My "First" Day of School

Yesterday marked my first day as a graduate student. While I am sure that none of you care about my experience I am going to tell you because I can and let’s face it you went out of your way to read this so you must care at least a little bit. Well what can I tell you… it is only the second day and I am exhausted… let me explain it this way, the dark circles under my eyes are going to be a permanent fixture until I graduate, no amount of makeup is going to adequately cover up my total exhaustion. So far being a grad. student is significantly different than being and undergrad. The professors (so far) have expected to be called by their first names (which is unnerving to me), they treat us much more as colleagues than as students, there is no more “Dr. So and So”, instead there are Brad, Mike, Rosemary, Steve, Len, Josh, and Ray… weird. I think this is especially weird to me because I had the same professors for my undergraduate degree and they did expect to be called “Dr. So and So”. We have a lab, which is very exciting, it means that I have a place on campus where I can go if I ever need to study, print, surf the internet (I have a laptop so this doesn’t matter as much), refrigerate something, or just hang out, I think I am going to have to put some snacks in my cubby (I know this isn’t kindergarten) just in case I am pretty hungry one day. Some of the second years recommended we keep a blanket and a pillow in our cubbies just in case we need a nap sometime, they also shared horror stories of bio-statistics and staying in the lab past midnight, which I am NOT looking forward to. It is pretty exciting. The only thing I don’t like so far is that my “middle of the class” theory is not going to work in this setting. Let me explain, I have this theory that if you sit in the middle of the class the professor will not ever notice you. They notice the people in the front and the slackers in the back, but no one cares about the people that sit in the middle, these people never have to participate (I hate participating in class).Unfortunately, in a class of 13 there is no middle, there is just a circle. This is a especially a problem because the professors were provide with our bios in advance and lets face it, there are only a few students, so it looks like I may have to participate. We started talking about our projects and fieldwork yesterday, which was overwhelming to say the least, it is the first day and we are already talking about this. So if anyone has an MPH project idea I would love to hear it, I am looking for something related to women’s health, and I am not kidding project ideas are much appreciated, I have no idea what I am going to do. Additionally, if you can think of any fieldwork opportunities I would love to hear about them, originally I thought I would look exclusively in Utah, but now I am thinking that fieldwork with the CDC, WHO, or PAHO might not be a bad idea, when am I ever going to have another opportunity for something like this. Your suggestions are much appreciated. As a side note I am “auditing” women’s health (I already took it and got my A) but I LOVED the class and thought a “refresher” might not be a bad idea so I am going back for another dose, anyway besides being excited for the class I am sure I will have lots to write about on my fantastic blog. I would highly recommend all of you attend this class (if you can), it is great, and the instructor is amazing (of course I am biased she is one of the ones that encouraged me to get my MPH and she wrote one of my letters of recommendation), but really she is great.