Today was my first day back on school. Although classes don't begin until Wed., I had all kinds of errands to run and the first TA meeting for the stats class I TA for, so I spent my first full day back on campus.
This year, I am the only TA who has taught the course before; the other TAs include 3 first year students and a second year student who had a different assignment last year. But the professor (who is also my advisor) is the same, and it looks like the labs/homeworks are mostly the same, as last semester, which is great on both counts; I think the TAship is likely to be less work than it was last year, and I'll probably do a better job with the material.
I had several especially nice things happen today:
1) My advisor has read the first 10 pages or so of my major area paper (MAP) and came to my office to give me a thumbs up. He's going to make suggestions for deletion of some material that I can keep in reserve to add back when I write my thesis.
2) I went to the library for some more books, some to do research for my current project and others to read up on the state of research as I start working on my statement(s) of purpose for PhD applications, and I found a book that just came out earlier this year and that I drooled over when I saw it listed in a catalog I get due to belonging to a psychology association. Now it's mine...or at least, for now it's mine.
Today, I stayed at school after my meeting and read the five chapters of another book that interested me and that had implications for both my current project and the SOPs. Even though I was at school for a good while, the time went really quickly. I'm getting good at reading material in my field, and it feels a lot less taxing than it used to. (Whether this represents skill building or an increase in self-regulatory ability I will leave to the musings of the reader.)
3) I am getting a new printer set up in my office. I haven't had one in my office before, so this will be great.
4) Best of all, they distributed the department grad handbook for the year and I discovered what course I am taking next semester. In last year's book, it listed a 3 hour "elective" and 6 hours of thesis research. In this year's book, it lists 6 hours of thesis research, full stop. So the spring semester is All Thesis, All the Time. I like it.
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7 comments:
Sounds like things are going well. Keep up the good work!
What you said about reading in your field becoming easier and less taxing reminds me of something our grad advisor told us. He said that when he went originally went to grad school, he was under the misimpression that he was there to study math. Instead, he learned, he was there to be trained in math, to be trained in the discipline of math. He likened it to physical training.
Mom, I will...there will be no need for you to call the director of graduate studies to protest anything, I promise. :)
Tam, I like the metaphor.
Looks like an interesting book. It's always heartwarming to hear stories of when the library actually had up-to-date printed texts that people need.
My school's library is...well - not as good as some others.
My advisor took some research money to buy some books I'd need for my use - probably just to get me to stop whining about the interlibrary loan process.
So the new handbook overrides the original? I only ask because at some places (ATM is one) the handbook and graduation requirements in place at the time of matriculation are the ones which govern for a given student's entire career.
I ran into some problems on that score when I re-enrolled - was I bound by the 2006 handbook (in which there was a non-thesis Masters) or the 1998 handbook (in which there was not)? I never got a satisfactory answer on that question from anyone.
Rvman - Thanks for the warning. Fortunately, not taking an elective in the spring would still be consistent with the requirements laid out in the previous handbook in terms of the minimum required coursework and thesis hours for graduation, so perhaps the change is not really impacting what people actually do (I don't know how many second years last year took an elective or not).
At my undergrad school, you could choose either the catalog year you came in under or the current one. I'm not sure whether you could choose intermediate years, but I imagine so. The intent was to let you grandfather in the easier conditions under which you started, not, I think, to force you to adhere to stricter limits that the university had since abandoned.
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