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2019-2020 Live Chat #5 - Work/Life Balance (2018 Alumna)


Stephanie Vose

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Stephanie Vose

 

2018 LATP Fellow,  @Yorka Munoz PhD,  will lead a discussion on Work/Life Balance and Managing During COVID-19 on Friday, April 17 from 12:00p.m. to 1:00p.m. EDT. This live chat will take place on the LATP Community, in the thread below. 

Yorka Munoz is a Biologist, MSc. and PhD in Molecular, Cellular Biology and Neuroscience from the University of Chile. Nowadays, she works as a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She is interested in elucidating the role of astrocytes in memory processes and Alzheimer’s disease.

During her PhD, she obtained two fellowship to attend to courses (3rd ISN Latin American school of Advance Neurochemistry (2014) and 10th IBRO-USCRC Canadian School of Neuroscience (2016)), three International Travel Grants to attend to conferences (13th ADPD (Austria, 2017), NeuroFrance 2017 (France, 2017) and 26th ISN-ESN Biennal Meeting (France, 2017) and she was a Latin American Training Program fellow in 2018. Dr. Munoz will discuss the importance of keeping a balance between work and personal life, talking about her experience during her PhD program.
 

Can't attend this chat live? That's OK! You can start the conversation by adding your questions/comments now or continue the conversation later by adding your questions/comments afterwards! 

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Stephanie Vose

Hi @Yorka Munoz! We are so grateful you could join us today to discuss work/life balance and managing during COVID-19! You can begin with an introductory statement, and feel free to describe why work/life balance is important to you and how you have been managing during COVID-19. You can ask the group questions to prompt conversation. 

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Yorka Munoz

I did my PhD in Chile during 2013 until 2018. I have to deal with a lot of experiments and I could find a good balance and I would like to share with you that experience

 

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Stephanie Vose
Just now, Maira Bicca said:

I can't access the live chat as well. 

 

Best,

 

Bicca

Hi @Maira Bicca - the live chat is happening in this thread. If you're able to post a comment to the thread, then you have access to the LATP Community. 

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Yorka Munoz
Just now, Raquel Maria Campos said:

What was your project during your PhD?

I was working in Alzheimer's disease context but I was working in Parkinson's disease too because it was part of the lab grant.

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Stephanie Vose
Just now, Yorka Munoz said:

Stephanie, I thibk I have problems because I can't see the reply

Try refreshing the page periodically. 

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Maria A. González-González

Good morning! I am Maria Alejandra Gonzalez (Ale), thank you for the invite, I am glad this forums and topics are promoted 

 

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Ricardo Augusto Leoni de Sousa

Hi Yorka Munoz and all friends. It is a pleasure to read about your experience

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Maira Bicca
Just now, Stephanie Vose said:

Hi @Maira Bicca - the live chat is happening in this thread. If you're able to post a comment to the thread, then you have access to the LATP Community. 

Got it! Thank you. I was having problems with the internet I guess. I was not seeing the responses. Now, it seems to be working fine.

Hi everyone!

 

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Yorka Munoz
Just now, Stephanie Vose said:

Try refreshing the page periodically. 

Now, I can see the dialog of the participants

Edited by Yorka Munoz
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Stephanie Vose

Feel free to ask Yorka questions or describe how you find work/life balance, or how you're managing during COVID-19

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Carolina Campos Rodriguez

Hello Yorka and all the nce. It is great to share our experince, because as you are mention ehrn I did my PhD, I never felt that I lost my personal life. But I have heard a lot of people saying that is impossible to keep the balance when you are a researcher

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Aneisha Lewis

Hi @Yorka Munoz. I'm Aneisha Lewis, PhD student at The University of the West Indies, Trinidad. Work/life balance is super important to me but during this COVID-19 situation, we have no access to labs as per government regulations. Is this similar for you and what suggestions do you all have for managing the anxiety of basically having your project at a standstill?

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Maira Bicca
Just now, Maria Gonzalez-Gonzalez said:

Good morning! I am Maria Alejandra Gonzalez (Ale), thank you for the invite, I am glad this forums and topics are promoted 

 

Hi Maria! Nice to get in tough with you again. It was a pleasure to meet you at the first LATP program 

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Yorka Munoz
Just now, Carolina Campos Rodriguez said:

Hello Yorka and all the nce. It is great to share our experince, because as you are mention ehrn I did my PhD, I never felt that I lost my personal life. But I have heard a lot of people saying that is impossible to keep the balance when you are a researcher

I think some people spend a lot of time just to making research but they forgot that you have your personal life. In my case I found some very useful things that allow me the make a schedule 

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Yorka Munoz
1 minute ago, Maira Bicca said:

Hi Maria! Nice to get in tough with you again. It was a pleasure to meet you at the first LATP program 

Hi Maria, nice to meet you

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Maria A. González-González
5 minutes ago, Maira Bicca said:

Hi Maria! Nice to get in tough with you again. It was a pleasure to meet you at the first LATP program 

HI Maira! my pleaseure to find you again in the scientific community!

 

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Maira Bicca
Just now, Aneisha Lewis said:

Hi @Yorka Munoz. I'm Aneisha Lewis, PhD student at The University of the West Indies, Trinidad. Work/life balance is super important to me but during this COVID-19 situation, we have no access to labs as per government regulations. Is this similar for you and what suggestions do you all have for managing the anxiety of basically having your project at a standstill?

I sometimes feel like I am loosing my mind. I feel I can not be as productive as I should and then I feel many times guilty I am not more productive. What has been working for me is tu put up a schedule. To accomplish things step-by-step everyday. Small goals, instead of the big picture. I am also sparing time to practice Yoga and meditation in the evenings to help me release tension. 

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Yorka Munoz

This list help me to organize my life:

-Have a routine

-play a sport

-Keep in touch with friends and enjoy time with them

-organize your time  Ex: reserve the microscope in advance

-Plan your experiments in advance

-Set goals that allow you to attend to conferences once a year

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Julian Naizaque

Hi Yorka Munoz and everyone! I'm Julian Naizaque from Bogota, Colombia. I'm really interested in this topic. I would like to ask you Yorka: what's your most important strategy to have a wrk/life balance?

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Marangelie Criado Marrero

Hi Yorka, I believe that it is possible to have a work/life balance, but I have seen that it depends a lot on the expectations, lab project, and dynamic of the lab. I have friends doing Bioinformatics and for them there is no issue. I am a postdoc working on Alzheimer's research and it has been quite difficult to have that balance and keep applying for fellowships and grants. Any suggestions on how to keep it up with the funding and goals?

   

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Maria A. González-González

So getting to the main topic " keeping a balance between work and personal life", 

I am glad you bring to the table this topic, these challenging times come with different level of difficulty for specific groups, lets talk about:

1) People with diagnosed depression before this COVID situation

2) Woman in science, being at home balancing child care and productivity in their jobs

 

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Manuel Giraldo Velasquez

I believe that many times we do not see our home as a workplace, perhaps because we have many distractions or we spend our times in other activities however, with a little discipline we can see our home as an excellent workplace.

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Maira Bicca

Here at Hopkins we can not perform any experiments at all. The university is officially shut down until Mid May. I am working on writing a revision article regarding the subject of my research, In this way, I can use this afterwards for grants and the actual paper. I would recommend that to PhD and Master students as well. It might save time when you actually have to write the dissertation or the thesis. 

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Yorka Munoz
2 minutes ago, Maira Bicca said:

I sometimes feel like I am loosing my mind. I feel I can not be as productive as I should and then I feel many times guilty I am not more productive. What has been working for me is tu put up a schedule. To accomplish things step-by-step everyday. Small goals, instead of the big picture. I am also sparing time to practice Yoga and meditation in the evenings to help me release tension. 

Yes, I think to organize your time in Cov19 quarentine is very useful. It is supposed to you can expect that people be 100% productive in this time but wake up at the same time, read papers, try to find new link with the topics from your interest is a good way to surpass the quarentine. For me, I can't go to the lab, but I am writing a manuscript ans I have a lot of EM images to analize, so, I put my focus on those things 

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Aneisha Lewis
1 minute ago, Maira Bicca said:

Here at Hopkins we can not perform any experiments at all. The university is officially shut down until Mid May. I am working on writing a revision article regarding the subject of my research, In this way, I can use this afterwards for grants and the actual paper. I would recommend that to PhD and Master students as well. It might save time when you actually have to write the dissertation or the thesis. 

I am also working on a review article but it's been going slowly as home life is taxing having a toddler who demands constant attention lol

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Ricardo Augusto Leoni de Sousa

I believe that working and personal life balance depends on the person. It will not be the same for everybody. For example, I am used and I like to work sunday to sunday. I am not saying that i work 10 hours every sunday, but at least  4 hours working on sundays is pretty normal to me on regular basis. Usually, I work on manuscripts, if i am not writing one i will look for an intersting gap to write a review article or will look for a grant... the thing is I always work on weekends.  I know that not everybody would find it nice or healthy, but i enjoy it. Do you think i am not managing well the work and personal balance? Do you think there is an imbalance ?

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Yorka Munoz
9 minutes ago, Carolina Campos Rodriguez said:

Hello Yorka and all the nce. It is great to share our experince, because as you are mention ehrn I did my PhD, I never felt that I lost my personal life. But I have heard a lot of people saying that is impossible to keep the balance when you are a researcher

you need to try to organize your time. Be focused, have a routine

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Maria A. González-González
6 minutes ago, Yorka Munoz said:

Hi Maria, nice to meet you

@Yorka Munoz nice to meet you too, I was instructor for TEM at a LATP in Mexico, and glad to keep participating on these amazing communities! 

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Rodrigo Paz

Hello Yorka, thank you for sharing with us. I'm Rodrigo from Buenos Aires. Was there any particular situation that made you realize you had lost your life/work balance? 

 

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Maira Bicca
1 minute ago, Maria Gonzalez-Gonzalez said:

So getting to the main topic " keeping a balance between work and personal life", 

I am glad you bring to the table this topic, these challenging times come with different level of difficulty for specific groups, lets talk about:

1) People with diagnosed depression before this COVID situation

2) Woman in science, being at home balancing child care and productivity in their jobs

 

Really importante topics!!!

We should definitely address this. I would add to topic number 1 anxiety crisis that are getting more and more common due to the lock down, not only in previously depression diagnosed people. I myself have struggled with anxiety a few weeks ago. 

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Yorka Munoz
9 minutes ago, Aneisha Lewis said:

Hi @Yorka Munoz. I'm Aneisha Lewis, PhD student at The University of the West Indies, Trinidad. Work/life balance is super important to me but during this COVID-19 situation, we have no access to labs as per government regulations. Is this similar for you and what suggestions do you all have for managing the anxiety of basically having your project at a standstill?

It the same for me, I can't go to the lab but you need to find something productive to do, something for your project o maybe something that you never have time before to look at for

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Isis Nem De Oliveira Souza
5 minutes ago, Marangelie Criado Marrero said:

Hi Yorka, I believe that it is possible to have a work/life balance, but I have seen that it depends a lot on the expectations, lab project, and dynamic of the lab. I have friends doing Bioinformatics and for them there is no issue. I am a postdoc working on Alzheimer's research and it has been quite difficult to have that balance and keep applying for fellowships and grants. Any suggestions on how to keep it up with the funding and goals?

   

I have the same feeling. Different labs/projects put different expectations on your productivity. I had good work/life balance in my Master's but switch lab and project and fell short during most of my PhD. I think it's important to set your own personal boundaries on what you are capable of delivering and try not to rely so much on external expectation.

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Raquel Maria Campos

Are anyone here feeling a pressure form your sponsor to be productive and write papers and do webseminars and be the most productive ever in this quarentine? I have some friends are very anxious during quarentine and are not handling this. Do you have any advice for that or some similar is happening to you @Yorka Munoz


 

 
 
 
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Yorka Munoz
6 minutes ago, Julian Naizaque said:

Hi Yorka Munoz and everyone! I'm Julian Naizaque from Bogota, Colombia. I'm really interested in this topic. I would like to ask you Yorka: what's your most important strategy to have a wrk/life balance?

As I said in the list, you need to realize that experiments is just one pat of your life. You must have time with your family, friends, pets, a sport. Sometimes some advisors put a lot of pressure but you need to put your things in order. For me, plan my experiment in advance was very useful 

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