nsj: blog 
nsj's blog
first day of (grad) school
Published Aug. 25, 2009Views: 374
This week will mark the first day of class for many students across the area, including yours truly. My first real bout with a graduate class came last night, and I might as well have gone twelve rounds with Iron Mike.
(As an aside, my last update was for the first day of my summer class. There must be something about the first day of class that inspires me to update my GoLo blog. How about that? But I digress...)
I say that it's my first "real bout" with graduate school; although, it isn't my first taste of graduate-level coursework. While finishing up my undergraduate work, I took a graduate-level radar meteorology class. But, as many of you can attest, there's a big difference between taking a grad class in a discipline you're already familiar with and shifting to an entirely different discipline. I'd never so much as sniffed a 100-level communications course before, and last night was an eye-opener.
When it was all over, I walked out of class with my head feeling like it was going to explode. It’s the good kind of exploding feeling — the kind of feeling you get when you know you’re cramming more really, really good stuff in there — but it still hurt.
Oww.
In a nutshell, I spent the entire class time typing notes as furiously as I could, and I still surely missed at least as much as I was able to get down. The worst part about it is that, even today, I have no idea whether what I was able to get down was the important stuff or not. It’s like waking up in a foreign country and asking for directions from someone who can’t point. They’re talking, and you know most of what they’re saying is important, but until you really speak the language, you don’t know how to separate the really important stuff like “turn right here” from the extra stuff like “that convenience store has the best hot dogs EVER.” You just try to capture as much of it as you can in hopes you’ll be able to sort the wheat from the chaff as you go.
Half of what went back and forth last night might as well have been a foreign language. Now, they say the best way to learn a foreign language is immersion, and that's exactly what happened last night. Come to think of it, it will continue throughout the week -- I’ve got three chapters of theory from one book and literally half of another book to read for the next class.
Ahh, grad school — it’s the gift that keeps on giving.
(Did I mention my head hurts?)
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August 25, 2009 8:23 p.m.
GOLO member since May 2, 2008
August 25, 2009 6:04 p.m.
GOLO member since August 21, 2009
August 25, 2009 4:55 p.m.
GOLO member since July 19, 2007
August 25, 2009 4:47 p.m.
GOLO member since October 31, 2007
August 25, 2009 4:46 p.m.
GOLO member since August 21, 2009
August 25, 2009 4:34 p.m.
No 100 level class is THAT hard. And communications at that, come on...even athletes who barely make it in to college get majors in communications.
GOLO member since August 16, 2007
August 25, 2009 4:02 p.m.
GOLO member since August 21, 2009
August 25, 2009 3:53 p.m.
Good luck to you!
August 25, 2009 3:53 p.m.
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