University of Dayton - MyLife

Last Blog :(

As promised, this is my last blog that I will be writing for you fine folks. To sum up graduate school in a few words, it is no joke. Many people told me that it would be a lot of reading but nothing, I repeat nothing could have prepared me for the amount of reading. For college, reading maybe one article or even a chapter was the most we would have to do but this is a joke compared to graduate school. Let me give you an example of a typical assignment for one day. Mind you this is directly out of the syllabus: "Read Johnson chapters 1 and 2 (approximately 30 pages each) Read Hays Chapter 1 (approximately 30 pages) Read Pack Brown, et. all Article entitled Ethics in a multicultural context Chapters 3-5 (approximately 30 pages each chapter). As you can see this is the equivalent of 180 pages and who could have known that articles had chapters in them? Although this may seem humorous to some, this is actually very stressful to me and others. Keep in mind this is only one day and granted I only have this class once a week, if you have 4 other classes just like this one, that is a lot of reading to do. The only way that I am able to complete it all is realizing that 28 of my peers are in the same boat as me.

We have decided to try and break the readings down so that each person reads 1 chapter and then writes a detailed bulleted outline. This seems good in theory but as I talked to many members who decided to opt out of doing this, some were leery that others might not be as in-depth as they would be. They stated that it wasn't that they didn't trust them, just that they were worried at how thorough a job others might do. I think this is a valid point but for me, I will trust them if it gets me out of reading 100+ extra pages. My feelings are, if these elite 28 individuals made it into grad school, they must have done a good job at taking notes to get into here. This may sound a little too trusting, or possibly even lazy on my behalf but I would beg to differ. Many of our instructors told us that it would be a 'very good idea' to get into study groups because we may get burnt out. They made a point to say that in each of our classes as well as the upper classmen stated that we will, "quickly find out what classes you need to read for and which ones you don't!" Another one of my fine colleagues, Kim, stated that she did not want to participate in the group because she studied at different times and to get the assignments to us in a timely fashion would not work for her. I think this is a valid point because one of the ground rules for our group is that you have to get the assignment in 2-3 days before the class. Kim stated to me that she does the majority of her reading 6 am before the class so this obviously wouldn't work for her.

Overall I feel like I am starting to get into the "groove" of things but it has been slightly stressful. The stress comes into play when my great friends who still go to the fine institute of Dayton still want me to party with them. Although this sounds like fun, when there is so much work to do, sometimes, in fact most of the time I am unable to juggle both tasks. I feel like I am either letting my friends down or I am not paying enough attention to my school work. One particular jolly fellow who I spent a lot of my undergraduate time with was a man we called Newman. His ever happy demeanor coupled with his booming laugh that can be heard for miles is wonderful to say the least. Newman is a person many love to be around because of the attributes I stated above. He has called me many a times and I have dropped everything to party with him. Unfortunately, recently I have not been able to do so because of my class schedule and I fear I am letting him down. I have told him that school is "different" now and I am not able to party as much and although he has agreed with me, I still feel that I may be letting him down.

These stressors and more are things that I am dealing with but I tell you all, I am a strong individual and I will not let any of this get me down. This is simply just another milestone in my life and to be quite frank, I have conquered worse things! I hope that my blogs have enlightened you into what college is really like and the various stressors and benefits of going to college. I can truly say that I have had fun writing these blogs for the year or so that I have done it and I hope that this part of Dayton (the blog writing) continues for years to come as it is a great outlet where some of us lucky students can give an unfiltered view of college life, as well as give kids who may be thinking of coming to Dayton either solidify or change their decision in coming here, It has been great writing for you guys and although I don't really know you folks, I love you all. Take care and most importantly, have fun because you only live once!!!

Sep 21, 2007 1:21 PM Permalink