Thesis Boot Camp

Seeking motivation and writing support for your thesis or research article? Looking for dedicated writing time in a beautiful space and in community with other graduate students? Graduate Pathways to Success (GPS) and the Centre for Writing and Scholarly Communication (CWSC)  are hosting a thesis boot camp to help.

Benefits of participating include:

• An opening panel with graduate students across the disciplines, who talk about their experience with and approaches to writing their theses
• Tips from CWSC Peer Writing Consultants and Workshop Coordinators for writing and managing your schedule
• Strategies for using genre and writing in the disciplines approaches to academic writing
• Time and a quiet space to write
• CWSC graduate student facilitator available during writing time to answer questions
• The opportunity to meet and network with colleagues from across campus
• Coffee!

SCHEDULE

10:00 – 11:00 Opening Panel with Q&A (facilitator, Patty Kelly)
11:00 – 12:30 Writing Session
12:30 – 13:15 Brown Bag Lunch (please bring your own)
13:15 – 13:45 Academic Writing Habits & Strategies (facilitator, Jacqui Brinkman)
13:45 – 15:45 Writing Session
15:45 – 16:00 Wrap-up

PANEL FACILITATORS

Patty A. Kelly is the Program Manager for the Centre for Writing and Scholarly Communication. Patty received her PhD in English (SFU, 2013), with a specialty in rhetoric and writing. Her approach to teaching scholarly communication comes from rhetorical genre theory and writing-in-the-disciplines pedagogy. Patty collaborates with the campus community to deliver writing services and programs that enhance scholarly communication for all UBC members.

Jacqui Brinkman is the Director of Graduate Student Professional Development at the Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. Through this role, she works to improve the graduate student experience. Previously, she has managed postdoctoral and undergraduate programs in the Faculty of Medicine and was as a lab-based researcher both within academia and industry. She completed her MSc in Biology at McGill University.

OPENING PANELISTS

• Eury Colin Chang is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Theatre and Film. Prior to coming to UBC to embark on his dissertation, he worked as a professional editor and writer in the non-profit sector. His academic articles and reviews can be found in journals (Theatre Research in Canada, Canadian Literature) and anthologies published by Playwrights Canada Press, the University of Wisconsin Press, and Arsenal Pulp Press.
• Tayo Olarewaju is a PhD student at Peter A. Allard School of Law, where he attained a Master of Laws degree. He has business and law degrees from Africa, Europe and North America, and is completing what might be his final one.
• Shyamala Parthasarathy is a second-year graduate student at UBC, working towards her MFA in Creative Writing, where she’s currently working on a Young Adult Novel as her thesis. She also holds an MA in English Literature from McMaster University and specializes in the humanities, particularly literary studies, feminist and queer theory, and critical race studies.
• Shannon Payne is a second year MA student in the Department of English Language and Literatures with a research focus in Science and Technology Studies. Her thesis is on monster stories and climate change.
• Connecting scholarship with creative facilitation work, Ana Elia Ramón Hidalgo’s research explores the role of gender, social capital and social networks in empowering rural communities through ecotourism projects in Ghana. Working closely with two communities, she co-creates spaces to share research results, in an accessible manner, with the very people facing the socio-ecological challenges in question.

ACADEMIC WRITING HABITS & STRATEGIES PANELISTS

• Erin Guntly is finishing her PhD in Linguistics, researching how speakers of English use “yeah” and “no” in discourse. She has an MA in International Policy from the Monterey Institute and BAs in German and Applied Linguistics.
• Kylie Young is in the second year of her MA in History with a research emphasis in Science and Technology Studies. Her research is on the history of ecology and ecofeminism in the late-twentieth century United States.

WRITING SESSION FACILITATORS

• Eury Colin Chang is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Theatre and Film. Prior to coming to UBC to embark on his dissertation, he worked as a professional editor and writer in the non-profit sector. His academic articles and reviews can be found in journals (Theatre Research in Canada, Canadian Literature) and anthologies published by Playwrights Canada Press, the University of Wisconsin Press, and Arsenal Pulp Press.
• Iván Salazar is an Ecuadorian music composer, singer and guitarist, currently in the second year of Master of Music in Composition Program at UBC, with funding from Convocatoria Abierta Scholarship (National Government of Ecuador) and by Ernest Wesley Cubitt Sharpe Memorial Scholarship.