My final project ended up being vastly different from my original research plan. Over the summer, I was unable to attain any suitable participants for a multitude of reasons. By the end of the summer, I had run out of time and had to pivot in order to stay on track. I spent some time brainstorming and landed on the idea of creating a graphic novella about research and academia. I had learned so much about being within the confines of academia as a marginalised student and I wanted to reflect on the barriers and challenges that I had faced and how the Education Industrial Complex could serve minoritised students and faculty better. After a challenging semester of planning, drawing, and writing, “A Reflection on Research” was complete and ready to be presented.

The main challenge that I faced this semester was time management. When creativity and reflection are involved in the outcome of a project, it can be challenging to stay on a productive schedule. A close friend helped establish some external incentives and methods to track progress to help with this challenge and, ultimately, I was able to meet my deadlines. In future self-study projects, I hope to be more diligent in my time management. I know that, realistically, that is not always possible; however, using external incentives and tracking methods are good tools that will help make the process of creation and reflection more seamless and streamlined.

Having presented my project, I am proud of what I have accomplished over these two years of self-study. I am proud of the fact that I have been flexible in my goals and aspirations and have followed the direction of where the research has taken me. Before this process, I had a relatively rigid understanding of what research was, how research was done, and what counted as ‘good’ or ‘legitimate’ research. Now, my understanding of research has expanded into a wide, complex, and nuanced range of creativity, reflection, qualitative and quantitative information, and openness to change direction. This project allowed me to be creative, vulnerable, brave, and intellectual in an intersecting way that I didn’t originally believe was possible within the confines of academia.