A year ago, somewhere right around this week in May, my dad and brother showed up in Gdansk. I didn't really think I missed them much until I started crying in the airport when Joey gave me a hug. My year in Poland was hard, and I've been fairly honest and open about that for the last year...so I don't feel the need to super rehash all the things that made it a rough year.
So a year ago, I was looking at the light at the end of the tunnel. The excitement I felt about grad school was overwhelming because, well, it HAD to be easier than living in a foreign country, teaching classes I knew nothing about, and with very few friends. Right? Hahahaha.
Grad school is an entirely different beast than living abroad, but some of the skills I talked about in my reflection on a year abroad have actually come surprisingly in handy.
Fear of the Unknown is Useless
ANYONE who has had any brief academic discussion with me knows that math IS NOT my subject. In fact, I jokingly told an internship supervisor that I hated math...and he asked how I got my internship. Luckily, over the years, I have become more open to new things, which led me to fall head over heels in love with SPEA's quantitative program. I still panic when a new big word like heteroscedsaticity pops up, but I'm getting better at dealing with it.
Public Speaking isn't so Bad
Teaching four classes a week for a year pretty much eradicated fear of public speaking. I mean, I still get a little jittery inside, but as long as I prepare well, there's no problem!
"I don't know" isn't a bad word
Grad school is a place where readings and concepts and equations can get stuffed down your throat faster than hot dogs at an eating contest. I'll modify this lesson a little bit, but "I need a break", "I don't understand", and "I don't know" are all phrases that I've used repeatedly. Being able to say "I don't know" is a knowledge of my boundaries and knowing boundaries is crucial to maintaining sanity.
I'll add a new one to all of this....
Life is hard...get over is
I really thought that grad school was going to be easier than Poland. At least my life would be in English right? Hah. Grad school has it's own language of statistics and finance, things I've never really experienced before coming to IU. It's hard...in a different, but still difficult way than Poland.
So the conclusion I've come to is that life is never easy, just different kinds of hard. But it's those really hard moments that make the good days and triumphs so much sweeter. I am who I am because I have struggled. If life was easy, it'd be boring.
The most important thing I've learned at SPEA this year is the value of friendship. While grad school was hard (yes, I cried a few times), having friends to help bear the burden, proofread assignments, and argue about research methodology made those really bad nights much fewer and further between than last year in Poland.
I'm ready to kick my last two finals butts and enjoy a wonderful summer...hopefully filled with a few trips to Lake Monroe, s'mores, and lots of barbeque. But I'm going into the summer, with the realization that it will bring its own challenges (probably commuting 2 1/2 hours a day is high up there). Just because school's out, doesn't give me a free pass at life. Luckily, I have good friends and a family who is aaaaaaaaaalways there for me!
So a year ago, I was looking at the light at the end of the tunnel. The excitement I felt about grad school was overwhelming because, well, it HAD to be easier than living in a foreign country, teaching classes I knew nothing about, and with very few friends. Right? Hahahaha.
Grad school is an entirely different beast than living abroad, but some of the skills I talked about in my reflection on a year abroad have actually come surprisingly in handy.
Fear of the Unknown is Useless
ANYONE who has had any brief academic discussion with me knows that math IS NOT my subject. In fact, I jokingly told an internship supervisor that I hated math...and he asked how I got my internship. Luckily, over the years, I have become more open to new things, which led me to fall head over heels in love with SPEA's quantitative program. I still panic when a new big word like heteroscedsaticity pops up, but I'm getting better at dealing with it.
Public Speaking isn't so Bad
Teaching four classes a week for a year pretty much eradicated fear of public speaking. I mean, I still get a little jittery inside, but as long as I prepare well, there's no problem!
"I don't know" isn't a bad word
Grad school is a place where readings and concepts and equations can get stuffed down your throat faster than hot dogs at an eating contest. I'll modify this lesson a little bit, but "I need a break", "I don't understand", and "I don't know" are all phrases that I've used repeatedly. Being able to say "I don't know" is a knowledge of my boundaries and knowing boundaries is crucial to maintaining sanity.
I'll add a new one to all of this....
Life is hard...get over is
I really thought that grad school was going to be easier than Poland. At least my life would be in English right? Hah. Grad school has it's own language of statistics and finance, things I've never really experienced before coming to IU. It's hard...in a different, but still difficult way than Poland.
So the conclusion I've come to is that life is never easy, just different kinds of hard. But it's those really hard moments that make the good days and triumphs so much sweeter. I am who I am because I have struggled. If life was easy, it'd be boring.
The most important thing I've learned at SPEA this year is the value of friendship. While grad school was hard (yes, I cried a few times), having friends to help bear the burden, proofread assignments, and argue about research methodology made those really bad nights much fewer and further between than last year in Poland.
I'm ready to kick my last two finals butts and enjoy a wonderful summer...hopefully filled with a few trips to Lake Monroe, s'mores, and lots of barbeque. But I'm going into the summer, with the realization that it will bring its own challenges (probably commuting 2 1/2 hours a day is high up there). Just because school's out, doesn't give me a free pass at life. Luckily, I have good friends and a family who is aaaaaaaaaalways there for me!
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