First day of class! It was very uneventful, as it was my only lecture course, "Research Methods". The professor was very winding and tended to repeat himself, resulting in an hour class being extended to an hour and twenty minutes, despite him really only needing to outline about three things. Ah well. The course is team taught, so I won't be seeing him all that much. Additionally, what he did manage to say sounded really great--the aim of the course is basically to facilitate the transition between undergraduate work and research. We write our annotated bibliographies for our dissertations as the final assessment, but more than that, the course even guides us through the process of applying to PhD programs and funding and other practical elements of academia. That's more support than I've ever gotten for applications or my general career, so color me thrilled.
Even better is how the priority of the course is to support my other two courses--I'm used to having to work to make connections between my classes, so it's incredibly satisfying to know that all of my courses are now aimed towards shaping my single, specific interest, and that I'm supposed to borrow knowledge and work from one course to enhance another. Obviously this is the new norm, given that the emphasis is now on specialization, but I'm still pleased about it.
I have lots of reading to do for tonight, so I'll be off. I'm reading Charlotte Bronte's The Professor right now, which is interesting for both its literary merits and not-insignificant flaws. Always worth while to read authors in their developmental stages.
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