Grad Diary 9/12/09

This past week was orientation, which was both exciting and really, really boring.

Some of the sessions were kind of useless, especially because a lot of the initial advice was about how to select your rotation labs and make the most of them, or basic safety guidelines, all of which I already have plenty of experience with after my time in the summer. Some were more useful, like the various panels of different resources there are on campus, which as and undergrad didn't seem as pertinent (I always had someone to point me in the right direction), but as a more independent grad student felt more useful. We also had various speakers from faculty at the university, which were on the whole not so bad.

On the plus side, there were plenty of receptions and lunches to keep us well fed for this first week, which was pretty sweet. Not to mention that because most grad students are of age, all of these events included free booze. I'm not a drinker myself, but I could appreciate the novelty.

The receptions were also great opportunities to meet people within and outside your programs. Some of them also included upper classmen, so these were great networking/socializing events. It was really nice to have spent the summer early because I already knew a couple of students, which helped me navigate these sometimes awkward events. I will admit that often people would clump with their program, especially by the fourth and fifth day, but on the whole it was a nice opportunity to see who was out there.

I'm glad that orientation is over...on the whole it was a little boring but there were some good parts as well. I'm excited for classes to begin on Monday. I'll also be starting my next rotation with Una O'Doherty on Tuesday, so I'm pretty excited.