Category: Daily updates

Generally musings of the day, usually accompanied by a photograph

Some ongoing tasks

  • Completing essays and other coursework for my markets and justice and environmental decision-making courses
  • Grading student papers from the Canadian politics course where I am working as a TA
  • Adding further to the Massey College visual directory
  • Helping to draft a book chapter about the ‘permanent campaign’ in Canada
  • Updating the fossil fuel divestment brief
  • Helping with the incorporation of Toronto350.org and the formation of the first board
  • Working on my formal PhD research proposal, and assembling a committee

Fall 2014 coursework

With two core seminars and some electives behind me, I am nearly done with my PhD coursework. The one PhD requirement I still need to meet is one term of political theory. To that end, I am planning to take “Markets, Justice and the Human Good” with Joseph Carens this term.

In order to satisfy the requirements of the Environmental Studies Collaborative Program, I will also be taking “Environmental Decision Making” with Doug Macdonald and Becky Raboy.

At the same time, I will be a teaching assistant for “Canada in Comparative Perspective” with Pauline Beange.

That should leave a reasonable amount of time for the main business of this year: producing a research proposal for my dissertation, assembling a committee, and getting the proposal approved by them and the department.

PubPol comp written

I wrote the public policy major field exam today, and I feel like it went OK. I have to wait at least two weeks for results, but I would be fairly surprised if I failed. On that basis, I think I will commit to accompanying Toronto350.org to the forthcoming People’s Climate March in Manhattan on September 21st.

Matt Wilder helped me out with some astute reading suggestions.

In solid and informative surroundings

It may be something of a hulking brutalist monstrosity in terms of architectural design, but it is both extremely useful and aesthetically appealing to live a block away from such an extensive store of knowledge as Robarts Library. The long summer hours on weekdays are also appreciated.

I have been occupying long stretches of time on the eleventh floor – in the company of most of the political science books – reading, summarizing, writing out definitions of terms, sketching the content of theoretical schools and the relationships between them, and fervently hoping that Friday’s exam yields the A- or better which I need to move on to the research stage of my PhD.

One week to the exam

My public policy comprehensive exam is next Friday from 10am to 2pm.

It’s challenging for a lot of reasons, but the biggest is the sheer difficulty of retaining the quantity of basic information (authors, names of books and articles, dates of publication) which is expected.

I will be spending the last week outlining answers to plausible questions, reading or re-reading some key sources, putting key bits of information into big Excel tables, and then reviewing those tables.

Comp sources, thematically listed

This is an evolving thematic outline of the major sources for my comprehensive exam on the 22nd (Excel).

It’s a matter of remembering what these authors had to say (both in terms of their own ideas and criticism of others), remembering when they said it, and being able to sufficiently regurgitate it within the context of some kind of original argument during the exam.