It has been about a month since I began my PhD program. I do not have very strong opinions in any direction. There is good and bad and the bad and good pretty much balance themselves out. I ended up taking 4 classes and an independent study. Wednesdays are my full day. I have three classes all piled on in the same day. It is nice to have things arranged on one day, but it does make for a really long day.
I feel that some of the passion I initially felt has waned. I feel that sometimes the classmates I have are not really living up to my expectations (though I also question the role the professor plays in all of this). It could also be that my expectations and the reality are just two different things, and once I come to terms with reality, I will feel better about everything. I guess I feel we need to be pushed harder, but at the same time, perhaps a PhD student should not need a push. There are quite a few papers and things for me to attack this semester.
I will need to write a paper on Gender Inequality in the context of Comparative Higher Education, a paper about something related to Education in Asia, a short paper and a long paper related to themes in the Soc Bases of Ed class, take two exams and do much SAS programming homework which always gives me a big big headache. In addition, there is a list of books I need to read for an independent study. I also still have a few loose books to read for the Ed in Asia class. It seems like so much when I put it all down in a list in one place. I guess I have to work on getting motivated to start some of these things earlier. The end of the semester will come faster than I imagine.
I do need to put more efforts to my study. I realize this now.
Wow...that sounds like an incredible amount of work, but I think if you break it into workable chunks, you can do it (although I know I couldn't). Keep thinking about what you can accomplish at the other side of these hurdles...and think what a good example you're setting for Hudson.
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