Edumacation

Because I'm sure you are all so interested in hearing about le school, but since this is (maybe?) sort of acting as my online journal, I figure it warrants a mention.

SO, it has definitely been an adjustment. MSVU is very different from Guelph, I think a lot because of the size difference (Wikipedia says UofG has about 23000 students + staff, and MSVU has 4220 students). Which isn't necessarily all bad but definitely something to get used to. I took a lot of the things at UofG for granted - 'this is how Universities are'. Things like medical coverage. I found out a bit ago that grad students here aren't covered by student medical because there wasn't enough interest. But that definitely wasn't made clear (to me anyway!). On the plus side, all my classes top out at about 20 students and the profs seem to have a vested interest in getting to know you and helping you in whatever way they can.

I'm taking pretty much all of my required courses this semester which leaves next semester open for electives that are supposed to augment my thesis topic. Heh, a thing that is kind of stressing me out. The epic decision making!! More on that later.. All but stats are once a week 2.5 hour classes with a crap ton of readings on the side. And so many assignments! I made myself a beautiful sticky note calendar with pink post its for days when stuff is due and basically all the weekdays are pink. Procrastination begone! Except not really... but it really needs to take a hike. Anyway, maybe this will finally force me to make progress in that department. Here's hoping!

So last week we had some graduate students who are further along in the program (second year +) come into one of our classes to talk about their process in working on their thesis. Um, commence all the panicking! Listening to them talk about how much their research topics changed over the course of working on the proposal, the troubles they encountered with ethics approval etc. and how those sorts of things set them back in their timeline stressed me out. And I think the rest of my class. I may or may not have had some great "what the heck am I doing here!?" moments during their presentation. At any rate, I have great plans to try to nail down a supervisor and get moving on this. I have no desire to end up taking three plus years to finish just because the thesis stuff got dragged out. I'm hoping, probably naively, that the professor I'm hoping to work with will end up being a good choice in the ease of thesis selection department. The way he works is that he has grad students take on a segment of a big project that he is undertaking, so in that way the thesis topic is largely already set out and chosen for you (perfect for those indecisive sorts!). So now I just need to convince him to take me on as a student!

Also, I just went to an information session about graduate scholarships (the big government ones -$17500/year) and while I'm hoping I complete the application, it didn't make me feel too optimistic about the odds of receiving one. What I really want to know is where these amazing undergraduate students hide out. Publications already, really!? Clearly I missed the memo on that...

So, all in all, feeling a bit overwhelmed and underqualified/skilled. Hopefully this will change!