I have had a bit of a trying week. I was sick for most of the week and am still nursing my "injured" knee. I started off my week with a visit to the Student Clinic. The doctor diagnosed my knee to be just fine, even though it hurts like hell to walk, but offered me pain drugs anyway. I politely declined this offer, explaining that they will do nothing to actually fix the "injury". He also told me that my blood work indicated that I am in fact not sick, even though I felt like shit and my nose was draining like a faucet you can't turn off. So I have been walking around all week with a gangsta limp and a box of tissues under my arm. I have concluded that I must be having one hell of an allergic reaction to the spring pollen. I'll have my allergy meds refilled this weekend and start feeling normal again soon.
Beyond my health issues, I had to make a decision about keeping or dropping a class this week. Yesterday was the last day to withdraw from classes without penalty. I received my Materials midterm back on Wednesday. I failed miserably. There is really no excuse for my poor performance, especially since I really like the material and I actually work in the field of Materials physics. It just came down to the fact that I thought I knew the material but I wasn't able to put my knowledge down on paper when it came down to exam time. So I sat down with my major prof yesterday afternoon to discuss dropping the course. He was surprisingly okay about it. We talked about the fact that there is still a small chance of me pulling out a B for the course if I scored perfectly on the final exam and the research paper. I had to bring up the fact that I rarely test well and that earning a C in this class just isn't an option. A 'withdrawal' looks much better than a C especially considering if anyone down the road asks me about it, I can explain that it was a very ignorant decision on my part to take the second semester of Materials physics without having taken the first semester. We decided that I should petition to drop this class and have those hours replaced with research hours. This petition has to go to a committee. If the committee approves the switch then everything is just peachy keen. If the committee doesn’t approve the switch, then I lose my tuition waiver for the semester and I’ll owe the university $2000 for dropping the course and dropping below ‘full-time’ graduate student status. It is a gamble. I should hear a decision in a week or two.
My major prof and I also talked about the fact that he thinks that I am adjusting to grad school slower than everyone else. That a year ago, I didn’t really know what was expected of me as a graduate student and it has taken me this long to really have a handle on what is expected of me. We talked about whether I am happy with my coursework and what I am learning, I really do enjoy the topics, I just hate how they are being presented. I am tired of being the guinea pig for profs teaching a class for the first time. There isn’t anything I can do to change that though, so I just need to hang on for a few more weeks and get through this semester. We also talked about my research. I have been working on a project for 11 months that just isn’t working. All of the boys in my lab are all working on projects that are currently producing results, I am the only one not producing results. He told me not to worry about this, that sometimes that happens, and that I will be given a couple of projects to work on simultaneously. When one of those projects starts producing results, then that is the direction that I will go into a full steam investigation.
I am sure we discussed other things but that is all that is coming to mind at this moment. It wasn’t a bad conversation, it just left me with some things to think about, and the feeling that I am not working hard enough.
Beyond my health issues, I had to make a decision about keeping or dropping a class this week. Yesterday was the last day to withdraw from classes without penalty. I received my Materials midterm back on Wednesday. I failed miserably. There is really no excuse for my poor performance, especially since I really like the material and I actually work in the field of Materials physics. It just came down to the fact that I thought I knew the material but I wasn't able to put my knowledge down on paper when it came down to exam time. So I sat down with my major prof yesterday afternoon to discuss dropping the course. He was surprisingly okay about it. We talked about the fact that there is still a small chance of me pulling out a B for the course if I scored perfectly on the final exam and the research paper. I had to bring up the fact that I rarely test well and that earning a C in this class just isn't an option. A 'withdrawal' looks much better than a C especially considering if anyone down the road asks me about it, I can explain that it was a very ignorant decision on my part to take the second semester of Materials physics without having taken the first semester. We decided that I should petition to drop this class and have those hours replaced with research hours. This petition has to go to a committee. If the committee approves the switch then everything is just peachy keen. If the committee doesn’t approve the switch, then I lose my tuition waiver for the semester and I’ll owe the university $2000 for dropping the course and dropping below ‘full-time’ graduate student status. It is a gamble. I should hear a decision in a week or two.
My major prof and I also talked about the fact that he thinks that I am adjusting to grad school slower than everyone else. That a year ago, I didn’t really know what was expected of me as a graduate student and it has taken me this long to really have a handle on what is expected of me. We talked about whether I am happy with my coursework and what I am learning, I really do enjoy the topics, I just hate how they are being presented. I am tired of being the guinea pig for profs teaching a class for the first time. There isn’t anything I can do to change that though, so I just need to hang on for a few more weeks and get through this semester. We also talked about my research. I have been working on a project for 11 months that just isn’t working. All of the boys in my lab are all working on projects that are currently producing results, I am the only one not producing results. He told me not to worry about this, that sometimes that happens, and that I will be given a couple of projects to work on simultaneously. When one of those projects starts producing results, then that is the direction that I will go into a full steam investigation.
I am sure we discussed other things but that is all that is coming to mind at this moment. It wasn’t a bad conversation, it just left me with some things to think about, and the feeling that I am not working hard enough.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home