{"id":3470,"date":"2020-05-03T06:04:23","date_gmt":"2020-05-03T06:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/ponder-about-tomorrow-but-have-a-concrete-plan-for-today\/"},"modified":"2025-02-19T12:46:14","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T12:46:14","slug":"ponder-about-tomorrow-but-have-a-concrete-plan-for-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/ponder-about-tomorrow-but-have-a-concrete-plan-for-today","title":{"rendered":"Ponder about tomorrow, but have a concrete plan for today"},"content":{"rendered":"

At some point in our lives, many of us have experienced a natural disaster such as an earthquake, tornado, snowstorm or hurricane. In the case of hurricanes, for example, we tend to get some forewarning. This gives us time to create a plan of action, from assembling our disaster supplies kit to nailing down shutters. We usually have a fair idea of how long it will last and the damage it will leave in its wake. Very few of us, however, have experienced a global pandemic like the one we are all going through right now. It came without much warning and has been moving with such speed; no one can truly guarantee the after-effects. We are all trying to imagine the final extent of damage and what life will be like after COVID-19. How long will it last? Will it ever be over? Will we recover? Will it come back? There is mounting anxiety and streets that once teemed with activity are now eerily quiet<\/a><\/span><\/span>. Right now, the only sign of life from my window is a squirrel who is busy scratching itself.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the midst of the mounting uncertainty, all of us are facing challenges – some shared, some unique to our individual situations. As academics, the \u2018publish or perish\u2019 aphorism and hours spent in isolation working on experiments or poring over journal articles are things we usually face daily. With this global pandemic, however, there are added personal and professional challenges. Many academics are international students stuck in isolation far away from loved ones. For some, seasonal job offers may have been affected and job searches as early-career scientists will probably become even more <\/span>gruelling<\/span>. For others, the high point of years of hard work will be a viva in your kitchen via Zoom. With labs shuttered to \u2018non-essential\u2019 work, data collection for observational research has ground to a halt. In a matter of days, carefully crafted timelines literally flew out the window. As a full-time mature student half-way through my doctoral training and far away from my immediate family, I speak out of my personal situation. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I will always remember Friday, March 13, 2020, and it is not because of those Friday the 13th<\/sup> movies. On that date, schools across Montreal (Quebec) \u2013 from daycares to universities \u2013 started closing their doors in response to directives from the government.\u00a0I was in the process of recruiting preschool participants for my randomized control trial intervention. I had no idea what this lockdown meant for my data collection in particular and for my research in general. I thought that maybe, the impact would be very short-term, and schools will start functioning again in a month or two. But since there was no way to be certain, I decided to look at my situation through eyes that saw a best-case and a worst-case scenario, similar to the Scenario A and B projections released by Quebec<\/a><\/span><\/span> (Canada) public health officials for the province. On March 13th<\/sup>, my optimistic outlook was that I could probably start data collection come September; the pessimistic \u2013 and more realistic \u2013 outlook was not for another year. So, I did what I do best \u2013 plan! <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n