{"id":653,"date":"2019-01-24T16:15:47","date_gmt":"2019-01-25T00:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/?p=653"},"modified":"2019-01-25T07:21:23","modified_gmt":"2019-01-25T15:21:23","slug":"the-role-of-writing-in-becoming-a-graduate-student-in-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/2019\/01\/24\/the-role-of-writing-in-becoming-a-graduate-student-in-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"The role of writing in becoming a graduate student in Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Thiago Hinkel<\/p>\n

The process I went through as a teacher in Brazil to become a PhD candidate in the faculty of Education at the University of Victoria involved a series of steps. Learning about the procedures and formalities related to applying for both admission and for a student visa were certainly the ones that required the greatest amount of time and effort. In this post, I will share my journey related to figuring those steps out and reflect on the role of writing in succeeding in them.<\/p>\n

I lost count of the hours I spent on UVic\u2019s website reading about the graduate programs offered in Education and the requisites I needed to meet for admission. I soon found out I would have to contact a prospective supervisor and have their support before I could officially apply. The technical pieces I should consider for that first approach by email were clear to me due to the genre in question. I knew I would have to be mindful of audience, objectives, and language use. I had been working as a language teacher before that, and determining those elements was like preparing a lesson on writing. However, the challenge was\u00a0dealing with questions whose answers, by that time, were not clear to me \u2013\u00a0What are my research interests? Why UVic? Why am I the right person for\u00a0the position? What I knew then was that I would not be able to answer those questions before thinking about them thoroughly.<\/p>\n

While tackling those interrogations, I started looking into the requirements to obtain a student visa to come to Canada. Since I decided to do the whole process without the help of an agency, there were numerous hours of exploring and learning before I was able to start the application process. Not surprisingly, I realized there would be a great deal of writing involved in this step as well. Nevertheless, unlike the email to my supervisor, the hardship here was not related to not knowing what to include; it had to do with genres I had never worked with before, which included financial reports. Luckily, I had been working with writing long enough to know where to look for help, but mastering a new genre can be a difficult task even to a proficient writer, especially when your first try at it is, perhaps, your only shot.<\/p>\n

The main lesson I learned from this endeavor is that form and content are intrinsically related when it comes to writing. When writing to my future supervisor, I knew exactly how I should present my words. However, what to include and what to leave out required much reflection. As for the reports I had to attach to my visa application, I learned that one is not likely to be successful if not using the appropriate format required by a specific genre, even though when knowing exactly what pieces to include. Comparing that email and visa application to the assignments I have to do today as a graduate student, I can see how they are closely related. When today I struggle to figure out how to express my ideas, it is a sign I have to be better acquainted with the genre in question. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When I am not sure about what to include in a writing piece, it is telling me I might need to read and reflect more about the topic. In both cases, going after and accessing resources is crucial.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

About Thiago
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am a second year PhD student in the department of Curriculum and Instruction in the Faculty of Education at Uvic. My research interests involve digital literacies in the field of teacher education. I have a master\u2019s degree in Education and a bachelor\u2019s degree in English teaching, both received in Brazil, my home country. I have worked as an EAL teacher for the last fifteen years, which often included university students seeking to improve their communication skills and academic writing practices. As a tutor at the Centre for Academic Communication at UVic, I work toward sharing my experience to contribute to the academic journey of other students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Thiago Hinkel The process I went through as a teacher in Brazil to become a PhD candidate in the faculty of Education at the University of Victoria involved a series of steps. Learning about the procedures and formalities related to applying for both admission and for a student visa were certainly the ones that … Continue reading The role of writing in becoming a graduate student in Canada<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1511,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111,10,57,84,112,29,67,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-applications-to-grad-school","category-centre-for-academic-communication","category-eal-graduate-students","category-education","category-genre","category-graduate-student-writers","category-international-graduate-students","category-tutoring"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1511"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":656,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions\/656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}