Wednesday, September 24, 2008

A fresh start...

To a certain extent, it hasn't hit me that I'm in grad school yet, or what exactly that implies. I had about a 2 minute window in which it hit me that I'd be living in Seattle for 6 years and it was a bit panicking. And now again, I still don't really believe that this will be my home for the majority of my twenties.

Day 1 was near and it seemed like the Astro dept really wanted to throw me head first into the world of grad school. My first commitment as a student was to be teacher's assistant (TA) for a class on planets. Being a TA entails heading up a quiz section twice a week, assigning homework, leading lab exercises, and that sort of thing. It really isn't just a review of what the professor has taught, but includes teaching new material. The first day was meant to be just an introduction in which I went over the syllabus I created for my section and tried to claim my authority over my students by saying things like, "I don't accept late work." The fear of this first section was not about teaching itself, but of standing in front of 25 students as an authoritative figure. Although my first section had to have known I was really nervous, by the second section (I teach two sections every Monday and Wednesday morning), I was a lot more confident and comfortable. On the other hand, in terms of showing them I was knowledgeable and deserving of the TA title, things didn't run as smoothly.

I took them on a "Planet Walk" where I show relative sizes and distances of the planets in the solar system. As I was going to the next planet after Venus (starting at the Sun), I stated, "Next, we will go to Mars." One of the students then responded with, "Isn't the next planet Earth? You know, the third rock from the sun." I don't even know the order of the planets. Great.

After this shaky start, the next hurdle to overcome was my first attempt to teach concepts clearly. The first lesson was on gravity, using an equation to figure out how the gravity on a planet or moon would change if you changed the mass or radius of the object. I lectured on the topic for about 10 minutes, and at the end asked, "Makes sense, right?" Everyone stared at me, dumbfounded, wondering what I had just blabbed about. To my credit, these students don't know how to divide fractions, so it may not be entirely my fault.

They say the first two weeks of grad school are the worst time in your life. For me, that hasn't been the case at all. Living with a friend who knows me from before is a huge factor in this but also, I think the decision to come to UW was the right decision. I feel a sense of belonging and comfort with the people in the department already, within a month of school starting. Usually the first couple months are the hardest when you move to a new place, but I've been here just over a month and am loving it!!