Grad Lab

From pedagogy skill shares to navigating the job market, Grad Lab is a series of workshops, seminars, and panels focused on career planning, professional development, and fostering supportive networks and skill-sharing among Humanities graduate students. 

Have an idea for Grad Lab? Contact SueJeanne Koh (sj.koh@uci.edu), Graduate Futures Program Director.

Fall 2021 series

The Tiny Desk Skillshare: These in-person events are focused on skill sharing and community building. Because of COVID restrictions, we’ve shifted these to meeting  after lunchtime – hopefully we’ll be able to bring our lunches in the near future (and so bring back the Tiny Desk Lunch). This quarter we will discuss references, developing a professional development strategy, and work on our online platforms. Register for these events here: bit.ly/TDLFall2021

Grad Lab Workshops: These are longer, hybrid workshops that focus on learning about an issue or writing related to professional development in a more holistic manner. Drafts and questions are welcome, as well as suggestions. This quarter we will focus on teaching and diversity and developing your professional identity online. The last offering will be led by student interest. Register here for Grad Lab Workshops: bit.ly/HumCtrWorkshops

Graduate Futures Reading Groups: These in-person reading groups will read short selections on issues related to higher education, especially in the humanities. They will address a specific question or theme. This quarter, we will read broadly about professionalization – what that means, and critical possibilities for it. You will receive a PDF of the monthly selections after you register. Readings will include be “Professionalization” by Leonard Cassuto, “The University and the Undercommons” by Fred Moten and Stefano Harvey, and “Inclusive Systems, Vibrant Scholarship” by Katina Rogers. Register here: bit.ly/GradFuturesReading

 

Peer-Mentoring Student Writing Group

We are a group of humanities, arts, and social sciences students, primarily from UCI, focused on navigating graduate school and understanding the “hidden curriculum” of academic publishing in the humanities and interpretive social sciences. The group is run by Rena Goldstein (5th year, Philosophy). Our group has a core of 10-12 attendees. We aim to build an inclusive and supportive community for all who wish to join and our demographic composition is diverse: our group includes graduate students from 1st through 7th year, as well as faculty, students from UCs other than UCI, and a broad range of backgrounds, life circumstances, and interests. Currently, the majority of participants are humanities and interpretive social scientists in the process of finishing qualifying exams and preparing prospectus (3rd-4th year). As such, the syllabus for this quarter is focused on project design, grant writing, and the early stages of preparing work for publication. Our Google Drive contains resources for the later stages of the publishing process (e.g. responding to reviewer feedback) and we may change the syllabus in future quarters depending on how our demographics shift.

For Fall Quarter 2021, meetings are on Mondays from 12pm-3pm and follow this schedule:

12:00pm-1:30pm: Quiet Writing Time (we all write quietly together on Zoom on whatever writing projects we're currently working on)
1:30pm-2:00pm: Check-in (we ask how everyone's week went, troubleshoot productivity problems)
2:00pm-2:30pm: Go over the material for the day (readings from the syllabus)
2:30pm-3:00pm: Feedback Forum (each week, one participant shares a 1-2 page piece of writing and receives written and verbal feedback from the rest of the group).

We also meet once a week for quiet writing time and check in. For Fall 2021, meetings are on Tuesdays 11am-2pm. We check in at 12:30p, and the rest of the meeting is devoted to quiet writing time. Many members of the group use an app called Forest to gamify and keep track of focused work time, but there is no need to use Forest to join the group.

For more information or for a copy of the syllabus, email Rena (renag@uci.edu).