Academic Progress
Well, in the past week, I have received an award for my service to the Philosophy department, an award for my conference presentation, and presented a paper at an academic conference. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of participating in this particular sect of academia, let me enlighten you.
Imagine working for a few months on a paper, citing 15 or 20 credible sources (try to only use books or journal articles, the latter especially...it'll show you're at the tip of your field), ending up with a paper that's about 20-25 pages in length, struggling to condense the paper down to 15 pages, then travelling a long distance to stand in front of about 30-45 people, reading your paper, and then have all of them take potshots at you to try to disprove your theory. It's a hoot I tell you. But I survived and apparently I did pretty well, as I actually got applause and compliments at the end. So at least now I've got something to put on that grad school application.
I'm pretty happy with this. It's starting to seem that my devotion to my schoolwork just might be paying off in some obscure way.
Imagine working for a few months on a paper, citing 15 or 20 credible sources (try to only use books or journal articles, the latter especially...it'll show you're at the tip of your field), ending up with a paper that's about 20-25 pages in length, struggling to condense the paper down to 15 pages, then travelling a long distance to stand in front of about 30-45 people, reading your paper, and then have all of them take potshots at you to try to disprove your theory. It's a hoot I tell you. But I survived and apparently I did pretty well, as I actually got applause and compliments at the end. So at least now I've got something to put on that grad school application.
I'm pretty happy with this. It's starting to seem that my devotion to my schoolwork just might be paying off in some obscure way.
