The End of the Beginning

It's hard to believe that my first semester of graduate school is almost over. It's gone quickly; I've enjoyed it more than I thought I would, I've learned a lot, and met a lot people.



In some ways I feel a little different than my fellow students. I only took six credits this semester. I worked full-time (40 hours/week) for the first half of the semester and even now that I've cut back to 60% (24 hrs/week), it's still very different work from the graduate assistantships and research assistantships that many of my classmates have. But then I realize that maybe I'm not really that different: we all come from different backgrounds, from different stages of life, some have come directly from undergrad, some have come from careers, and we all do school and the path to a degree just a little differently.



And I'm not sure I'm entirely used to the fact that graduate school is different from undergrad. I went "across the river" for the first time a couple weeks ago. I had forgotten what the between class migrations were like. It seemed so natural to come out of a huge lecture with one or two friends and merge seamlessly into the mass of bodies moving across campus. I haven't had to deal with that all semester. Being on the health side of campus there isn't the same density of classrooms. We all filter in to the building from different places on campus. All the classes are small so we get to know each other to a certain extent. Class ends and we trickle out, some alone, some in small groups, each headed a different direction. And then there's the frenzied ten minutes at the top of the hour. The classes I have this semester and next semester don't fall into that rigid hourly class schedule. There is no rushing insanity when we get out of class.



I'm sure I have more comments on grad school, but I should probably wrap this up and study for the Healthcare Organization and Policy final I have tomorrow afternoon.



~L