New Direction

It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m still hibernating.

After the long week of writer’s boot camp (which I was required to attend before I could register for classes), I came home and haven't left my apartment since 7 p.m. Saturday. Since I’m staring into a week packed full of orientations (three, to be exact), newspaper reporter staffing, teaching assistant meetings and social gathering with my fellow journalism grad students, I thought it was best. I'm trying not to freak out over how little sleep I’m going to get over the next two years.

I can’t help that sleep is important to me.

Over the last week I’ve learned that grad school is going to be a lot more complicated and challenging than I expected. I knew that the classes were going to be more interactive and that I would be expected to get a firm grasp on more complex material. I expected for the professors to be more critical of us and expect more discussion in the classroom. I knew that in the end I would have to defend whatever project I chose to devote my last semester to.

For the sake of time and space, here is a list of what I didn’t expect:

• To not like news reporting. At all. In boot camp we mainly focused on news reporting because the city newspaper that’s published by the university will be staffed by us next week. I hated every minute of prep for news writing (which is not good, since I’m taking a required News Writing and Reporting course this semester).

• To find switching from academic or personal writing to news writing so difficult. It really does take a switch in the way you think, in addition to learning a whole new language called “AP Style”. The goal is to get to the point and use no unnecessary words. Great …

• To have the likelihood of academic politics thrown into the mix early on in regards to finding an advisor, mentor and graduate panel. As if the process wasn’t difficult enough.

• To be under scrutiny constantly by my professors. We’ve already been told that we will need to grow thick skin in order to survive and grow over the next two years. Some of the editors like yelling at students. One editor has already told us he will rewrite every sentence we write. Our graduate advisor let us know that she meets with students every semester who are crying over it and she has to remind them it’s not personal. Hmmm … guess I better get started on that.

• To feel like there’s not enough time in two years to learn everything I want to learn. I technically only have three semesters for class time. The final semester is set aside for my master’s project. Most students leave Columbia to do internships, so options for summer classes sparse. You need 37 hours to graduate and I have my eye on 46.

• To feel like one of the “old people”. I usually do a pretty good job of fitting in with all age groups, so this has been interesting. It’s not that I don’t look like them. I definitely don’t sound like them, but that’s not where the shocker lies. The problem is that I somehow missed part of the technology explosion. I’m definitely feeling the pinch of the learning curve when it comes to using a Mac. I’m not even going to talk about Twitter …

For the sake of time I’ll stop here since the venting session is getting kind of long. :o)

So, this is how the newest leg of the adventure begins. I plan to update this weekly, so if you’re interested in hearing how the world is going up here in the middle of nowhere, Missouri, please subscribe!