Merlin Star's Website

I have some big plans for 2023. However, one major thing that limits my plans from being fully concrete is if I am going for a 2nd master’s or a PhD. I applied to 1 PhD program in Quantitative Psychology in Canada, 1 online master’s program in Computer Science with a high acceptance rate, and might potentially apply to a PhD program in the UK depending on how another professor responds to me. Because I do not know if will even be in the United States next year, this limits how concrete my plans can be.

With that said, here are things definite plans for 2023:

– I will go back to being vegetarian for 2023. Currently, I am pescetarian that rarely eats fish. Do not ask me to go vegan, I have multiple health issues that prevent me from doing so and I have already tried once. It is not a matter of laziness, my body physically shuts down on a vegan diet. Technically, I have already had medical doctors fuss at me for going vegetarian, but that’s a story for another time.

– I will exercise more frequently in 2023. I have been doing it on and off, but plan to be more consistent. I cannot be perfectly consistent due to various disabilities, but exercise for me has been helpful. Exercise is not suitable for everyone, but I can benefit from it.

– I will be working on connecting with inclusive companies to make them more inclusive of neurodiverse people for hiring, retaining, and promoting. It’s no secret that most people in the neurodiverse community are underemployed or unemployed and helping some of them out would benefit us all.

– I will be getting more involved with anti-racism efforts. I plan to start supporting Indigenous writers, increase my contributions to Black creators I already support, send Ro on Mastodon some money, and continue to make noise online. Since I do not know where I will be geographically in 2023, I will abstain from most in-person efforts until I know for certain.

– I will be moving away from most big social media with the exception of LinkedIn. Once I can get enough business for myself consistently, I plan to ditch LinkedIn. LinkedIn is well known to tolerate and accept bigotry of all sorts.

– I will be working on making a portfolio. That warrants its own post as I have some pretty big plans for it. The extent to which I work on my portfolio depends on if I get accepted into a PhD program or not. I am pretty much guaranteed to get into the computer science master’s program, so I will be back in graduate school in 2023 even if rejected from all PhD programs.

With that said, if I only get into the CS program, I will attempt to go thesis based. It will be difficult and I will have to jump through hoops, but my first master’s being non-thesis based and in a niche has really shot me in the foot for applying to PhD programs. I plan to use the 2nd master’s to expand my skillset, know more computer science in an academic context, and use that knowledge to help build more ethical and inclusive software and AI. My next and final attempt at PhD programs would be for Fall 2025. If I fail then to get into a doctoral program after reaching out to professors that align with my research interests, applying to a dozen universities, networking, and giving it all I got, screw it, I’ll be an independent scholar instead and try to find an organization I can vibe with. I really do want to get into a PhD program, but I will take the hint if this happens.

Anyways, stay tuned for the update on the two big updates coming next post: My plans for my portfolio and how my 2023 plans will differ with a PhD program versus the 2nd master’s.