Ode to the 20.109 Professors

 Writer's block, public enemy number one. I assumed that it was only for authors; little did I know that writing this research article would make me an author and liable to writer's block.

When I first heard of the assignment, I was excited to write the article, but extremely nervous. I tried to start early, but I became paralyzed every time I sat down to write it. What do I write? What goes into the discussion or results section? What's an overreach? The wiki page both eased and exacerbated my fears; the description of each section was super informative but seeing how many pages everything had to be was intimidating. 14 pages. Wow. Rationally 14 pages are not that long, but it feels like a million when you have to sit down and write. Luckily, I remembered from the Comm Lab; the best thing to do was not worry about order and start writing anything. I started with the methods section because we had done most of it in a homework assignment. It helped break me out of my writer’s block. The other really helpful thing was office hours. I went to almost every single office hour.

If you remember one thing from my post, let it be go to office hours. 1. All the professors are super kind and will answer any question you have 2. they answer any question you have 3. they can help look over anything you are stuck on or give tips and tricks for each section 4. it keeps you accountable. Your phone is a siren, and seeing your professor on zoom is equivalent to earplugs. Office hours helped keep me on track and allowed me to ask any question I had. How do I know this sentence is overreaching or if it should go in another section? Instead of just staring into my screen like a deer in headlights, I could just unmute and ask the professors for help.

Basically, this post is an ode to Prof. Lyell, Prof. McClain, Prof. Meyer. As it should be. Thank you so much for answering all my questions and helping me with the research article❤❤

- Giramnah

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