In late October, we hosted the annual MGA Thesis Bootcamp, a free, four-day intensive writing workshop for PhD and Masters by Research students who wanted to take their thesis to a whole new level.
Published Date 13/11/2024
The students who were selected for the program came prepared with a piece of work and a clear set of writing goals they wanted to achieve. Some joined via Zoom, while others chose to take part in person at our Clayton and Caulfield campuses.
Participants wrote in two-hour blocks twice a day, with plenty of re-energising breaks for yoga, mindfulness, daily prizes, one-on-one sessions with Student Academic Skills (SAS) advisors and, of course, free snacks!
MGA Graduate Groups Liaison Natasha Singh Raghuvanshi and PhD candidate Kyra Fabianke led the sessions, providing structure, inspiration and support to the group. Between writing sessions, the wonderful SAS staff explored useful techniques and strategies for thesis writing, such as SMART goals and progress tracking, dealing with writer’s block, reflective re-drafting and tips on editing a thesis.
Add these ingredients together, and four days later, many thousand words were written. In fact, the collective number amounted to almost 90,000!
Here’s what some of the Bootcamp participants had to say about their experience:
"Thank you so much!! such an awesome 4 days! Really inspired and feeling motivated :) Excited! I wrote 12,295 words this week which would've been impossible without the bootcamp! Thank you!"
"Exhausted but INSPIRED Total of just 2500+ words today... can't believe it was such a great week. Totalled just on 8700 - probably about 3-4 weeks work at this quality."
"Thanks for a great 4 days. I really took a lot out of it."
"It is very good training to learn how to push myself for focused writing."
The MGA would like to thank the team from the Student Academic Success for their one-on-one consultations with participants. Students were able to get advice about their writing, ask how to overcome writer’s block and other vital questions. We’d like to make a special mention to Damian Gleeson and Alireza Sharifjafari, our SAS superheroes, who led sessions each morning with invaluable tips for everything from planning to writing and editing.
We also appreciate the work of our resident yoga instructor Yohana, who provided the students with a daily dose of grounding and exercise.
Overall, we were so pleased to provide these students with the opportunity to advance their writing in a short amount of time. If this event sounds like something you would like to take part in, make sure you stay tuned next year for our Thesis Bootcamp 2025!
Opportunities for HDR students
- Shut Up And Write! Are you on a roll? Stay motivated and keep your word count on track at our virtual Shut Up and Write session every Tuesday from 11:15am – 1:15pm. Register here.
- HDR Writing Rooms! If you need a dedicated space to write this summer, why not apply for a HDR Writing Room on Caulfield Campus? Find out more and apply here.