Semester Closure

I finally went back to campus last week to pick up my graded papers and to meet with my advisor about what I'm doing over the summer.

I closed out my semester/first year with:

* An A on the developmental paper and an A/A- on the final exam

* An A- on the personality paper

* An A (actually, over 100) on the stats final exam

* Good feedback on my first year review

This summer, I am working on:

* Finalizing list of PhD programs/profs I'm applying to and collecting relevant info for that bitch of a process

* Writing my major area paper covering my first year project and setting the stage for the thesis (the outline/bio is due the first week of class with the final paper due Oct 1 but I want to get it finished this summer if I can); this will also form the basis of the journal submission I will write

* Coming up with how I want to extend the research for the thesis (I have some ideas)

Today I read the book Dissertations and Theses from Start to Finish: Psychology and Related Fields and was glad to discover:

* I already have a pretty reasonable grasp of what is going to happen when in terms of the process and the product

* However the book adds a lot of both general and specific advice that I believe will prove useful both for the major area paper and the thesis

I have a little under 3 months until classes start again. If all goes well in the future (i.e., I go to a PhD program), this will be the easiest, most relaxing summer I'll experience for a long time.