Year 1 Recap

Year 1 of my PhD…check! Wow, I can’t believe I have wrapped up the first year of my PhD! It feels like I was just sending off my applications and anxiously waiting to hear back from schools about interviews and acceptances. I moved to LA almost a year ago not quite knowing what to expect. Growing up, I had barely spent any time on the West coast. I am a midwesterner through and through. Then I moved to Nashville for college. My first time in California was actually in 2023 for a conference in Irvine. Though I didn’t know exactly what I was getting into, I was nonetheless excited to be in a new city and to start my PhD.

Establishing my life in a new city and embarking on my PhD journey has been super eventful! Now that my first year has wrapped up, I wanted to share how the past year has been and give a glimpse into what I was up to as a first-year PhD student.

Moving to LA

I moved to LA mid-August 2024. The housing market moves really fast here, so my roommate and I did not secure our apartment until a few weeks before we moved in. As a more type-A person and chronic planner, this short timescale made me nervous, but I also accepted that it’s just like this in LA! The cross-country move was slightly chaotic, but actually went somewhat smoothly. I shipped a lot of my things in a moving pod that was transported across the country. I was shocked by how much the moving pods can fit! At first glance, they don’t look that big, but I was able to fit my bed, desk, dresser, couch, TV and its stand, electric piano, and all of my moving boxes! I also had my car shipped to LA on one of those huge transporter trucks. After getting my things sent off, I took a one-way flight from Chicago to LA. 6-ish hours later, I made it to my new apartment, then shortly after my moving pod arrived. I knew unloading the pod was going to be tough on my own (especially in the bustling downtown LA), so I hired a moving crew to help me. This was definitely a great decision - they had everything brought up to my apartment in about an hour! The next day, my car also arrived. With all of the moving parts and logistics, I’m super grateful that my move went as smoothly as it did. Now I understand how burdensome moving can be, and it makes me not want to move for a long while (lol). Good thing getting my PhD will take a while!

Fall 2024 Semester

My first semester was all about getting settled in and exploring my research ideas. My program had a small orientation on the first day of classes. It wasn’t huge because there are only four people in my cohort! During the fall, I took two courses: a seminar in Human and Evolutionary Biology and a grant-writing course. Overall, I really enjoyed both of these courses! The seminar was interesting because each week focused on a different area of research, with each of us in the class giving a presentation on a research article. It was fun getting to learn about new topics or further explore areas I was already familiar with. Also, I was able to improve my reading and presentation skills, which are both important parts of academia!

Outside of courses, most of my time was spent on research. My program is direct-admit, meaning there are no rotations, but I come in to my PhD with an advisor already. This was actually great, because it meant I could hit the ground running with research during my first year. During the fall, I worked on developing the research project(s) that my thesis would focus on. This actually took a while to hone, because I have several different interests. My fall semester, I read a ton of research papers, looked for gaps in the literature, and thought of research ideas. Even though there were lots of interesting paths to pursue, by the end of the semester, I felt like I finally had a somewhat coherent plan. My research and coursework slightly overlapped, because for my grant writing course, I created a mock NIH grant proposal centered around my research. Along with crafting my research plan, I was learning how to use some of the equipment in lab and processing data.

Spring 2025 Semester

The spring semester started to pick up a little more. For classes, I continued with my grant writing course. While the fall grant writing course focused on NIH-style grant writing, the spring focused on NSF-style grant writing. This is important because the organizations award funds for different types of research. They also expect slightly different writing structure and content. I also took Biostatistics at the USC Keck School of Medicine. The course started with introductory statistics and worked up to more complex statistical analyses. I hadn’t taken a statistics course since high school, so it was very helpful to review concepts, and also learn new analyses. For my program, PhD students have to take at least two statistics courses (since it is a super important area for research!). This was my first stats course, and I am looking forward to continuing next semester.

For research, I ended fall semester with a loose plan of what I wanted my research to center on. For PhD, the end product is a dissertation with multiple chapters. Each chapter is essentially a different project, but all the chapters are tied together by a central idea. Though I had my central idea generally worked out, I still needed to refine the details of my chapters. I spent time during the spring determining what projects are plausible, if the ideas are worth pursuing, and how well they fit into the bigger picture. As I was refining details of my project, I also started some of my projects! Part of my work entails working with large sets of data available from national biobanks and surveys. I started processing some of this data, visualizing trends, and doing a bit of preliminary analyses.

In addition to my own research, I was a research assistant for my advisor this spring! If you didn’t know, PhD students get financial support during the duration of their program. There are different forms of funding, including internal fellowships, external fellowships, teaching assistantship, and research assistantship. During the fall, I was on an internal fellowship from USC, and during the spring I worked as a research assistant. As a research assistant, I helped my advisor with various tasks and projects. I was on a half-time appointment, which means I spent about 20 hours/week on research assistant duties.

Screening Exam

At the end of the first year, students in my program take what is called the screening exam. It is essentially a grant proposal for your research, a presentation in front of program faculty, and time for the faculty to ask questions/give suggestions. The main objective of the screening exam is to make sure that students have a clear-ish idea of what their research will focus on, that they can prepare a grant, and for the faculty to help improve the research. Though it was slightly stressful to prepare all of the materials and a little nerve-wracking to address faculty questions and comments, it was super helpful! In the end, I am glad for the extra little push it gave me and I got some really great feedback from faculty. The screening exam officially marks the end of the first year. Now that I completed it, I am officially a 2nd-year PhD student! Wild.

Photo gallery from Year 1

Enjoy some photos from my first year of my PhD and life in LA!

My moving pod that got shipped over 2,000 from Illinois to California!

Living in downtown LA has been a new, exciting experience! I come from a small town of ~20K people, so I honestly never imagined living downtown in a huge city with all of these skyscrapers around me. Overall, weather in LA is amazing. On a sunny (but not too hot day) I love going on walks with views like this one.

Some free USC merch I got at the beginning of the year. Love the tote bags and stickers!

Last fall, I did the Hollywood Hills hike and got to see the iconic Hollywood sign :)

My first USC football game! Not a huge football enthusiast, but enjoyed the vibes. Also, as a former band kid, I loved seeing the USC marching band halftime show.

LA is known for pop-up events, where brands market new items and often give away products. At the Owala pop-up event, my friend and I got free coffee tumblers! This was actually so clutch because I now use this tumbler almost every day.

Some friends from my program and I went to Jane Goodall’s Day of Peace event (which was also to celebrate Jane Goodall’s 90th birthday)! It was really inspiring to hear her message.

Selfie from the Infinity Room at the Broad Museum. The Broad is an art museum in downtown LA.

As an avid reader, of course I had to stop by the LA library and get a library card. The downtown location is within walking distance from me. It is huge, has a lot of great resources, and solid book availability.

Day trip to Santa Monica Pier and beach. Not gonna lie, the pier was slightly underwhelming. I remember hearing a lot about it growing up, but it didn’t quite live up to expectations. Still glad I saw it at least.

My friend and I went to Disneyland during fall break! This was my first time at Disneyland :D I had a great experience!

My first LA Phil concert! They sounded absolutely amazing and I love the Disney Concert Hall.

A beautiful sunset I captured one night on USC’s campus.

I joined the USC student orchestra to continuing playing clarinet for fun in grad school! It has been a lot of fun so far :) Here is a picture from fall retreat in San Diego.

My first conference of my PhD. This was the Southwestern Association of Biological Anthropologists (SWABA) conference in Albuquerque, NM. It is a regional conference that my lab often attends. I had a great time taking in all the research and getting to meet more people in my field!

My first LA Kings game! Even though I’m still a faithful Chicago Blackhawks fan, this was still lots of fun.

My first time at Universal Studios Hollywood! A lot of firsts during this past year. It is similar to Universal Orlando, but a lot smaller since they are more constricted with space. I thought the backlot tour was really cool!

A picture I snapped from my walk at Crystal Cove State Park. It is beautiful there!

I celebrated my 23rd birthday with friends from my program! We went to Anju House in Koreatown. I thought it was decent and I love the ambience there.

A breathtaking sunset at Westward Beach in Malibu!

This spring, I went to the Human Biology Association conference in Baltimore, Maryland. I love going to conferences, getting to explore new places, and most importantly be immersed in research and meet new people.

Ended the semester by attending the USC PhD hooding ceremony. A few people from my program graduated this year. It was so cool to see the culminating event of their PhD.

I had an amazing first year! I am really grateful that I am enjoying my research, my lab, the program, and this city so much. Looking forward to more!