Life as a graduate student.

Let me tell you, this past week has been a crazy whirlwind. I started school on July 1, and my family arrived for a visit the very next day. I'm really looking forward to telling you all about my family's vacation to the Southwest, but first I'm going to start off with my impressions of graduate school. 

For starters, I'm currently taking two classes that meet at night from 5:30-9:15pm. Thank goodness the latest I've been kept is 8:50, because none of us could make it until nine! One class meets on Mondays and Wednesdays, and the other meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This means that AJ and I have breakfast together in the morning, and then we don't see each other until sometime around nine at night. So far, after I've gotten home each night I've simply pulled out my books and continued to do homework, so I don't get to enjoy AJ's company even at night. It means I miss him a lot during the week.

The first class I'm taking is largely a review course focusing on the key things we should have learned in college. The first two weeks are focused on direct practice (mostly with individuals and families), and after that we get a new professor who spends three weeks on research (my least favorite for sure). This class is for those of us in the accelerated program, so that we can review and catch up to the other students who go for two years. This class has been absolutely insane regarding the work load--even my professor said so! We have to cover so much material in just four classes (of the first segment), which means I have a crazy amount of work to do.  

The second class keeps the same topic and professor for all five weeks, resulting in it being very fast-paced but not quite as much as the other. This class focuses on sociocultural concepts of working in the U.S. Southwest. We talk about theories of oppression and diversity as well as the nuances of working with minority groups. I love diversity stuff, so this class is really interesting to me. 

Thus far grad school has consumed all of my free time. I always have my nose in a book or my eyes glued to the computer. I definitely enjoy what I'm learning, but the sheer volume of reading and work is tough to keep up with. Hopefully the fall will be a little more reasonable, but I'm not holding out hope. As long as I survive with a B average for the next three semesters, it'll go by quick at least! Yes, you need a B average to graduate. Well, time to go...I'm off to prepare a biopsychosocial assessment with a group and then to class I go!