If you’re interested in the comparative anthropogeny or the human-ape paradox, I recommend saving this date! On October 24, 2020, the Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA) is hosting a virtual symposium covering humans as a “uniquely evolved, biologically enculturated species” compared to chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans.
I’ll be tuning into the livestream. I hope you do too. Click here to visit the CARTA website for more information.
It’s been six months since I wrote my last blog post on working from home during a pandemic. I highly suggest reading that first — I biasedly think it was good advice — but here are an additional five, concrete steps that I use to help me work from home.
As all of us in academia know, the writing process rarely begins with a blank Word document titled, “rough draft.” It begins with an idea, notes jotted into a notebook, a lot of (annotated) reading, study design, data collection, and a whole host of other steps before the aforementioned Word document even exists. Large-scale writing projects can be daunting, not only because they require a lot of hard work, but because organizing oneself can be challenging.
Before UCSD went fully remote, I attended a graduate writing retreat to make progress on my qualifying paper. The writing retreat, hosted by the Teaching + Learning Commons (TLC), is meant for those with large writing projects (e.g. qualifying papers, dissertations, etc.). It was my first time attending a writing retreat. I expected attendees to spend the entire time quietly working, but the TLC structured the time such that students first learned how to efficiently work. Below is one of the most-helpful handouts that they gave to us.
An opinion-editorial by Dr. John Wixted (UCSD) and Patricia A. Riley (Attorney) appeared in the Dallas Morning News. The story outlines the Charles Don Flores death row case and how the criminal justice system mishandled eyewitness testimony.
Click here to read the story.
This week was the UC Psychology Teaching & Learning conference, hosted by faculty at UC San Diego, UC Riverside, UC Santa Barbara, UC Davis and UCLA. From the conference webpage, “[The conference] is designed for psychology instructors at all levels who are interested in developing teaching strategies and learning about pedagogy research.”
This was an informative event and gave attendees numerous tools on how to improve the classroom experience (especially in a virtual setting). Listed below are some of the helpful things I learned over the course of these two days:
I will be presenting two posters at the Psychonomic Society 61st Annual Conference. The two presentations will be:
The presentations will occur from 4-6pm CT on November 20, 2020. This post will be updated with a link to my meeting room for a live Q&A session.
New headshot for a new year of graduate school.
If you’re picking up on different vibes from me this year, it’s because I’m finally back to my old self again (actually, I’m better than my old self).
At this point, most people in my circle know what I mean when I say my “old self,” but for those unaware: I was the victim of two instances of sexual assault by separate perpetrators. In 2018, I wrote about what happened in order to process what occurred. The outpouring of support was wonderful, but my story missed one key piece—my battle with clinical post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
For those of you who aren’t aware, I’m a first-generation college student and I recently completed the requirements for my master’s degree! The degree is a Master of Art in Experimental Psychology.
In our Ph.D program, getting a master’s degree isn’t typically celebrated. It’s seen as something you “pick up along the way” on the journey of earning a doctorate and entering a research career. (Also, a good proportion of our graduate students enter with a master’s degree already, so this isn’t a new milestone for them.)
I, however, have not experienced this milestone before, meaning I’m mentally celebrating! I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: I’m in my dream program, at my dream institution, with an amazing adviser, and residing in my favorite city in the world. I am incredibly grateful and do not take any of this for granted.
For now, I have three years left (minimum) in this program—and I’m looking forward to every single one of them. There is a lot of hard work ahead, but that’s the fun.
Thank you,
-A.Y.
I am incredibly humbled and elated to share that I have been selected as a recipient for a CARTA Program Fellowship for the 2020-21 academic year!
Thank you so much to the Center of Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny and to the committee that is responsible for the selection process. I am ecstatic for the new year to begin so that I can fully take advantage of the freedom this will give me in pursuing my own research.
Due to pandemic-related circumstances, I’m unable to show my gratitude to CARTA faculty in person, but I have every intention of giving my thanks properly once COVID-19 allows for it.
I’m incredibly proud to report that I’ve successfully defended my qualifying paper.
The paper investigated the basic science of confidence. As I’m hoping to turn this qualifying paper into a publication, I will hold off on a detailed explanation of the paper’s topic matter.
I can’t wait to extend this project into something greater!