"Takin' Care of Business"...

Before I start writing about my experiences for the whole world to see, I just wanted to introduce myself properly and give all of you reading this a bit of background on what I've been up to.

First of all, I'm currently starting my first year of graduate school as I prepare to obtain my Master's Degree in College Student Personnel Administration. I barely finished my Bachelor's Degree about a month ago; I was working on a 9 credit hour internship this summer that started the week after school was over and continued until my last day in the state (400 hours of free labor). I had no vacation whatsoever this year. I worked until 6:30 p.m. of July 30th, went home to pack all of my belongings, and the next day I moved to the next bordering state, and the day after I started my graduate assistantship training. I know, I know...BUSY! But sometimes you need to be takin' care of business...

I got an amazing assistantship at my graduate institution working with cultural programming and helping students of underrepresented groups. However, the entire experience of starting grad school hasn't been all peaches and cream. I like to contribute this due to my feelings of nostalgia towards my undergraduate institution. I miss it so much because I was very happy with my life there (an occurence that has never really happened to me before).

It has been no secret that I have been going through a difficult transition. Graduate school has not been easy in these initial weeks. I have spoken to several friends who are going through their first weeks of graduate classes at different campuses across the United States. Everyone has been feeling the same way I have. The second week of school I was asked to write about my Philosophy on Higher Education. Week #2 and we're already writing papers? And not just any paper, but my philosophy statement? I was so distraught on writing this paper. I typed for hours about things I thought students needed. I tried to base these on situations I encountered and issues I saw my peers face. But as much as I wrote, nothing made sense. I could not articulate one intelligent thought or make it a concrete one. I suddenly found myself lost, and decided to call up the one person who I knew could give me an answer: my academic advisor at my undergrad.

My undergrad academic advisor has been my rock throughout this entire process of me becoming an adult. When she answered the phone very excited because she hadn't heard from me in a while. I told her "You didn't tell me that I needed to have an opinion when I got into grad school". As I explained my writer's block woes to her, I went to explain how tough my first two weeks had gone. I sit in class very confused the majority of the time. I listen intently to what my classmates have to say. I feel incompetent sitting next to them because I can't think of anything clever, or smart, or brilliant to say. I barely learned about the field of Student Affairs just last summer (a year ago) as I went through Resident Assistant training. I didn't think I would need to have an opinion formed on it already. I thought I was going to grad school to learn more about the field, and then develop my ideas and mold that opinion. She asked me about the things I believed in. She prompted me on several topics that she knew were important to me like diversity, getting involved, and the fact that I love school and I think everyone should experience it. She asked "Well, aren't those things that you believe in?", and I said "Yeah, sure, of course. I'm very passionate about diversity, and student groups, and just college in general". And she says "There you go. That's a philosophy". And I said, "Really?" She explained to me that philosophies are ideals that you believe in, that it's your opinion.

Needless to say, I finished that paper on the nick of time. I even got a chance to revise, too! I told my undergrad academic advisor about my fears of grad school, that since I've started, I feel like I'm not cut out for this anymore. I asked her "Why did I decide to do this? Just last Fall we were sitting in your office talking about making that next step. Why did I take it?" And she told me "Do you think I would have encouraged you to go to grad school if I didn't think that you could do it?" I said "I don't know anymore! I can't do this; Maybe you were wrong about me". She then told me, "You can do this. You've gotten this far, ok? You got the BA under your belt. This is just another step. You CAN do this". And so, I've been pondering on that phone call for the past several days, and the one thing I realized is that not only did I need to revise my philosophy on higher education, but I needed to revise the philosophy of myself. I need to believe in ME...