Focus
Yesterday was Soc TA orientation/training. Before that, I'd had five days of nothingness (i.e. no planned school activities) and was beginning to feel a bit anxious and bored. So in a sense, yesterday was good.
Unfortunately, yesterday was also bad. Hmm, well, okay, it wasn't horrible; now I just feel a lot more nervous about my TA position.
I got into the office (yes, the office... MY office... which I share with six other people) around 8am in a sad attempt to decorate my desk area before orientation started at 9. This "decorating" is basically just a cork/magnet board and other random things I want to hang up sitting in a pile on the corner of the desk. Go me.
At 9am, I met up with the other 1st years in the main office. We listened to the head of the department, the head of grad studies (who is also my advisor for my TA position AND teaching my PoliSoc class), and the prof who'll be teaching us how to teach undergrads. That part was okay.
Around 11, we were hearded over to Urban Studies to meet with the 2nd year TAs. (U.S. has a larger conference room... even though it is a smaller dept. Weird.) This is when things started to get a little frightening. They are a small cohort and (consequently?) a very close-knit group - I think it might be difficult to break into that circle... not that I need to. Hmm. They gave us some good pointers (although they talked too fast and I can't remember half of what was said).
THEN we went back to the Soc dept for lunch (FREE FOOD) and about an hour of socializing with the professors. It was like a swarm of loud, biting bugs. The room was buzzing so loudly that it was difficult to have a real conversation - because I couldn't hear half of what people where saying. I also had no idea if I was supposed to mingle and introduce myself to everyone. It was intimidating and I felt stupid. But I lived. I guess that's what matters.
After THAT, I met with Kent (TA advisor) and the other three TAs who will be teaching 101 with me. The actual 101 lecture class has 400 students in it (400?!?), so we need four TAs to teach all of the 25-person discussion sections.
Deciding who was going to take which discussion sections was VERY difficult. UWM is filled to capacity (enrollment wise), so the disc. sections are in all different buildings - Physics, EMS, Chem, etc, and most of the sections are back to back - in some cases it isn't possible to walk from one building to another in the 10 minute passing time. The two 2nd year TAs (Heather and Pete) started heatedly arguing about this and also about the due date of our last paper (we assign three per semester).
This was really intimidating. They kept talking about how tough the workload will be by the end of the semester - trying to grade papers and hold exam study sessions while working on our own final drafts and studying for our own tests... and how mad the students will be if we assign a paper over Thanksgiving break (even if we give them two weeks to write it). Seriously... undergrads, suck it up.
(Icandothis Icandothis Icandothis... breathe.)
Whew, okay. Later last night, I went over to Heather's place to meet some other folks in the dept. For the last few hours, it was just Heather, Pete and me (and Heather's fantastic FAT cat) hangin' out at her house. It was good in a sense that they were giving me a lot of good, honest advice about the dept... the level of honesty increased as the amout of beer consumed increased (imagine that). It was also kind of scary.
They both seem pretty disillusioned with the academia and the educational system. I feel all sparkly, excited about Sociology... and green. They told me I need to watch out for losing my excitment while I spout out what my profs want to hear and regurgitate answers over the next two years.
I was sad to hear that they both aren't as passionate about school as they were when they started the program last year. They said (in so many words) it's because the "system" is so bureaucratic (WEBER!) and they do a lot of menial tasks, don't feel like they're reaching students and haven't had any amazing, enlightening ("rich hilbert") moments to keep their batteries charged.
VERY fucking sad.
Right now I feel so passionate about school, about learning, and about Sociology. I'm scared as hell after what I heard about some of the profs... but I'm still very excited. I realize this makes me weird and that the majority of people in this world will never really care about Sociology and that the students I teach won't read the material or listen in class.
I hope I can keep my focus and this intense, crazy desire to learn.
Sorry this was so long. I guess I had something to say.
Unfortunately, yesterday was also bad. Hmm, well, okay, it wasn't horrible; now I just feel a lot more nervous about my TA position.
I got into the office (yes, the office... MY office... which I share with six other people) around 8am in a sad attempt to decorate my desk area before orientation started at 9. This "decorating" is basically just a cork/magnet board and other random things I want to hang up sitting in a pile on the corner of the desk. Go me.
At 9am, I met up with the other 1st years in the main office. We listened to the head of the department, the head of grad studies (who is also my advisor for my TA position AND teaching my PoliSoc class), and the prof who'll be teaching us how to teach undergrads. That part was okay.
Around 11, we were hearded over to Urban Studies to meet with the 2nd year TAs. (U.S. has a larger conference room... even though it is a smaller dept. Weird.) This is when things started to get a little frightening. They are a small cohort and (consequently?) a very close-knit group - I think it might be difficult to break into that circle... not that I need to. Hmm. They gave us some good pointers (although they talked too fast and I can't remember half of what was said).
THEN we went back to the Soc dept for lunch (FREE FOOD) and about an hour of socializing with the professors. It was like a swarm of loud, biting bugs. The room was buzzing so loudly that it was difficult to have a real conversation - because I couldn't hear half of what people where saying. I also had no idea if I was supposed to mingle and introduce myself to everyone. It was intimidating and I felt stupid. But I lived. I guess that's what matters.
After THAT, I met with Kent (TA advisor) and the other three TAs who will be teaching 101 with me. The actual 101 lecture class has 400 students in it (400?!?), so we need four TAs to teach all of the 25-person discussion sections.
Deciding who was going to take which discussion sections was VERY difficult. UWM is filled to capacity (enrollment wise), so the disc. sections are in all different buildings - Physics, EMS, Chem, etc, and most of the sections are back to back - in some cases it isn't possible to walk from one building to another in the 10 minute passing time. The two 2nd year TAs (Heather and Pete) started heatedly arguing about this and also about the due date of our last paper (we assign three per semester).
This was really intimidating. They kept talking about how tough the workload will be by the end of the semester - trying to grade papers and hold exam study sessions while working on our own final drafts and studying for our own tests... and how mad the students will be if we assign a paper over Thanksgiving break (even if we give them two weeks to write it). Seriously... undergrads, suck it up.
(Icandothis Icandothis Icandothis... breathe.)
Whew, okay. Later last night, I went over to Heather's place to meet some other folks in the dept. For the last few hours, it was just Heather, Pete and me (and Heather's fantastic FAT cat) hangin' out at her house. It was good in a sense that they were giving me a lot of good, honest advice about the dept... the level of honesty increased as the amout of beer consumed increased (imagine that). It was also kind of scary.
They both seem pretty disillusioned with the academia and the educational system. I feel all sparkly, excited about Sociology... and green. They told me I need to watch out for losing my excitment while I spout out what my profs want to hear and regurgitate answers over the next two years.
I was sad to hear that they both aren't as passionate about school as they were when they started the program last year. They said (in so many words) it's because the "system" is so bureaucratic (WEBER!) and they do a lot of menial tasks, don't feel like they're reaching students and haven't had any amazing, enlightening ("rich hilbert") moments to keep their batteries charged.
VERY fucking sad.
Right now I feel so passionate about school, about learning, and about Sociology. I'm scared as hell after what I heard about some of the profs... but I'm still very excited. I realize this makes me weird and that the majority of people in this world will never really care about Sociology and that the students I teach won't read the material or listen in class.
I hope I can keep my focus and this intense, crazy desire to learn.
Sorry this was so long. I guess I had something to say.
posted by Laura at
10:36 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home