Grants Info Session 9/29 at 3:30

The Culture, Brain & Development program (CBD) will offer a grants info session Thursday, September 29, from 3:30-5:00, in the Kern Center Gallery. Students can learn more about CBD grants, and get pointers for applying to other funding sources at Hampshire. Students who are thinking of applying for a grant from CBD are strongly encouraged to attend the workshop prior to submitting their application.

The deadline to apply for CBD student grants is Friday, October 14 at noon. Completed applications should be handed in at the CS office, Adele Simmons Hall,.
CBD provides grants to support Division II and Division III projects, research internships and volunteer placements that explore intersections between culture, mind/brain and human growth and development. Students from all schools are welcome to apply. For complete guidelines and examples of funded projects go to the CBD web site.

Students can pick up a copy of the application from the main offices for the schools of Cognitive Sciences; Critical & Social Inquiry; Humanities, Arts & Cultural Studies; Interdisciplinary Arts; and Natural Sciences or downlaod a copy at the CBD web page.

Questions, call CBD at 559-5730 or email us at cbd@hampshire.edu.

Read and Write/Examine and Write

keep-calm-and-read-and-writeIt might be that when you would do a smaller project, say for a course, you could read or engage with visual pieces and then write or create your own piece in a number of hours over a few days – you might have remembered much of what you read or thought when you viewed a piece of work and could incorporate those ideas in your writing. DON’T TRY THIS IN DIV III.

You are doing a sustained project and your thinking will change as you engage with new sources. Yet, your most powerful writing and thinking will be right as you read a new piece or see a new piece of art for the first time. WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU READ AND SEE WHEN YOUR IDEAS ARE UNFOLDING. That is how you can get power into your writing.

So, read and then write about that piece – read and write, read and write. Even stop and write as you read – what is this author/artist saying? How does it connect to what I already know and believe? What questions does this raise? How is it similar or different from what another author/artist said or did?

You are not writing a Div III at this moment. You are writing about ideas in order to get at what you will ultimately want to say. Eventually, you will be ready to write across the pieces you are producing and you can use some of what you wrote in these small pieces. They will have more power and detail than what you would have been able to recollect later – and you won’t have to go back and find the article, chapter, book, where you found that idea (go to the October 17th workshop in the library on managing your research). Even if you have a Div III that is an artistic production of some sort, you want to track your ideas as you have them.

Besides writing when ideas are fresh and capturing the appropriate detail, reading and writing right away means you will never suffer from having a blank page! Plus, you can set a goal for yourself about how many pieces you can read and write about in a week. You can share that writing with your committee and they can engage with the ideas with you – helping you think about what else to read and how to focus your thinking.

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Div 3 Community Space

prescottThere are over 300 of us on this campus and we are all going through this very crazy experience of Div life. So if you need a place to get work done or you just want to vent about your struggles, then please feel free to come to this weekly meet and greet in an effort to build community in a very hectic time.

(Plus, there will be free food!)

When?

prescottSundays 7:00pm-9:00pm

Where? 

Prescott Tavern

Questions? Contact: kanl13@hampshire.edu

Parallel Play

It can be difficult to get yourself to the library, to a coffee shop where you like to work, or even to your own desk. The social environment often exerts a stronger pull. So — ask a friend along. Make dates for working along side a friend. You don’t have to be working on the same topic.

Making work dates also holds you accountable for the time – the time you plan to get to your workplace, and the amount of time you will work before taking a short break together.

Work does not have to be isolating. It can be the reason to get together. Invite someone today!

sdrawkcab nalP-Plan backwards

deadlineIt can be difficult to actually meet your deadline if you don’t have one. Div III is likely larger than any project you have ever done before. It requires many smaller deadlines that build to a final product.

By now, you might know fairly well what you want to produce by May (or by December). You can do a backwards plan for the whole of your Div III or just for this semester. Since a Div III is big and it really gets done in pieces, I am going to suggest starting with a backwards plan for the fall.

First, talk to your Div III chair/committee about your goals for the semester – what do you want to complete? (You might have already done this – so you are ready for step two).

Second, create a calendar working backwards from, say, December 11th (the last day of classes for the fall semester and the due date for faculty progress reports). Write the dates for submission to your committee of completed works, drafts or pilot pieces. Having deadlines for each piece holds you accountable to yourself and to your committee.

Third, check with your committee about whether your calendar is reasonable, doable, and see whether they suggest any alterations. Your calendar might have dates not only for your work, but for when your committee will give feedback on your pieces.

You will come to a revolving door kind of period, where they are reading and giving feedback while you are drafting, composing, creating the next part.

Like Tomatoes? Yes or no, try the Pomodoro Technique

Get more work done in 25 minute increments – take 5 minute breaks in between.

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management system that can help you get more work done in a realistic way – without burning out. But what do tomatoes have to do with it*?

The Pomodoro Technique uses a 25-minute tomato timer to help you stay on track. Watch a video about the technique, read some tips, and use an online timer or download a Pomodoro Timer app.

You can use the technique to get started (“O.K., I’m having trouble getting started, but I can just see how I am doing after 1 Pomodoro”). Or you can use it to extend your work time (“Yesterday I wrote for 3 Pomodoro’s in the morning; today I am going to do 3 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon”). Or, you can use it to work in spurts and get short breaks (“I keep sitting and working too long; I’ll take a stretch break after 1 Pomodoro”).

Soon you’ll be asking friends: “how many pomodoros did you work today?”

*After a while you might realize that this could work with any fruit or vegetable timer 🙂

Stress or Interesting Challenge? Be in control of your mindset

Div III students sometimes seem to revel in being stressed. It almost seems contagious. Yes, Div III poses some new challenges. But maybe you could learn to enjoy those challenges. Be excited by all you will learn – not only about what you are studying, but about yourself and each other. Being able to manage a big project is something not everyone gets to learn in college! Figuring out how to work backwards from a deadline will serve you in life. Knowing how to get work done in the spaces between things is an important skill. You are in control of whether this feels like bad stress or interesting challenge with the potential for growth.

If all this sounds like an interesting proposition, consider listening to this TED talk by Kelly McGonigal on “How to make stress your friend.”