When I began the proposal project for Summer Scholars, I remember being very unsure of myself. The project’s birth came out of my uncertainty as a reader and as a scholar, and I mostly worried that I would be unable to shape my tension into something tangible. The closer I got to the actual project, the more I was able to set these fears aside and jump head first into the project. I think I was mostly surprised with how textual the project was. I worried that I wouldn’t be able to find sources, both because I was unfamiliar with “real” research and because I had never really heard of people writing about my question. During the process, it always felt like I was moving too slowly, like I was getting nothing done. I’d set goals for myself for the beginning of the weak and hardly ever meet them. This wasn’t because I was failing to do work – on the contrary – I was doing too much work. A 30-page article that I expected to get through in a day would take me two or three. A book I planned to finish in a week would take multiple weeks. This was initially frustrating, because it made me feel as if I was losing time or failing as a researcher, and yet what I was actually producing was tens of pages of notes and critiques of the texts I worked with. In week 7, after feeling slow and unmotivated, I decided to put together an annotated bibliography of the texts I had worked with so far to take stock of my progress. I soon realized that I had over 15 sources (and counting) that I had read in their entirety. It was at that moment that I really felt like a researcher. What felt slow and tedious and never-ending was actual tangible engagement and analysis.

My ultimate goal for this project was to have a 30-page paper ready to submit and present. I am not there yet. It took a long time for me to come to terms with the fact that the absence of this paper was not an indication that I had failed. I have not failed. I have nearly 100 pages of written work that I can turn into this paper. I have done the grunt work and acquired an appreciation for what that means. In college, everything requires fast turnaround. Papers are poorly researched and pieced together quickly to keep up with the pace and intensity of the semester. This expectation makes me too focused on the result: too worried when I don’t have something to turn in. This project has allowed me to learn how to live in a slower pace; how to feel the urgency of “deadlines” while not being controlled by them.

There were many times that I felt stuck in the readings. When I was working through 100 pages of early Marx it would be difficult to keep focus all of the time. This tension exists between absolutely loving the struggle of working through the material but also feeling burdened or burnt out. Some days I would sit and spend an entire day on only a few pages because I just couldn’t work anymore. This helped me understand when I needed breaks and when I needed to work. I needed to be flexible. While I might have originally thought that I could spend 8 hours at a time reading and writing, I underestimated just how strenuous this really is and needed to find ways to balance my time. Instead of trying to read for four hours straight, I started to read until I couldn’t focus and then go for a short walk or free write or change locations. I would plan enough in advance so as to be prepared for what my needs for the day could be, but learned how to also be flexible enough to change my plans if they stopped working.

Working on only one project for the summer was both freeing and limiting. I think the most challenging part of this kind of research is the lack of distractions. During the semester when up against a wall on an assignment for a particular class, I can easily switch assignments and content to give my mind a break. With the summer project, I had to learn how to accomplish this within the project itself. However, because the project was my own and not specifically in line with a professor’s syllabus, it allowed me to take the project where I needed and wanted it to go. My plans were allowed to change. This is a great freedom but also a great responsibility. I had to learn how to hold myself accountable. I had to both let myself take paths that didn’t fit my syllabus but also create boundaries when the work became too off task.

Doing the work itself was invigorating and exhausting all at once. In the beginning of the summer I worked and worked and surprised myself by how invested in the project I really was. I worried before it started that without rules and structure and explicit deadlines that I would crumble under the pressure of freedom and get nothing done. The opposite turned out to be true. Doing the work felt like fulfilling a need. I think this is fundamentally different then classwork because the research is mine. My motivation to work is not to get a grade or satisfy someone else’s requirement of me, but rather to satisfy me. Finding that motivation and drive within myself was really empowering because it made me realize that I had a stake in education that came from within. I think this can easily get lost in the day to day of classes as we are asked to meet expectations that are not set my ourselves. The summer project allowed me to discover myself not just as a student but as a scholar which, despite 3 years of college classes, I had been unable to do previously.

Rather than submit formal reflections, my reflections were more organically built into my notes, critiques and research process. The reflection period for me happened both while engaging in the writing process but also in receiving Naeem Inayatulla’s notes and critiques of my work. When receiving work back, it was necessary to engage in reflection because it helped me figure out where how I was going to continue my work. I could throw my initial reactions and analysis into the first round of notes and think that I was moving in one specific direction and then after reading the notes, stepping back, and putting my writing into the larger context of the project I might end up with a completely different understanding of where I needed to go and what I needed to read. 

I feel that there were different layers of reflection that I used in the research process. The first is the most direct and tangible usage: the immediate reflection and engagement with the materials. These kinds of immediate reflections allowed me to do close and engaged readings of texts that were still contextual and relevant to the overall project. From my perspective, this kind of immediate reflection is necessary for all good work. As I continue to pursue research in graduate school I will need these skills to maintain my pace and productivity.

The second kind of reflection had to do more with the research overall. How was I doing? Was I on track? What was I trying to accomplish? Did I need to slow down or speed up? This kind of reflection happened at the beginning and end of each week. I would begin my week by laying out what I hoped to accomplish, and end my week examining my progress. Often, I would find myself a little behind what my goals were, and so at the end of the week I would reflect on why and how this happened. Did I underestimate the density of the texts? Was I distracted? Did I need to change something about my process? These reflections were made necessary by the tension between feeling anxious that I wasn’t accomplishing enough and feeling fulfilled by the work I had done. The reflection allowed me to decipher exactly what was causing the slower pace and either motivate speed or find comfort in that pace. I think this is going to be extremely important for me moving forward because it helped me develop a balance of holding myself accountable without being ultimately self-deprecating. One of the most important things that I know about myself is that good works stops on both extremes: not holding myself accountable for my work makes it difficult for me to find the motivation to work at all and yet too much self-criticism is suffocating and paralyzing. The practice of reflection allowed me to constantly push myself to find the happy median to be happy, healthy, and productive. This is something I’ve struggled with most of my life, and doing the reflections for the independent research gave me practice and tools for battling my own immobility. 

The third kind of reflection I engaged in might be considered a meta-reflection. These kinds of reflections often came out in dialogue with Naeem, and he frequently helped me navigate the question: what does research look like? I think one of the most difficult things in the humanities is answering this question. The answer isn’t laid out for us like the scientific method. There’s no specific procedure to follow. At times, it can feel frustrating to live in a world that isn’t centered around ‘results’, because it can seem like a lack of results also yields a lack of progress. I frequently came up against this during research. I was engaged in the texts, I was doing my work, but I was often too worried about making the right conclusions and finding the results. Naeem was instrumental in reminding me to rethink or reflect on what the project demands: exploration, work, engagement. Results matter, but are often void of depth or meaning if the urgency and demand for results in bypassing the process. This summer was a hands-on lesson in what I hope to carry with me for the rest of my life: let urgency come from my love of the exploration rather than my need for the answers.

In January, I met with Naeem to begin talking about the summer project. At the time, my ideas were not fully formed, and we spent some time fleshing out what the project might look like. He emphasized to me that this would be my project, and because it was not something he had done before, he would not be able to structure the project for me. He sent me a handful of different articles and gave me different ideas about where to look so that I could see what worked and what didn’t. During the summer, we met infrequently but were often in contact over email and through Sakai. I really appreciated the distance because it allowed me to really believe that the project was my own, yet I always knew I could ask for help if I needed it. I’d read an article, send him my writing, and he would respond with comments, suggestions, critiques, and support. In comparison to other projects, I think Naeem’s immediate role was minimal, but his input was essential. It could at times feel as if Naeem was too hands off or that I had absolutely no supervision, but this also meant that I learned how to ask for help. If I felt as if I was struggling with a reading, a concept, or just the project more generally, it was guaranteed that he would help in any way he could as long as I asked. I think I took this for granted before. During the year when we interact with our professors multiple times a week and assignments have more consistent deadlines, it’s more obvious when something’s wrong. Often professors will reach out and be the one to ask, “is everything okay?”, “why aren’t you getting your assignments in?”, etc. This is great because as a student I feel cared for my departments, but it also stunts my own ability to ask for help. What I realized throughout the summer is that when I felt there was too much distance, it was really because I hadn’t reached out. His involvement was 100% in relation to my needs as a scholar, and part of my job as a scholar had to be making my needs heard.

I am aware that not everyone would do well with this kind of format. I don’t think there can be a one-size-fits-all mentor/scholar relationship, but I am grateful that Naeem gave me the space I needed to work on my own. Other scholars mentioned that they met with their advisors once a week, and for me this would have been too suffocating. I think the best advice for future scholars and mentors would be to base your relationship on the needs of the project and your own working preferences, but ultimately less is more. Independent research shouldn’t be comfortable all of the time. I think some of the most important moments in my research happened in the absence of my mentor because I was able to discover that I was indeed a scholar, and not just a student.

I will most definitely continue this project in the future, as I intend for the project to turn into a Senior Thesis. I think it is important to see this research through to a final paper, both for the practice of writing a final thesis, and because the content is increasingly important to me. The project is, in a sense, a training in how to do good academic work. As I wish to eventually continue on to graduate school, this training will only become more useful.

I went into this journey worried that I might find in the middle that I wasn’t equipped, didn’t have the stamina, or didn’t enjoy independent research. I found the opposite to be true. I love this work, and being a Summer Scholar just made me more excited to go to graduate school (eventually). The project confirmed my love for reading and writing while also allowing for frustrations and roadblocks.