Registration is underway for a program that provides guidance and support to graduate students who may be finding thesis-writing a lonely, or even overwhelming, experience.
Since 2022, the 3MAYT (Three Months to Advance Your Thesis) program has served 100 to 140 McGill thesis writers every semester.
Over 12 weeks, groups of 10-15 participants meet virtually or in-person with a trained group leader for goal-setting sessions every Monday, and progress debriefing meetings each Friday. In between, they advance their theses in daily structured writing sessions, supported by their peers and group leaders. There are also writing tips and sessions on relevant McGill resources.
The approach seems to be working. Between September 2023 and September 2024, an impressive 810 master’s and 601 doctoral theses have been submitted to Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (GPS). 3MAYT is a collaboration between GPS and Graphos, a program of the McGill Writing Centre, with GPS securing funding for the initiative.
For 3MAYT program co-ordinator Donetta Hines, PhD, the program’s success lies in its being a caring, community-based response.
By creating supportive, cross-disciplinary writing communities, the program breaks isolation and the imposter syndrome, boosting participant motivation. Students also learn positive writing strategies and to set achievable goals, helping them maintain motivation over the long term.
“It’s not even just the research and the writing, but how to manage our energy, our time, even our emotions,” Hines said.
Building community
History PhD candidate Esther Guillen has just submitted her thesis thanks, in part, to the supportive 3MAYT community.
“It’s really isolating to be in a graduate program, and I think sometimes we don’t realize how alone we were beforehand,” said Guillen.
Kinesiology PhD candidate, Mike Auksi, agreed: “Coursework was over, and [students] would be staring at the academic abyss. Even if you come [to McGill] everyday … how are you going to feel less isolated, even within your lab?”
Through the 3MAYT program, both Guillen and Auksi found a caring, inspiring community.
“We become really invested in each other’s success. Seeing someone else move through [the difficulties of thesis writing] really inspired me and showed me that it could be achievable,” Guillen remembered. Auksi appreciates the support offered by program leaders: “They’re so gentle and kind, and if someone is in crisis, Donetta just steps right up and says there’s a way here.”
Structure and motivation
A major benefit of the 3MAYT program is the way it favours regular writing and group accountability.
A former hockey athlete, Auksi highlighted the team dynamics at play:
“Your attendance in the small groups means a lot to others.”
Raine Yuan, master’s student in Education, added, “When you join a writing team, you feel like you are connected with other students. I call it an invisible hand to push me writing.”
Former participant Khalil El Hachem, PhD (Civil Engineering), notes that regular writing in 3MAYT has a psychological benefit: “It helped me to not have so much self-guilt and self-loathing.”
After participating in 3MAYT, El Hachem finished his PhD in four years, well below the median for McGill PhDs.
Setting and achieving goals
Sustainable goal setting, which leads to fewer counterproductive feelings toward writing, is key in 3MAYT. El Hachem, for instance, noted, “Now I don’t overestimate how much I can write. I know that even though I can work on a draft full time for two weeks, writing doesn’t work this way. You’re not going to write for eight hours every day. That was a big lesson.”
For others, like former master’s participant Shruti Predhep, achieving goals meant finding tailored solutions. When Predhep was having difficulty remembering vocabulary and structure due to a new medication, her group leader suggested an accessibility tool that would suggest possible words as she wrote. With this care for her situation, the program far exceeded Shruti’s expectations: “They said three months to wrap up the thesis. Initially I thought, ‘would I really complete it in three months?’ But I did!”
Registration is open until Nov. 29 for the winter 2025 cohort of 3MAYT.