The last month just FLEW by with my classes, research, and teaching. But I DID it y’all! I made it through my second semester of PhD / 1st year of PhD. I actually had a LOT of anxiety when I looked at my calendar for the last month. It was filled with events and due dates, like orchestra concert, presentations, finals, and teaching responsibilities. In the end, of course, everything went fine! In this post, I’ll share what I’ve been up to in the last month of my spring 2022 semester.
I’m a 4.0 PhD student 🙂
At the beginning of the year, I set a goal to be a 4.0 PhD student after the 1st year, and I made it happen! Some people may say, “Everyone gets good grades in grad school, so it’s no big deal…” But I’m really proud of it because the experience has been the complete opposite of my undergrad grades. In undergrad, I felt like I struggled and suffered a lot for average grades, whereas now I feel like I work hard and I enjoy it, and I get a good grade (amazing!).
However, this semester was tougher time management-wise because I managed more students (37) than last semester (14). I also started doing some research work, so I always felt like classes ended up going on the backburner.
At one point, I wanted to drop my polymer rheology class because I was spending way too long on homework to yield subpar results. Even though I really wanted to quit, I chose to stick with it to see what else I could learn.
In the end, I got 100s on both of my finals for polymer rheology and polymer chemistry, which was surprising to me. During the take-home finals, I felt like I somewhat knew what I was doing, but also I wasn’t 100% confident that it was right. When I felt like I put in enough good effort, I turned it in.
On one hand, I’m happy because yay 100! On the other hand, I wondered to myself, “Did I really deserve a 100??? I’m sure I made some kind of mistake! Or is the professor TOO generous???” But hey – I’ll take it. An A is an A, as my mom says.
My brother graduated summa cum laude! 🎊
After I finished my spring semester, I went home to see my brother’s college graduation. He graduated summa cum laude, which is amazing! I didn’t even graduate cum laude 😅
I’m really glad I got to spend a few days at home to spend time with my family and my boyfriend after ending the semester. It reminded me that they are always there for me and supporting me, even though they are far away. Here’s some of the fun things we did:
- My family and I did a graduation photoshoot with my brother and my grandmas.
- We went to see Dr. Strange Multiverse of Madness (5/10, my brother’s choice, I wanted to see Everything Everywhere All at Once).
- My brother and I got sushi 🍣 TWICE in 3 days (lots of sashimi, ikura, and spicy chopped scallop) and bubble tea almost every day.
- My boyfriend and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary with curry ramen 🍜 and Thai tea 🥤. He also got me a new luggage case as an early birthday gift!
- I played my piano at home! I missed playing an acoustic piano (I was practicing for my upcoming piano lesson!)
I got COVID ☹️
On the last day of my trip, my throat started feeling a little funny. I thought it was just allergies from something I ate, so I drank more water. I took a rapid antigen test (RAT), which resulted negative. The next day I felt sick on the plane and started coughing more. I took another RAT – negative. I started feeling fatigued and coughing more, so I notified my PI to let him know that I would stay home for a few days.
The next morning I got terrible aches all over my body and was easily exhausted. RAT came back positive, so I isolated myself starting last Thursday. Over the next few days, I mostly laid in bed or slept, only getting up to make food or clean dishes or my room. Luckily I feel much better now – almost back to normal. I’m grateful it wasn’t any worse, thanks to the vaccine. I took a PCR test today, so hopefully it will come back negative, or it will be positive, but the viral load is decreasing.
Up Next
This post has been long enough, so in a separate post I’ll share lessons that I learned from my first year of PhD, as well as a mini-series on my experience as a chemistry TA and running a business in grad school.
Also, it’s almost my birthday month (June). I’m turning 26 soon, so naturally I gifted myself a food processor, a new saucepan, and a bike helmet. I’m excited to spend the summer biking around the trails with my friends in Madison!
I hope that you enjoyed reading about my personal experience and takeaways from my chemistry PhD journey. If you’d like to chat more about what I’ve shared, feel free to send me an email at hello@brittanytrinh.com or send me a message on Twitter and Instagram @brttnytrnh.