One of the keys to success in graduate school is cascading mentorship, where students get help and advice from near-peers (more senior graduate students) as well as from faculty. In the cascading mentorship groups below, students meet weekly to help each other with research planning, academic writing, presentation skills, and the art of staying sane and healthy in graduate school. (For more on our writing group model, check out this book and this study.) The groups listed below are currently active. Click on any group name to learn more.

INTERDISCIPLINARY GROUPS 

• Académiques Latinx

  Group Name: Académiques Latines

  This is a peer-mentoring support network for Latinx/Latine graduate students who want to advance their academic writing goals in a culturally sensitive environment.  We are mostly Humanities & Education scholars, but we welcome people from any discipline who feel they may benefit from this peer-support group. Similarly, we welcome non-Latinx students whose research and work is strongly tied to the Latinx, Latin American and broader Spanish speaking world, or anyone who simply feels they would benefit from this writing community regardless of research agenda or identity.

  This is a multilingual space that uses Spanish, English and Spanglish interchangeably. We hold space for each other through our structured quiet writing time, and we keep each other accountable through our daily writing log, quarterly goals log and weekly check-ins.

  This quarter, we will meet over zoom and in person, in Humanities Hall to write in community. You are welcome to join all or part of our structured writing time.

  Please contact Fernanda Hernández Paredes at mfherna6@uci.edu or Carina Saiidi Padilla at msaiidip@uci.edu for the zoom link or if you have any questions.

  Meetings Times
  Fridays 11am - 1pm (Hybrid)

  Group Leaders:
  Fernanda Hernández Paredes (mfherna6@uci.edu)
  Carina Saiidi Padilla (msaiidip@uci.edu) 

• 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.

   

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

LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE GROUPS (SOCSCI)

• The Fellowship of the (inner) Ring (road)

  We are a community of graduate students in the department of logic and philosophy of science who recognize that writing is hard and that support is essential. The activities of the group include weekly quiet writing-together hours, sharing writing goals, providing accountability for group members, and supporting each other with advice and encouragement.

  Group Leader: Ellen Yunjie Shi, yunjies1@uci.edu. 

SOCIOLOGY GROUPS (SOC SCI)

• Weekly Working Support Group
  We are a small group of sociology Ph.D. students from various stages in their program who study issues relating to gender, sexuality, education, family, and inequality. We meet weekly on Zoom for two hours on Thursdays from 11 am to 2 pm (PT). We begin each meeting with check-ins. We write in blocks of 30 mins, take short breaks, and get back to writing until we do our final check-in. We like to keep our group rather small, but we're looking to add a few more members. In this group, we are dedicated to sharing advice and tips in getting through the writing process, as well as supporting each other throughout the many different stages of the writing process. We hope that this space can serve as a form of support and community for gender, family, education, and inequality scholars within the social sciences. Our group leaders are Estéfani Marín and Katelyn Malae, 5th-years in the sociology PhD program. For more information, contact them at kmalae@uci.edu or marine2@uci.edu.

POLITICAL SCIENCE GROUPS (SOC SCI)