I'm an offical Ph.D. Candidate!

Several proposal drafts later along with practice presentations and presentation of the final proposal...

I am OFFICIALLY a Ph.D. candidate in Materials Science & Engineering (BY THE GRACE OF GOD ALONE!)

Although it was a stressful process, God blessed me with a wonderful advisor and labmates who were eager to help me in constructing a well thought-out proposal document and presentation.

This second go-around, I felt much more confident in the material I was presenting and was able to keep my nerves at bay! The main attendees at my presentation were my committee members and a visiting member from my internship experience, which I think helped to calm my nerves. One of my committee members actually had to attend via Skype, which turned out well despite my fears of the feed going out in the middle of my presentation and other crazy technical difficulties lol.

This happened on February 25, and since then I have been busy with my classes (really enjoying biochemistry!) and with lab work. I actually have one more class to take this fall semester that will satisfy my course requirements and then it's 100% lab work all the time until I can start writing my dissertation and defend! I really can't believe that's the next step now...did I mention that God is good!!

Even though the dissertation is the next step, I have to remind people that the progress of my research dictates when I actually finish lol. Research is dynamic and unpredictable so I could very well have 2-3 years ahead of me. I'm not complaining though...just taking it one day at a time and trusting God every step of the way!

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Much Needed Update

So it has been an extremely long time since I've written on this blog. There are two main reasons for this:

1) My natural hair-related blog and YouTube channel have grown to dimensions that I never thought was possible and so most of my free time is spent updating those avenues.
2) For the past several months, every time I thought about updating this blog, I wasn't motivated to because I felt it wouldn't be anything positive and would be more like venting which probably wouldn't have been that pleasant to read.

So with that said, I'll try to give a brief update of what has happened since Oct. 2009.

So after my qualifier's exam, I felt like I had more time to truly dedicate to my research, which had been postponed for a bit to prepare for my oral presentation/defense. I have an undergrad who is working for me, and is very dedicated so we were actually able to get quite a bit done during the fall semester. My advisor encouraged us to submit an abstract for a biomaterials conference (boy was that a process in and of itself!)

Writing an abstract is much more complex than the average person would believe. You would think that a 1 page description of your research is something that you could type up in an afternoon, but is quite the contrary! Summing up several experiments, making sure you hit the key points, and including graphs/images that convey your main points is a very time-consuming process and can take several weeks to perfect (especially if it's your first one!). By the end of it, I felt like I had written a serious paper with the amount of time I spent working on it, lol.

Well, the hard work paid off (which would not have been possible without God) and my abstract was accepted! I will be doing a poster presentation at the conference next month and I'm looking forward to my first conference as a graduate student.

The other main news is that I've officially gone through my proposal presentation! I had to prepare a written document outlining what I plan to research during the course of my stay here at the university and present it to my advisors and committee members. That was followed by an oral presentation that was made public to the entire university. Preparing for this was one of the most stressful periods I have ever experienced! In fact, one of my committee members was out of town when I gave the presentation so I actually have to present to him when he returns. In addition to that, I have to make some revisions to my proposal document so I'm not officially done with this proposal process. Once I get my signatures from all of my committee members on my Ph.D. candidacy form and it is turned in to my apartment, I will be breathing a HUGE sigh of relief!

I must say though, having the main oral presentation over with is still a GREAT feeling! I was so nervous but I invited some of my classmates from my program and from other departments to ensure I would have "some" smiling faces in the room,lol. It can be very intimidating presenting to those who already have their Ph.D's in various areas, and are EXTREMELY knowledgeable in their fields when you are just starting your journey to get to where they are. Once again, I know that it was only by the grace of God that I was able to make it through the presentation without throwing up in the middle of it or even fainting! I get soooo nervous when it comes to public speaking! Hopefully in my next update, I can gladly say that I am OFFICIALLY a Ph.D. candidate working towards my dissertation in my next update once I get all my committee member signatures : )

In other news, I finally get to attend my FIRST National Society of Black Engineers Conference! I'm very excited about this because I was a NSBE member all throughout college and even served on the E-board, but never had the chance to go to a conference. The conference this year is in Toronto so that's definitely a plus for me as I've never been to Canada! Another plus is that this is an all-expenses paid trip since I'm going to actually represent and recruit for my university. Talk about a blessing and a privilege! : ) That trip is actually at the end of the month so it gives me something to look forward to and work towards.

I guess I'll end this post with an important lesson that I've learned so far in my Ph.D. journey: BALANCE. Maintaing a balance between your social and academic life is a MUST if you want to retain your sanity!!!

Hopefully its not another several months before I have the chance to update again...

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