I recently wrapped up a marathon of overlapping graduate courses. Two ran concurrently, and another overlapped for four weeks just before an intensive one‑week residency session on campus. And because I apparently enjoy testing my limits, I ran a half‑marathon somewhere in the middle—scheduled, of course, for the day after the intensive on‑site residency. By the end of it all, my brain (and body) felt like mush.

Now that I’m on the other side, I can finally breathe a sigh of relief and re‑centre myself, taking time to integrate what I’ve learned into both my work and my life.

Here are a few lessons I took away:

My master’s program offers three completion routes—thesis, major paper, and coursework. As an interdisciplinary student, I had the freedom to design a program that crossed several fields, which was both exciting and overwhelming. Despite my beautifully colour-coded Excel sheet prioritizing potential courses, I struggled to narrow my options. Co-requisites, special-permission requirements, and the possibility of stacking courses toward post-graduate certificates added even more complexity to the planning process.

I knew early on that a strictly course-based master’s didn’t appeal to me. I wanted some form of synthesis – something more than simply accumulating credits. At the same time, a thesis felt too restrictive – leaving little room for all the courses I was genuinely excited about. Consequently, the major paper route felt like the best of both worlds: enough space to explore a wide range of topics while still offering a deeper dive into one area of interest.

Editing and condensing your work is part of any creative process — whether writing or filmmaking, something inevitably gets left on the metaphorical cutting‑room floor. 

I wanted to share a piece that didn’t make it into my last assignment submission. The task was to review five articles and prepare a consolidated summary of the literature in 900 words. Not surprisingly, I chose to focus on career development. 

In my early drafts, I found myself spending too much time explaining the context of the sector. Although this is important, it wasn’t the focus of the assignment, where we were asked to imagine this summary as part of a larger submission to a journal of our choosing. This meant we could assume some level of familiarity on the part of the reader. 

I had included a metaphor comparing career development to a spider web. Although it didn’t make the cut in my paper, it has “stuck” with me, and I wanted to share an expanded version here for your consideration. 

My 10‑year‑old son loves open‑world video games – think Zelda or Minecraft. These are the kinds of games where you choose your own adventure. A “side quest” is simply a detour on the way to the end game – it is expected and often welcomed by players. Such detours can lead to fun, new experiences; however, they can also derail your progress. Stray too far from the intended destination and you may struggle to find your way back.

In my original post about this series, I promised to share the good, the bad, and the ugly of my academic adventures. With one course now complete, I’ve already encountered an experience that encapsulates all three.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working through my first course: Academic Writing and Critical Thinking Across Disciplines. Although I’ve written in a variety of contexts for years – many of them academic – this course has been a timely refresher and a welcome challenge.

As I write this, I’m concurrently involved in:

I’m currently taking a course on academic writing which can, admittedly, be a boring topic. Not everyone wants to spend their weekends and evenings carefully crafting sentences to summarize peer-reviewed academic journal articles and meticulously formatting in-text citations and reference lists in adherence to APA guidelines. And fair enough.

In my first assignment, I was tasked with summarizing the article, “Writing from Sources, Writing from Sentences” (Howard et al., 2010). There, amongst many interesting tidbits, I was introduced to a new term: Patchwriting.

Howard et al. (2010) defined patchwriting as: “reproducing source language with some words deleted or added, some grammatical structures altered, or some synonyms used” (p. 181). They discussed how many academics saw patching as clear evidence of plagiarism while others positioned it as more of a failed attempted at a paraphrase. In the latter, it’s more of a learning strategy versus a deliberate attempt to mislead. Merriam-Webster referred to patching as “paraphrasing in a cut-and-paste world” citing Howard’s work dating back to the pre-Internet era of the 1990s. Nowadays, we may view AI as more of a patchwriting device rather than a tool for paraphrasing or summarizing.

After dropping my son off at school for his first day, it was now my turn for mine. As I logged into the e-learning platform, I found two non-credit but required courses on my dashboard: one self-paced course focused on academic integrity, and the second, a hybrid session where we’ll get to know our cohort a bit more.

Because I’ve been immersed, at least partially, in academia through my work, “academic integrity” is not a new concept. The course provided a solid introduction to the institution’s specific policies and expectations, as well as a helpful refresher on reference style. I still have my handy-dandy 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, and I’d recommend all students secure a copy of the publication manual their program uses.

With tentative excitement, I opened the attachment in the long-awaited email: Application Results – Action Required. It read, “I am pleased to extend an offer of admission.” My excitement was tempered by the next line, “The number of seats in each program intake is limited and students are admitted or waitlisted only in the order of their paid acceptance.”

Hmm. I already knew I wanted to start as soon as possible. I cleared space in my life. I made arrangements to ensure tuition funds were secured. I was ready to go. So, at 10pm that night, just minutes after receiving the email, I logged into my application portal and accepted the September 2025 start and remitted my application deposit. Luckily, it wasn’t weeks of waiting for the answer. Just 24 hours later, in filters the email: Confirmation of Admission. And with that, my application status shifted to “admitted.”

Now with the clarity and confidence that this program was the right fit for me – and I’m the right fit for the program – I needed to move forward with the formal application process. Much like any higher-education application process, I had several documents to prepare.