After 74 pages combined in four final research papers, 8 presentations, 8 novels, and a shitload of articles later, I finally completed my first year of grad school.
Here comes the wonderful summer break!
If you’d like to know how my first year went in depth, be sure you read my “What Grad School Taught Me” post; I feel like a lot of college students have this misconception about grad school and when they finally get into it, more students drop out of it more than they stay in – so I feel like that post could help people make the decision if grad school is for them or not.
Anyway, it’s just so surreal to be going into my second and final year of grad school in the Fall. My first year definitely came and went by so quickly, it still feels like something completely new for me. The experience I had this past year has been such a reality check for me, yet it’s been such an amazing journey thus far.
Going to grad school, especially at CSI, was never in my “5-Year Plan” when I had my life planned out when I was a sophomore in college. This time last year when I was getting ready to graduate with my bachelor’s, even then I couldn’t picture myself in grad school. A year later, I’m halfway through and the first year had unexpected encounters and moments I surprisingly didn’t think I’d get. For starters, I found myself a group of decent school friends who I’m going through the experience with. I’m not alone, and it’s good that this time around, I’m actually making friends with people within my department; I graduated last year not knowing anyone within my English department because I wasn’t so heavily involved in the program oddly enough. Now, I have a group of friends who plan to graduate with me on time in 2018, and I’m excited to be celebrating this accomplishment with actual school friends of mine.
Back to 2017 though: this semester alone has been one of the roughest semesters I’ve had solely because of insane professors, insecurity in my writing, and just overall anxiety from the courses. Even though it seemed like it sucked, this semester taught me a lot about being a writer and how to write, and my final paper for my literature class shows it.
Also, the end of the semester means that my friend, Tori, is going to be graduating in a couple of weeks. For the past year, she has been my ride to the bus stop after class, and yesterday was her last time doing so for me. I’m going to miss our car conversations about life, boyfriends, and school whenever we did link up, but I’m honestly so proud of her. She’s going to be an amazing English teacher; any student will be lucky to have her as one.
What to expect next year!
Next year (yet alone next semester) is going to be a rough one. This last year showed me just how hard it’s going to be handling two classes, so I can only imagine how tough it’s going to be when I have to take a Shakespeare class with possibly Shakespeare’s biggest fan as my professor, and an Independent Study with the professor who gave me a hard time this semester. It’s going to be hectic and I know my life is going to go down the drain once I go into this semester, but I know I am strong enough to go through these two tough courses and do what I gotta do.
In addition to that, I was granted the opportunity to do something insanely awesome next semester. So within my school, grad students in the English program have to write a 30-paged thesis paper prior to graduating. You pick a final paper you wrote in a class and expand on the ideas already in the paper; I’m currently working on a thesis discussing the disadvantages minority writers have in academia and the way they are the most oppressed group in writing classes. Because I plan on graduating on time next year, I will be focusing a lot more on my thesis and polish it up to submit to the graduate committee for grading. My writing professor at the time, Professor Carlo, is going to be the one consulting me with writing my MA Thesis. She’s possibly one of the coolest professors I’ve had at my school, so I knew that right away, she was going to be the professor I worked with.
Because I plan to do so, I received an email from her asking me if I was interested in being her Supplemental Instructor in a class she is teaching in the Fall semester: Autobiographical Writing. Now if you know me, this is straight up my damn alley. I live for writing about yourself and your own experiences; that’s what TNTH really is! But long story short, I’d be practically teaching her class, which is such a great honor and I hope I can proceed in doing so.
So yeah. An independent study + a really hard class + this SI Leader job = one stressed out Liz. But I know I’m able to do this.
But as of now, it’s time to wait for the final grades and then my summer vacation can finally begin!
What’s going on with TNTH now that school is over?
Because of grad school taking over my life this last couple of months, it’s been forever since I had time to myself to do the things that I’ve wanted to do for months, i.e actually put my everything into the blog. I have some amazing projects coming up (which I will be announcing soon on here), and some goals I want to hit during the summer.
Although usually, I’m over the summer after the Fourth of July, I’m excited to hang out more with my best friend, I’m excited to explore more places and take pictures, and I’m excited to officially start journaling again, specifically just summer journaling (I’ll be daily journaling again for the 2018 year).
Anyway, I hope everyone is having a great month, whether or not you’re officially on vacation or not, make the most out of this beautiful Spring weather! Stay tuned for a great summer for TNTH!
-Liz (:
Letters From Liz. 