Things I learned in a Week: Revisited

This semester has been a absolute whirlwind, but it's over now. Yes, my last "final" aka my theory paper was handed in last Wednesday.

It's funny how I feel like I got so much more accomplished in the past 6 days than I have in the entire semester. After I went back through and re-read what I had written about grad school over the course of the semester I thought I'd go back and "pull a Mohany". In the first few weeks of feminist theory we read a piece by Chandra Mohanty called "Under Western Eyes", Mohanty revisted the piece ten years later and wrote a follow-up to it.

One of the first things I wrote on here was about ten random things I thought I learned in a week. Well, it's time to revisit this list and see which of these things actually held up through the semester.

1. Just showing up is half the battle. FALSE. Sure showing up could be a battle in itself sometimes, but the true battle happens after a month or two. This first chance I got to go home I took it. I forget why I even had the chance to go home, but I did. The real battle? Going back!

2. Needing a map. TRUE. Yes, it's still true. Midway through the semester I was running late to my morning class so I was going to try what I thought was a shortcut. It was raining and long story short I got lost. I had to ask two people for directions before I found the building. It didn't help of course that my professor changed the building that day. Turns out that the way I took was a shortcut. I made a wrong turn and ended up on the opposite side of campus.

3. Housing is a pain in the ass. TRUE. Enough said.

4. Coffee Pots are gold. T.R.U.E. This may be the most true thing I have ever written. Seeing that housing is a pain in the ass, they may have told you that a basic flex plan will be all you need as a grad student. When saying this they are probably thinking that you're 1. not going to be out of the library much or 2. a commuter (even though you've just signed up for a room).

Regrettably my coffee pot that was given as a gift by my favorite high school teacher at graduation, has reached then end of it's life. I was heating up water a few weeks ago when it started smoking. Yes I caught my coffee pot on fire. :(

5.  Free printing. TRUE! And it gets better! The university made a mistake, Grad students don't get $25 free printing, they get $45!! So when my printing started running out and I was talking to other grad students about it being good while it lasted, I got an aditional $20 once I figured it out. Happy Camper :)

6. Sliding window. TRUE. The window still slides, but you might want to be cautious because there are lady bug impersonators out there that will invade your room, eat your bamboo plant and generally annoy you. Do not hesitate in killing them, they are not lady bugs!

7. Networking is good. TRUE! Umm...I don't see this as something to be contested.

8. Buying books for class sucks. TRUE. What sucks even worse sometimes is having to read them. Reading a book by Lundy Bancoft was seriously the worst torture you can give a grad student, even worse than theory. Why?  It's painfully simple and contradictory. I can't truely explain to someone who hasn't gone through it themselves, but if you haven't, keep it that way.

9. Undergrad prepared you for grad school. FALSE. I was so please when I was able to use stuff from undergrad...too bad that was the only time it happened. I loved my undergrad, don't get me wrong. I had great professors and took some amazing classes, but there's a reason why a majority of the students from my undergrad go straight into the work force. It's probably why I was faced with so much opposition of choosing non-professional degrees. They didn't prepare me for grad school and maybe there's no way to really be prepared, but there's got to be something better.

10. Study groups are good. TRUE!! My entire cohort was in Feminist Theory this semester and most of us formed a study group that would get together to read or write or just get coffee. It was especially helpfull in the end of the semester with the final paper we had to write. We got together to exchange books and especially to motivate each other to not quit, I think that was the most important function of the whole group. Getting together with these people truely gave me some great friends, some of the best a person can have.