School - First Week Lessons Learned

My first week of school is over and I feel like I've been hit by a ton of bricks.

I mean, books.

I've learned a LOT in this first week though. Several take-aways for me to survive in graduate school:

1. Get OVER any fears of speaking in front of other people. My grade will depend on it.

2. Read assignments critically, learn about the author's biases, and do I agree or disagree and why. Scan and pull out important information. There isn't time to read everything. I think I still want to read everything.

3. For my school, there are a lot of badges and cards I need on a day to day basis. Make sure I have everything the night before so I'm not freaking out in the morning. That's a bad, bad feeling by the way.

4. Leave EARLY. DC traffic is no joke as I'm finding out. Arriving early ensures plenty of time to gather thoughts and review notes before class.

5. Get ahead. This week I felt like I was WAY behind doing the readings the night before. Three days this weekend will be my opportunity to get control over all this material.

6. Food - PACK A LUNCH. Kris was hounding me all week about bringing food and I just spent money on lunch and coffee there at school. This isn't good at $10 a day. On one particular day, I have two 2.5 hour classes back to back. I felt like I was dying in the second class from low blood sugar. Need a better plan for this.

7. The gym and running suffered this week. I believe getting a handle on all the reading and papers this weekend will help me develop a good plan to work that in.

8. Sleep - Got to be in bed by 2130, asleep by 2200. Earlier is better. I am NOT one of those people to function well on 6 hours of sleep. If need be, I will, but there is no reason for it here when only my ability to manage time is getting in the way.

I know there are more. There have to be. This week was all about learning logistics and timing. Need to be efficient but thorough. The looming thesis should and will consume a lot of my time so I will need to learn to prioritize appropriately and balance my time and resources between course work and the thesis research.

Very interesting courses though. I think once I get over this painful adjustment period, I will really enjoy it!