When it comes to my first year of graduate school: let's be perfectly frank. I don't feel that I can say "I came, I saw, I conquered." I did come. I very much saw. But I don't feel as though I conquered my first year of classes. Or maybe I did and I won't realize until later.
But this past two semesters has nevertheless been a learning experience. So without further ado, lessons I learned about graduate school this year:
1. Your professors want to help you. They don't want to sit back and laugh diabolically as you fail. At least, most of them don't.
2. Everyone suffers from feelings of inadequacy. None of you are stupid; the school would not have accepted you if you were stupid.
3. Because everyone suffers from feelings of inadequacy, it is highly advisable to befriend other students. Almost everyone feels as though they're drowning. And almost everyone feels better about that feeling when they realize almost everyone else feels the same.
4. Investing yourself in a paper results in a better end product with a better grade and better comments.
5. Investing yourself in a paper also means starting said paper in advance. Even if you only start thinking about it in advance.
6. If you want to fly under the radar--even for a day--sit as far away as possible from the argumentative attention-getters. If you don't want to fly under the radar, assert yourself.
7. Conferences are wonderful, wonderful things; they introduce you to people every bit as nerdy as you are whose eyes don't glaze over when you talk about your pet projects and your favorite areas of study.
8. Sometimes, you just need to step away from the homework. Don't even back away slowly. Just run, run, run. As fast you can.
9. Retaining the ability to talk with people outside your program keeps you well-rounded. More or less.
10. Just give up on your sanity. Provided you had any to begin with. You did, after all, apply to grad school...
2 comments:
I'm glad that you feel your first year of grad school has taught you something valuable, even if it was overwhelming at times and left you questioning your sanity. As an outside observer, I know that I can never fully understand what it has been like for you. However, I'm excited that you officially made it through your first year! Now you get almost four months to recover before it all starts back up again.
Heh... I like that. ^.^ I will most certainly keep those in mind.
Especially the running away from homework part. lol
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