Grad School Reflections

Well, we come to the end of my first semester of grad school today, and it seemed appropriate that as I was finishing up the last of these blogs, I should take one to reflect on my experiences in grad school, positive and negative.  The first thing I have to say is that I swore I’d never go back to school again once I finished my Undergraduate degree in about 2 1/2 years longer than it should have taken.  Funny how free education to get a degree that I desperately wanted to pursue changes one’s mind, right?  So that being said, I had never investigated Grad Schools, and so I had absolutely no expectations coming in - I had no idea what it would be like.  I must say, I was quite pleasantly surprised.  The fact that there was only one meeting a week and late afternoon sold me right away.  Add that to the fact that the workload, while not easy, was certainly manageable, and the semester in some ways seemed like a breeze.  Sure, this last two weeks has been relatively hectic - but that is relative to the other 13 weeks of Grad School, and I needed only observe my fiancée as she finished up her penultimate undergrad semester to realize that I had nothing to complain about in the arena of workload.  Also a major bonus was the fact that there were no exams - I can totally dig that.

But what did I really learn?  Well, surprisingly, the classes were not fluff, as I thought it possible they might be.  I really enjoyed the readings, for the most part, and even the papers (while certainly not my idea of fun) I feel have assisted me in preparing for a transition to teaching.  A nice side benefit also was the fact that I can now relate better to my future students, since when I begin teaching, I will be like them in that I too am still in school.  So all in all, I think I have learned a lot this semester, and if the rest of my schooling is like this, who knows - maybe i just might go for my doctorate.............NOT!!!!!!!