INTERDISCIPLINARY GROUPS 

• Académiques Latinx

  This space is meant as a supportive peer-mentorship environment for Latinx/Latines graduate students from humanities, arts, Chicanx/Latinx studies, social sciences and education departments who want to advance their academic writing goals. This group is also open to non-Latinx students whose research and work is strongly tied to the Latinx, Latines and broader Spanish speaking world. This is a multilingual space in which Spanish, English and Spanglish will be used interchangeably. Our aim is to build an inclusive and supportive community for all who are looking for writing accountability and to build strategies for tackling daily writing challenges and navigating the hidden curriculum of academia. We aim to encourage everyone to write more, publish more and apply to more opportunities (fellowships, internships, conferences, grants, jobs, postdocs, etc).

  Meetings Times: 

  Tuesdays 12:30-2:30 pm (Via Zoom)

  Fridays 12:00- 2:00 pm (Via Zoom)

   

  Group Leaders:

  Jessica Gonzalez (j.gonzalez@uci.edu) 

  Jeanie Toscano (jrtoscan@uci.edu) 

  Jeanny Fuentes 

   

   

• Morning and International Quiet Writing Time 

  Welcoming all those who need an incentive to get out of bed a bit earlier, or working from other parts of the world and need a workshop that works with you. We are a welcoming, inclusive group of individuals trying to survive through graduate school, recognizing how difficult it is to do so without a strong support of our peers. We devote time to working together, having a support mechanism through check-ins and writing logs, providing feedback, and thinking together about obstacles in grad school and writing. Please contact me at boyunk@uci.edu if you would like to join.

  

• Social Sciences and Humanities Writing Group

  This is an interdisciplinary and multi-methods writing group. Members of this group conduct both qualitative and quantitative research in the social sciences and humanities. What unites us all is our desire for a supportive space in the writing process! Each meeting begins with discussions and planning on writing objectives, followed by silent writing time using the pomodoro method. Group members learn about different tools to improve writing practices and enhance accountability. This is also a space to provide each other with feedback on fellowship applications and papers in progress for publication. This group meets on Wednesdays from 3-5 PM and has an informal social get together every other Monday from 12:30-2 PM. Contact Caroline Martinez (caroligm@uci.edu) for more information.

  

 

COGNITIVE SCIENCES GROUPS (SOC SCI)

• Group Theory

  We are Group Theory, a Cascade Mentoring group within the Cognitive Sciences Department at UC Irvine. We are not some obtuse branch of mathematics, but rather a rag-tag group of cognitive science doctoral students, helping one-another to successfully meander and bushwhack our way through our PhDs. This is the second quarter of our existence, and our group aim is to provide a supportive environment in which to help one another grow, collaborate, work together, and most importantly, to have a good time! Right now we meet weekly on Fridays from 3-5, though this day and time may change in the future. We use this time to check in, cover some skills, and have quiet work time together. Additionally, we meet Mondays from 3-6, when we engage in quiet work time together, and generally chat each other up.

  We are accepting new members, so free to email the Cascade Group Mentor, Andrew Hansen, at aghansen@uci.edu.

  "They must be stopped!" - Time Magazine

  "Who do they think they are?" - Southern Living

  

   

• Quantitative Quality

  Our group consists of 10 Cog Sci students, ranging from 5th years to 1st years. Our members hail from Aaron Bornstein, Mimi Liljeholm, Michael Lee, Jeff Rouder, Alyssa Brewer, and Barbara Sarnecka's labs, so we have a wide range of research interests including social reasoning, category learning, developmental psychology, sequential decision making, wisdom of the crowd, and Bayesian methods. We are focused primarily on quiet writing time and checking in. We will also do the feedback forum and occasionally cover some material from Barbara's book as needed.

  For more information, contact Jeff Coon ( jcoon1@uci.edu, Quantitative Quality I) or Paulina Silva (pnsilva@uci.edu, Quantitative Quality II).

  

• Writing and Wellness

  We are a community of Social Sciences PhD students spanning years one through five. While our academic backgrounds and research interests vary, our collective goal is to become better science communicators while prioritizing our physical and mental well-being throughout graduate school and beyond. For our fall 2022 inaugural term, our group aim is to discuss effective writing strategies, provide constructive feedback on drafts, support healthy writing practices through accountability, and most importantly, establish physical and mental wellness so that we can be our best self. This is a positive space to voice and discuss all concerns, experiences, and obstacles. We use our meeting times to check in, chat about helpful skills, write together, and partake in a feedback forum. We are open to Zoom meetings, but safe, in-person gatherings often come with snacks! We are accepting new members. Email the group mentor, Tiffany Raber, at traber@uci.edu with any questions. “Nothing in science has any value if it is not communicated.” – Anne Roe

  

   

ENGLISH GROUPS (HUMANITIES)

• Mundanities of Humanities 

  Mundanities of Humanity is a humanities-heavy, but not humanities-limited group that focuses on balancing graduate well-being with graduate studies. Our six members in years 4-6 of our PhD programs try to provide support for the mundane, including the everyday plights of graduate students, those who have moved without support systems, those who feel isolated and confused in the department etc. We strongly believe that graduate work is only possible when the person is taken care of, and we strive to provide that balance. Everyone is welcome, and we meet once a week via Zoom to study together, with in-person meetings added as needed and is deemed safe. Please contact Jung Soo Lee at jungsl6@uci.edu to join or for any questions.  

  

   

 

HISTORY GROUPS (HUMANITIES)

• History Cascading Mentorship Writing Group (HCMWG)

  Hi! We are HCMWG – history PhD candidates deeply interested in advancing our doctoral research and writing skills in order to graduate on time! Our areas of interest include colonial and modern India, imperial Japan in the twentieth century, and independent and American controlled Hawai’i. Our dissertations include race, class, gender, and indigenous studies as well as global and intellectual 
  history. Some of us also work on anticolonialism, performative history, and history of trauma.
   
  At the moment, we meet every Tuesday and Wednesday from 8 pm to 10 pm Pacific time. We have members all over the world and we want to include you as well! Our main goals for every week are quiet writing time and feedback forum. We also have a general discussion on topics that affect historians in the making. However, most of our meetings are dedicated to writing and reviewing each other’s work! If you are interested in getting historical writing done, look no further and come join us!
   
  Group Leader: Chris Chacon
  Group Leader Email: clchacon@uci.edu

  

   

 

LANGUAGE SCIENCES GROUPS (SOC SCI)

• Language Science Huddle
  

  Hi :) We are the langsci huddle, a group of eight students doing language science-related research (everything from computational modeling of syntax acquisition, to corpus studies of cross-linguistic adjective use, to experiments on interpretations in context, and lots more). We meet in person twice a week. Our goals are to provide everyday writing and social support to each other in order to boost each other’s well-being, combat graduate student isolation, write more and write better.
   
  Group leader: Noa Attali (nattali@uci.edu)

 

PHILOSOPHY & LPS GROUPS (HUMANITIES/SOC SCI)

• Formal Philosophy Writing Group

  We are a group of eight Logic & Philosophy doctoral students in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th years of the doctoral program. We definitely accept new members, but folks should be aware that we are a specialized group. Our group caters to people doing relatively technical philosophy of science or logic research. Areas include formal epistemology, decision theory, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of physics. We meet Tuesdays and Fridays 12-2pm. We mainly focus on time for writing. We also do a check-in at each meeting, and do a feedback forum session about once every two weeks. Occasionally we will put aside some time to build skills or discuss questions anyone might have. We also usually do brunch after our Friday meeting, which is a lot of fun. For more information, contact group leader Daniel Herrmann at daherrma@uci.edu. 

  

• Philosylvania
  We are a group of graduate students in the Logic and Philosophy of Science department. We span various years in the program from third year to sixth year. We write together to keep one another accountable and help with any hurdles that we face in the writing process. We also regularly hold feedback forum sessions to receive feedback on our writing from one another. Our meetings mainly consist of Quiet Writing Time and quick (15 minute) check-ins. For more information, please contact Helen Meskhidze (helen.meskhidze@uci.edu).
   

 

POLITICAL SCIENCE GROUPS (SOC SCI)

 

 

 

 

 

SOCIOLOGY GROUPS (SOC SCI)