"We in this thang together": Black First-Year Doctoral Students Transitioning during COVID.

Transitioning into a doctoral program can be difficult for Black students, and unforeseen circumstances can make navigating especially challenging. Collaboratively, we used an autoethnographic approach to explore how we, three Black doctoral students, transitioned into a graduate program virtually during COVID and publicized anti-Black racism. Using our personal narratives and digital communication, we examine virtual community building through a Blackademic placemaking lens that incorporates three subthemes that were instrumental in our transition: Black collectivism, Building and cultivating community, and Blackness as Existence and Resistance. Through our findings we discuss the impact of early transitional connections, which resulted in increased sense of belonging and disruption of the competitive nature of graduate programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]