Is Our Grad Students Learning?
I had to write up a short project proposal this week. I’d submitted to the same people before, so I went back through my old files and dug up the proposal from a year and a half ago, co-written with a fellow student.
I about fell out of my chair.
It was so bad.
I mean, I’d known this, based on the reviews and comments we’d gotten back from the earlier submission. Trying to fix that proposal remains the biggest and least successful challenge I’ve faced during grad school so far. It had taken us bloody forever to write it, and it took us bloody forever to semi-fix it.
I wouldn’t trade that experience away, though. As it turns out, I learned a lot from it.
The contrast between that proposal and what I had just finished writing was…stark. There are some things I need to hammer out still, but the whole thing does actually hang together reasonably well. Early comments are along the lines of, “This sounds like a nice study.”
The Grad School Makes You Dumber effect is alive and well around these parts. What I do is pretty interdisciplinary and I often feel like I’m just barely treading water in three different areas instead of developing real expertise in anything. So it was nice to see evidence of noticeable progress.
Chipanglish
CogKnition
Gustatory Circuit