wouldn't be cramming so much to read all chapters in four days.
4) Get accepted into another PhD program. I really wouldn't know the results for this until March. That's for CU. The other one, I've already submitted my proposal to the professor and I'm just waiting on him to set a meeting so we can discuss the proposal further. After that perhaps I'll start working on my application for UC. It's funny that both universities I'm applying/will apply to have the same letters.
5) Present in at least one conference this year. Well, I'm not sure if it's a conference, but I submitted an abstract to HSC's Research Appreciation Day (RAD) happening in March. I don't think it's a conference, it's just a symposium. Anyway, there's still time in the year to actually look for a more "serious" conference. But then I have to work profusely on my paper so I can have something to present. If this doesn't happen, well at least I have RAD.
6) Actively participate in Arctic T-Slip. I was supposed to have a meeting this week but I was unable to attend because I had another meeting where I'm more needed to be involved in. I was supposed to attend in a meeting two weeks ago but wasn't able to log in Zoom because it asked for a passcode and the organizer wasn't able to give me one in time for the meeting. Anyway, I should email the organizer soon about my progress with the survey. I want to be part of this because this is a form of networking. The scientific community is a small community. Networking is important if you want to have collaborators for proposals.
Soooo as a closing statement, it's been a month since my new year has started officially. I haven't really done anything solid yet, but at least for goals one and five, it's going somewhere. Goal four, it's also going somewhere, I just need to patiently wait. Goals two and six, I'll try to get on with that this week. I should have a progress report template made so I can check my milestones. But anyway, it's good I have this blog.
until then,
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