Well, it's spring semester, and I'm back in Philadelphia after a fabulous winter break (including such highlights as a week in Boston, a weekend in the Adirondack mountains, and quite a bit of quality family time)!
In some ways, it's great to be back at Penn. I missed my wonderful cohort-mates, and I have a new roommate in my house who happens to be the roommate with whom I lived while studying abroad in Spain! It's been wonderful to spend time with her, and since she's a non-student, she provides a lovely, unstressed perspective on things. Also exciting about being back is my class schedule, which I LOVE LOVE LOVE!!! Yesterday I had my first class, Globalization and the University, and it was, as expected, absolutely awesome. It's taught by Alan Ruby, whom I have determined to be one of the most inspiring and intelligent people teaching at Penn GSE. Tomorrow, I begin the first seminar of my "three-seminar class." It's a unique, multidisciplinary class taught through Penn's NGO and Non-Profit Leadership Program, and I choose three out of four two-day seminars to attend over the course of the semester. The seminars are taught by different faculty members across the U of P, and the topics range from the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa to the art of persuasion. I'm hoping that it will help me to better understand how nonprofits work, especially in an international context, since I think I'd like to work for one this fall. Wish me luck! (I once fell asleep in a three-hour seminar, so I'm slightly nervous...I'm bringing lots of chocolate and tea!) My other classes include Public Speaking at the Fels School of Social and Public Policy (I am disgustingly excited about this one too...the professor sounds amazing, and I love reading great speeches!), Equality, which is taught by a professor I'm interested in knowing, and Foundations of Teaching and Learning, which I'm pretty sure is going to be amazing because I looove the first book we have to read. It's called Tales of a Female Nomad, and it's about a woman who leaves her life of plenty to go out and explore the world without any predetermined plans about food, shelter, etc. I highly recommend it from the, oh, eight pages I've read so far! :-)
Things not so exciting about being back include...
- the fact that I think I miiight be coming down with a small cold. Ew. I think I would allow two years to be taken off of my life if I were told that I could live the rest of it without ever being sick again. Worst feeling ever. I'm combatting, though, as best I can, with the aid of Riiiiiiicolaaaaaaaa and hot tea and warm blankets!
- that I don't get to relax and read for pleasure for a good long while (except when people assign AWESOME books like my foundations of education professor!)
- having to get up at 0 dark thirty in order to be at work at nine
Mostly, I'm just super happy to be back and learning and growing before--YIKES--the real world!
Thursday, January 15, 2009
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3 comments:
riiiiicoooolaaaaaaaaa i love those. best cough drops ever. and i like how you wrote it like the say it in the commerical!
Hi Sarah, I came across your blog while looking around at the Penn GSE website. I am a prospective student for the MSEd in Higher Education and want to thank you for sharing your thoughts about life as a student. I was wondering how many people are in your cohort? Also, how does a student juggle 5 graduate classes? I can't even imagine.
Connie
Hi Connie! I'm so glad that my blog has been informative for you! I'm sorry that my reply is so belated, but I've been a bad lil' blogger for the last three weeks! In response to your questions...
1. There are 29 people in this year's Higher Ed. cohort. That number changes slightly each year, and my guess is that next year's will probably be a teensy bit bigger. In any case, you'll find that the cohort really bonds together and cohort love is one of the greatest things about this program. It'll get you through the stress for sure!
2. How to juggle five classes plus work? Haha it's not so bad, really. Most of us have had four years of undergraduate study to prep us in time management skills. Beyond that, you'll find that you have an excellent faculty and student peer support system. Sometimes, it'll be rough--I won't lie--but if you've read far back enough in my blog, you can see that I waitress two nights a week and still get it all done. And that's not to boast--:-)--just to tell you that it really is possible!
Hope that's helpful! And I hope you keep reading the blog!
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