school is kicking my ass
in general, i love it here.
as is typical dorise-style, i'm going to talk about the things bugging me first.
1--i was assigned 300 pages of reading for one week for JUST ONE CLASS. in addition to our "weekly reading response paper" we're talking about a 7-9 hour commitment here and that is for just ONE class. i mean, i understand graduate school is supposed to be difficult, but i think that is stepping over the boundaries of appropriate workload.
2--ok, i'm going to hedge this next part by saying that i absolutely love my assistantship. the sources of my frustration are therefore as follows:
a) though our assistantships are only annual contracts, when we came to the university the head professor of our program assured us that they only had that in place (one year instead of 2) in the event that something went wrong--either that we hated our assistantship or that our assistantship advisors felt that we were not doing a sufficient job. i really was not worried about that being the case for me, and the largest reason i came to northeastern was for this assistantship. my bosses are now emphasizing to the other graduate assistant and me that these are "only annual contracts" and that they "can't make us any promises." now, i forgive them in that they are a new assistantship and that really they have not yet seen us over the course of a long period of time (we've only been there a week) so they don't want to make us any guarantees that they cannot follow through on. but, i'm worried because we seem to be getting an overwhelming message of "welp, the contract is up in a year, and we'll just have to see where we're at then." that is to say, that even if they like us, they may still trade us out. for me, this is a cause of huge concern which i really hope is undue--i'm definitely jumping the gun here and i hope i'm just being overly cynical, but i can't help but be a little worried.
b) they're really moving slowly on letting us get out there and advise. both jaime (the other grad student) and i have a fair amount of advising experience, and though we absolutely realize that northeastern's system is different to those that we know, we are also not coming in starting from square one. we have good knowledge of advising systems and procedures, have already worked closely with advisors at past institutions, and have a general knack for picking up information of this sort. they're not looking at having us start to advise for at least another month--i think they were putting it at about 6 weeks in. for SOAR we had 1 week of training, and then got to work independently. i'm used to having limited supervision and only going to an authority in times of questions or clarifications, and then have the student be "checked out" by a professional advisor so as to make sure we did not make any mistakes. to move so slowly through the process i find discouraging, because i am eager to jump right in. one of my supervisors also mentioned that she did not know if we were even allowed access to the database, while the woman who had originally hired us (but switched jobs so is no longer our supervisor) was wondering why we haven't already started learning the database. other advisors are eager for us to jump right in, we are eager to jump right in, and both of us just feel as though we are not being given as much as we can handle. again, i may be being overly evaluative/cynical, and i really hope i'm wrong, but i hope things pick up and that we just don't feel too held back.
today was a 12 1/2 hour day. i am exhausted. and, today is mine and ryan's 7 month anniversary, so i am going to go call my baby. trying to keep up with work (which i didn't really mention, but i think i'm going to love--i started today), school, assistantship, CRAZY AMOUNTS OF READING, some element of social life out here, and good contact with my pookieface is going to be an incredible challenge, but like this and everything else i've ever set my mind to, i'm determined to do it and do it well. even though my days are long, i LOVE them. i love boston, i love bostonions, and i love boston culture. i feel like i have finally found my work niche, and i only hope i can do as well as i think i will!
as is typical dorise-style, i'm going to talk about the things bugging me first.
1--i was assigned 300 pages of reading for one week for JUST ONE CLASS. in addition to our "weekly reading response paper" we're talking about a 7-9 hour commitment here and that is for just ONE class. i mean, i understand graduate school is supposed to be difficult, but i think that is stepping over the boundaries of appropriate workload.
2--ok, i'm going to hedge this next part by saying that i absolutely love my assistantship. the sources of my frustration are therefore as follows:
a) though our assistantships are only annual contracts, when we came to the university the head professor of our program assured us that they only had that in place (one year instead of 2) in the event that something went wrong--either that we hated our assistantship or that our assistantship advisors felt that we were not doing a sufficient job. i really was not worried about that being the case for me, and the largest reason i came to northeastern was for this assistantship. my bosses are now emphasizing to the other graduate assistant and me that these are "only annual contracts" and that they "can't make us any promises." now, i forgive them in that they are a new assistantship and that really they have not yet seen us over the course of a long period of time (we've only been there a week) so they don't want to make us any guarantees that they cannot follow through on. but, i'm worried because we seem to be getting an overwhelming message of "welp, the contract is up in a year, and we'll just have to see where we're at then." that is to say, that even if they like us, they may still trade us out. for me, this is a cause of huge concern which i really hope is undue--i'm definitely jumping the gun here and i hope i'm just being overly cynical, but i can't help but be a little worried.
b) they're really moving slowly on letting us get out there and advise. both jaime (the other grad student) and i have a fair amount of advising experience, and though we absolutely realize that northeastern's system is different to those that we know, we are also not coming in starting from square one. we have good knowledge of advising systems and procedures, have already worked closely with advisors at past institutions, and have a general knack for picking up information of this sort. they're not looking at having us start to advise for at least another month--i think they were putting it at about 6 weeks in. for SOAR we had 1 week of training, and then got to work independently. i'm used to having limited supervision and only going to an authority in times of questions or clarifications, and then have the student be "checked out" by a professional advisor so as to make sure we did not make any mistakes. to move so slowly through the process i find discouraging, because i am eager to jump right in. one of my supervisors also mentioned that she did not know if we were even allowed access to the database, while the woman who had originally hired us (but switched jobs so is no longer our supervisor) was wondering why we haven't already started learning the database. other advisors are eager for us to jump right in, we are eager to jump right in, and both of us just feel as though we are not being given as much as we can handle. again, i may be being overly evaluative/cynical, and i really hope i'm wrong, but i hope things pick up and that we just don't feel too held back.
today was a 12 1/2 hour day. i am exhausted. and, today is mine and ryan's 7 month anniversary, so i am going to go call my baby. trying to keep up with work (which i didn't really mention, but i think i'm going to love--i started today), school, assistantship, CRAZY AMOUNTS OF READING, some element of social life out here, and good contact with my pookieface is going to be an incredible challenge, but like this and everything else i've ever set my mind to, i'm determined to do it and do it well. even though my days are long, i LOVE them. i love boston, i love bostonions, and i love boston culture. i feel like i have finally found my work niche, and i only hope i can do as well as i think i will!