Cleaning Up.

At the end of each semester and the end of each year it's a good time to clean things out. Purge the negativity in your life. Get rid of things that don't bring you joy. Purge the negative emotions. 

And if you're Batman, purge the city of criminals. 

It's that last reason that always kept Batman from applying for grad school. Fighting crime doesn't leave a lot of time for homework or group projects. 

Risk

Imposter phenomenon can be a common experience for grad students (and faculty and administrators and human beings). Doing things you haven't done before requires some bravery and some risk taking. But don't be ridiculous about this - like the snowperson above. C'mon Frosty, that's just dang foolish. Even if you pull off roasting that marshmallow, if you eat it, it's going to melt the mouth part of your snowhead. And then most of the rest of you.

This is just one reason why you don't see a lot of snowpeople in grad school. It's not really the main reason, but still...

Snow

December 21st is the first day of winter. A lot of people don't know that on the first day of winter Yetis and Snowpeople get together to reminisce about their days in graduate school.

A lot of people don't know that because it isn't true.

Now, shouldn't you be working ahead on reading for the spring term?

Reconnecting

Dad was surprised how much smarter the child was after this particular semester in grad school. Lots of good conversations. Fun activities with great exchanges. When the kid was two, they built a sNOperson because everything was "No!" that year. This year they built a sKNOWperson." 

Dad liked this better. 

Waiting

A lot of times a syllabus will tell you how long you have to wait for a late professor, instructor, or teacher before you can assume that class in canceled. What they don't tell you is how long you have to wait before you start actually learning things. You know why they don't tell you that? Because as a graduate student - the responsibility for learning rests with you.

You need to read the syllabus to figure out what other reading you might need to do to understand concepts and topics. You need to learn to read the syllabus to determine if the books in the bookstore are the same ones as the ones the faculty member is using for the course. You need to read the syllabus in case there is something hidden in there the faculty member wants you to respond to to make sure you read the syllabus. You need to read the syllabus to figure out what kinds of projects or assignments you might want to do that could align with your assistantship or future work or research. You need to learn to read the syllabus in case...

You know - I guess you just need to learn to read the syllabus.

And ask questions.

And take responsibility for your learning because sometimes you might not have good teachers. Also sometimes teachers don't have good students. Some of the faculty wait around for that to happen to instead of doing more work to inspire people in the classroom. But you know how long faculty have to wait around for good students to show up? The ENTIRE semester. 

Also, most graduate students are awesome.