Flashes of Panic

I knew graduate school would be different. I don’t think I had any concept of quite how different.

Classes are one thing. I had plenty of mind-bending classes as an undergrad, and I don’t think this is any tougher than, say, third-year Russian was for me. The difference is that I am more determined to get it right. In night school, the instructors spoon-fed to the class at a careful and deliberate pace, and I got used to easily absorbing the material retail. This is wholesale; it’s coming at us in shovelfuls. I’m spending much more time than I ever have grappling with the coursework outside of class. At least I managed to protect my Fridays from regular obligations, so far (the department doesn’t offer courses on Friday, and I ducked responsibility for TAing labs then,) but at the expense of a late Thursday (labs until 8.)

But what good is a long weekend when you spend the whole thing in the library? I’ve got five books in play right now, and only two are primary texts for courses I’m being graded in. One of those isn’t even in my hands; I’ve been getting it from the reserve desk at the library and reading it (and re-reading it) in three-hour chunks. The other three are an optional text for one class (and you can bet I’m paying attention to optional texts if they look useful,) the text for the course I’m TAing, which I should probably get familiar with in order to answer questions with the tactful, academic version of “RTFM,” plus the text for a course I haven’t taken but should have for two of the courses I’m in. That’s a lot of reading (and, for that matter, a lot of mass.)

And then there’s MPOW, which is the sort of work which can make you look up and say, did I really start in on this three hours ago? (By pure coincidence, the Sakai installation wrapped up right around five on Friday. OK, I stretched it out a few minutes by going back and cleaning up my known false trails, but it really was coincidental.)

The good news is, so far I’m up to my eyeballs as promised, but not over my head. The less-good news is, I wish I had time to absorb what I’m learning better. I feel like this whole program is going to fly by before I notice it.