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  • Writer's pictureKawthar Alrayyan

My Journey at Virginia Tech

My experience as a first-year Ph.D. student has been like a rollercoaster, from trying to find the best accommodation to the adaptation of the new culture to trying to register for the most suitable courses to start this journey. I have started in January 2020 for the spring semester at the landscape architecture department, and I have been overwhelmed with the need to catch up with everyone here in the states. However, I am fortunate to come to Virginia Tech, with its beautiful campus and humble people not to mention the amazing community the school has created for its students.

I started by meeting my advisor, during it I kept having that feeling of the need to impress her by showing everything single achievement I did to convince her she did the right decision in accepting me in the program. This made me really nervous and not confident about myself. Ironically I have been introduced to the imposter syndrome for graduate students during one of the workshops, which explained the feeling, however, It didn't last for long as it was only a symptom for starting a new thing.

The main issue was for me is how to strengthen my English being my second language. I started to read anything I find and try hard to absorb as much as I can with new vocabularies, which made me have the anxiety of trying to master it. it kept going until I had my first presentation, and I gained my confidence back. Besides that, I have to point at the advantages of the many resources and learning experiences I am exposed to, after a while you get used to finding the resources to help you develop your skills. for example, the writing center, the Library to help you with the writing assignments requiring an efficient amount of readings and so on.

In my first semester, I have registered in a class called preparing the future professorate, which basically focuses on higher education and how to prepare us for educational positions, which is the reason for the blog. At the beginning I didn’t understand the purpose of the blog, however, it grows on you, and help in expressing your thoughts and ideas through the class. Surprisingly, not only this course requires it but mainly all courses have its own methods in trying to find ways to let us share journals and opinion. in another class I have, the journal we have to submit is by sketching and not writing. I really admire this approach as comparing it in the Arab world, we don't have this culture and I really want to introduce it in the future.

The beauty of self-learning is amazing, you have to research and learn more about the topic and not wait for the professor to explain it. Comparing it to Jordan, unfortunately, we didn’t learn this way, we were told of how to do the assignments exactly, how to read and research. Where in my learning journey here, they just give you headlines, give you readings to establish the base needed to learn on your own. As a Ph.D. student, I realized that graduate studies are demanding but I also believe that it is necessary to build the needed skills for future researchers and educators.

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