Monday marks the start of my life in overdrive because Monday I will officially be a graduate student.
Yesterday, I found a unique solution to all of the problems of my previous post: take one more grad class so I can qualify for financial aid.
See, originally, I was just going to work full time and take one grad class so that I could get my feet wet in grad school. Because I am starting to suspect that the way of learning and completing course work in grad school is a lot different from the way of learning and completing course work in undergrad. They, like, want you to have ideas and stuff in grad school.
Yikes.
So I was just going to dip a toe into grad school next semester, see if the water was nice. Wade in slowly while letting my body adjust to the temperature.
But life had other plans.
In a way, I find it affirming of the fact that I made the right decision by staying in my city and working and going to grad school, the way all of my problems magically worked themselves out with this simple solution (and of course by magically I mean thank you Jesus!).
But…I am also a little scared as to how I am going to do this. I know I was only out of school for a semester, and I really didn’t have much leisure time then, but that’s the whole point. I was out of school last semester and I still felt like I was falling behind in the act of living.
Now I have not one but two grad classes to worry about, and they pretty much kick you out if you get a C in anything. And normally that wouldn’t even occur to me to be something to worry about because I get high grades in general…but….then there’s that whole other “think independently” thing that they want you to do there and I keep thinking “What if I can’t come up with enough ideas?”
What if I can’t come up with enough ideas and I get a C and flunk out and DIE and become completely destitute or, worse, default in my student loans and end up with BAD CREDIT….
….and still can’t get my car fixed???
OK. My moment has passed. The point of this blog is threefold: 1) I like that talk Arianna Huffington gave. It is oddly reassuring. Because I surely do NOT plan to be sleep deprived like I was my senior year of undergrad. My body is very vocal about its sleep requirements–I catch a cold immediately if I go more than 3 or 4 nights with 5 or fewer hours of sleep
2. There are 4 things I plan to do this year that have nothing to do with school or work. Because, for the love of life and sanity and happiness, a person simply must have other things:
- Run a marathon
- Get Dive certified
- Learn to surf (or at least not be too afraid of getting water up my nose to try to learn to surf)
- Help some people live better
3. …Funny thing…I could have sworn I had a 3….
Anyway, that’s not to say that I’m not extremely grateful for the opportunities that I have at this point in my life. Because I am. I’m just a little nervous. This is still all so new to me. And unknown.
Oh! I remember my 3. I was reading an entry from Iwillteachyoutoberich.com and Ramit Sethi was talking about the assumptions that hold people back and how a lot of times people have all these theories that they never put into practice that could possibly be completely disproved if they just…you know…would. And he challenged the readers to write down three assumptions they make that hold them back from…whatever. Financial independence, a happy career, a hot boyfriend, whatever. Things they want. And after identifying those assumptions, he entreated us to do something concrete in 48 hours to test them.
Not disprove them,
Just test them. Make sure you’re right about not doing it before you just go ahead and avoid it for no reason.
I’m not going to share my 3 until I’ve figured out what they are and how to test them.
But I do plan on doing this. And I hope I’m disproved, and that leads to some wider form of enlightenment that is applicable on a grand scale.
Related Articles
- Money 101: 4 Secrets For Financing Grad School (thefrisky.com)
- Is More School the Answer for Unemployed Colleges Grads? (dailyfinance.com)
- Interview Questions for Grad School (brighthub.com)
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