Welcome back to another month of Dissertation Diaries, May has been an incredibly hectic month for me, managing exams alongside work and dissertation prep. As I mentioned last month, I have still been using my dissertation planner that I purchased from Etsy following the month-by-month structure that I made with the built in calendar.
My goal for this once was to consolidate my initial ideas that I brainstormed in April, to form a coherent proposal and annotated bibliography. With the end goal being able to pitch to members of academic staff in hope of finding a suitable supervisor.
In terms of the proposal writing process, it was actually a lot smoother than I initially expected. If I'm being completely honest I thought I was going to struggle to string very vague ideas together but the process has been easier than I imagined. My department emailed us a proposal draft document that was so useful in making it a manageable task. It was split into four sections, a section on potential supervisors, one on a 200 word research summary followed by an annotated bibliography and then a 100 word personal motivation statement. We had a deadline of 10th June to submit this.
I've pitched to potential supervisors now as well which is a huge relief, I was trying to narrow it down to people who had a similar work ethic as myself and those with supporting areas of expertise. Sharing my ideas was quite a daunting experience because you never really know how someone is going to react, especially when it's something they may not feel as passionate about. I'm waiting to get some feedback now which I'll talk about in next months instalment. Now I just feel as if it's a waiting game on other people before I can continue, once I've got the green light from my department I can start to draft out chapter plans and undertake some of the primary research that I plan to do.
As I said at the beginning of this post managing everything in May has been a challenge, I feel like I haven't stopped. I've taken some time towards the end of the month to relax and enjoy time with friends and family. This is hugely important because behind any successful studier is someone who balances work and down time. Switching off can be difficult at times, especially when you feel as if work is just piling up. Between exams, dissertation prep and work I've definitely had times where I've felt burnt out and exhausted. Meditation has been a huge help to me this month, I've started to take an hour or so out of my day to simply focus on my breathing and recenter myself ready for whatever the rest of the day throws at me.
I'm hoping in next month's instalment I can speak more about the feedback process and perhaps start planning my research!
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