I survived

It's time to celebrate because I just survived week 1 of grad school. Saturday (class/day 1) was the worst. It was from 9am-5pm with an hour for lunch. There were both 3rd years (part time) and 1st years (full time) in the class. It felt like a lot of information thrown at me and I was a bit intimidated. Of course the 3rd years talked the most because they knew what they were talking about. They had already had theory courses and experience to base their observations off of. The poor 1st years were sitting in their seats with their jaws wide open because we felt so lost. I admit, I was scared that I wasn't prepared for this.

Monday (class/day 2) was methods class. I walked in with an uncomfortable stride and sat in the front row in the center of the row. I was NOT ashamed of being the nerd because I knew that I was scared of failing. Half an hour into class we go over the syllabus. A two page research proposal and a final exam is all that I see under assignments. WHAT?! Then we got into lecture. We went over a few things in summary (all of which I have learned in detail at Skidmore) as well as the purpose of a theoretical framework and literature review. Then our instructor asked the question, "Is there such a thing as too big a sample?" My head nods yes while others say I have no idea. Then she asks for those of us saying yes, why? My hand goes up and she calls on people from the back to the front so I'm the last to answer. Now I swear, Professor Fox must have said, "If you learn anything from me, let it be this..." at least a half dozen times. This is one of those things that he's told us to remember!! And this is what I said, "Law of probability. The bigger your sample is, the more likely you are to find what you are testing for, even if there isn't a correlation there." Apparently that's what the instructor was looking for because she stopped calling on people to give their answers. THANK YOU FOXY!!!!!!! After this class I was feeling much better about my standing in grad school.

Tuesday (class/day 3) was Pre-Practicum. This was the day that we got into our cohort of 38 people and then split up into our tracks of mental health, community counseling, and school counseling. There are nine people in the school counseling track and only seven who are full time. This class was fun because we really got to see how different we were from the other counselors. After class I was supposed to drive down to Ashland. I got into a car wreck because a deer jumped out in front of me. I ended up rolling my car off the side of the hwy and totaling it. I'm fine, physically. I don't think I'll be driving long distances for a while. It's hard to live in a place all alone and deal with something like that. Jeremy was nice enough to drive up and be with me to make sure I was alright, both physically and mentally/emotionally. Today I'm still a little sore but nothing too serious.

Thursday (class/day 4) was theories class. This is probably going to be my hardest class by far. There are a lot of theorists that overlap in their teachings so separating them out and learning about them will be a task. Luckily our biggest paper is only 5 pages and it asks, "What theorist do you most identify with and why?" The final is open book open notes. I'm glad they're starting us off with easy courses. It's a nice way to ease in to the grad school life.

I'm not really sure what I have planned for the weekend but with no friends my age, I can't imagine I'd be doing much. I'll be sure to keep you updated.Until then... Laters