New Year, New Semester

I’m baaaaack J

Philadelphia News Flash: For those of you who haven’t been hearing about the cold snap, polar vortex, whatever you want to call it that’s spreading across the U.S., it’s been FREEZING here for the past few days! Since winter began, we’ve already had several snowstorms (one big enough to close the Penn offices last Friday) and ridiculously low temperatures! Remember all of those winter items I recommended a few months ago? All of mine have really come in handy already, and it’s only the beginning of January!

Unusually cold weather on my walk to work this week!
With the wind chill, it was below zero! Brrrr!

Now to the real purpose of this post,

After a MUCH NEEDED two week break I came back to the GA office this week ready to hit the ground running. I’m not quite ready for the new semester to start next Wednesday, so I’m trying to really enjoy my last few days of “relaxation” (at least after work hours) before all of the reading and writing starts up again soon.

Originally for my first post of the new year I was going to do a review of the things I did and experiences I had in 2013 and what I am looking forward to 2014 (goals and resolutions and whatnot), but I thought that might be a little to cliché and boring. I’ve decided to modify that and share with you all some reflections on my grad student experiences from 2013, and what’s in store for my GSE life in 2014. So here it goes!

1.       January 2013: Completed my application for Penn GSE (If you haven’t completed yours yet, hurry up!)

2.       February 2013: Received my acceptance letter to Penn! What a great day!

3.       March 2013: Attended the preview weekend for students accepted to the MSED Higher Ed program – I had the chance to meet some of my future cohort members, some faculty, important GSE staff, and interview for my graduate assistantship! We also got some yummy food and some free GSE items, like my favorite coffee mug!

4.       June 2013: Graduated from Drexel University! …not directly GSE related, but it was something exciting that I had to do before coming here.

5.       July 2013: Started summer session classes to get a head start on my coursework! Hands down, one of the best decisions I’ve made at GSE so far! I was able to get two classes out of the way before the fall semester started, leaving me with only 4 classes to take in the fall and 4 in the spring, as opposed to many of my cohort members who are taking 5 classes each semester plus their assistantships. I don’t know how they’re doing it – one fewer class each semester may not seem like a lot, but it’s surprisingly helpful! If you have the opportunity to take summer classes for your program, I highly recommend taking advantage of it!

6.       August 2013: Fall semester started, the graduate assistantship began, I got to meet Rebecca and Wesley – my GA coworkers – and the rest of our wonderful cohort members! Lots of excitement and friendship as everyone bonded and got accustomed to our brief grad school lives. It was amazing how quickly we all fell into the routine and got comfortable, but the work picked up quickly too!

7.       December 2013: Finished classes #3, 4, 5, and 6 out of 10! FINALLY got to take a break and go home to spend some time with my family!

And now we’re here in January 2014. Some of the things on my radar for the upcoming semester include…

1.       January 2014: Starting my final semester of classes (hopefully ever!)

2.       February 2014: Comps! The big essay/exam we take in higher ed which essentially determines whether we graduate or not! I’m not really excited for it at all, but it’s a big deal and passing means I’m one step closer to graduating!

3.       March 2014: Preview weekend for the accepted higher ed master’s students for next year – I can’t wait to meet them and share my experience with the program!

4.       April 2014: Hopefully nail down a job to begin after I graduate! *wishful thinking*

5.       May 2014: GRADUATION!

So, can you tell what I’m most looking forward to this year? It’s so exciting (and scary) to think that in only FOUR MONTHS I’ll be preparing to graduate and enter the “real world” and work in higher education – I can’t wait!!

I’m not the only one who gets to do exciting things this semester – we’ll have lots of online and in person events for all of YOU to participate in as well to keep you connected to GSE! We’re still in the process of formalizing dates for our events, but you can be sure that we’ll be hosting several web chats with current students and alumni, online information sessions, as well as meet & greet events and open houses on our campus! I’ll be sure to share those dates and times as soon as we have them, in the meantime, keep reading our student blogs and the admissions blog for more information and experiences!