Grad School Begins
I've been meaning to do a post about arriving in New Haven and starting grad school. Now, of course, it's the day before classes start and I have so much to do that this is a seeming impossibility. But, in the name of procrastination,
I arrived here on August 22nd, pretty late at night. Aaron and I drove in the van from Michigan, packed with my stuff. My apartment is awesome, and I'm really happy with the neighborhood. The only thing that really sucks is not having a car, since there is not really good public transit and there aren't any big grocery stores within walking distance. Once I get a bike with a rack, I can bike to a supermarket with some stuff, but I'll still be using a delivery service for the big stuff I think (got my first delivery today!) Furnished the whole place with IKEA and got my homegoods from Target. Woohoo.
Orientation...pretty lame. I went on a tour of the library, which was only interesting because of the architecture (though Yale does have an amazing and beautiful library, I'm familiar with stacks and all that because I went to a large research university.) The health plan is really pretty good (took a tour of health services) and the campus tour was ok, though it didn't point out anything useful to grad students. And the tour leader mentioned all these great things to do if you have a car. Thanks, buddy.
Meeting people was the best part of orientation. I've met quite a few people outside of my department, which is awesome, and a few really cool people in my department (but not in US History) that I think I might hang out with on a regular basis. There were many bar nights, which I attended alone and just made small talk with folks, and later went out for drinks with people I'd met previously. I'm not a big drinker, and I am actually pretty sick of going out...though the pub crawl on Saturday was a blast! I think that was because of the historian company, though.
Classes start tomorrow. I'm not exactly sure what I'm taking, and the department just gave us information *today* about what to take. It's definitely different than Michigan, where you have to get into classes right away and register or you'll get shut out. Here, we can "shop" classes and decide which to attend based on a few class sessions. Of course, we have to keep up with the work for the classes we're shopping if we intend to keep them, but I think I'll know pretty quickly which to take. I'm definitely taking Intro to American Historiography (required...), and 19th Century US Readings (with David Blight). I'm debating between Readings on Gender History (Meyerowitz) and 20th Century Readings (Gilmore) and a class on "memory and loss" with Lisa Lowe. It's awesome to have these choices, I admit...but a bit daunting. I'm also meeting with David Blight tomorrow to talk about my plans. It's cool because I am the only 19th century US person in my year (or at least that's how it appeared at the first year meeting/orientation hour this morning) and Blight has few students. Hopefully that doesn't mean he's too busy/weird for students...but he seems like a nice guy.
And, in other news, Aaron and I set a date for our wedding: August 23, 2008. Nothing says honeymoon like back to school, right?
I arrived here on August 22nd, pretty late at night. Aaron and I drove in the van from Michigan, packed with my stuff. My apartment is awesome, and I'm really happy with the neighborhood. The only thing that really sucks is not having a car, since there is not really good public transit and there aren't any big grocery stores within walking distance. Once I get a bike with a rack, I can bike to a supermarket with some stuff, but I'll still be using a delivery service for the big stuff I think (got my first delivery today!) Furnished the whole place with IKEA and got my homegoods from Target. Woohoo.
Orientation...pretty lame. I went on a tour of the library, which was only interesting because of the architecture (though Yale does have an amazing and beautiful library, I'm familiar with stacks and all that because I went to a large research university.) The health plan is really pretty good (took a tour of health services) and the campus tour was ok, though it didn't point out anything useful to grad students. And the tour leader mentioned all these great things to do if you have a car. Thanks, buddy.
Meeting people was the best part of orientation. I've met quite a few people outside of my department, which is awesome, and a few really cool people in my department (but not in US History) that I think I might hang out with on a regular basis. There were many bar nights, which I attended alone and just made small talk with folks, and later went out for drinks with people I'd met previously. I'm not a big drinker, and I am actually pretty sick of going out...though the pub crawl on Saturday was a blast! I think that was because of the historian company, though.
Classes start tomorrow. I'm not exactly sure what I'm taking, and the department just gave us information *today* about what to take. It's definitely different than Michigan, where you have to get into classes right away and register or you'll get shut out. Here, we can "shop" classes and decide which to attend based on a few class sessions. Of course, we have to keep up with the work for the classes we're shopping if we intend to keep them, but I think I'll know pretty quickly which to take. I'm definitely taking Intro to American Historiography (required...), and 19th Century US Readings (with David Blight). I'm debating between Readings on Gender History (Meyerowitz) and 20th Century Readings (Gilmore) and a class on "memory and loss" with Lisa Lowe. It's awesome to have these choices, I admit...but a bit daunting. I'm also meeting with David Blight tomorrow to talk about my plans. It's cool because I am the only 19th century US person in my year (or at least that's how it appeared at the first year meeting/orientation hour this morning) and Blight has few students. Hopefully that doesn't mean he's too busy/weird for students...but he seems like a nice guy.
And, in other news, Aaron and I set a date for our wedding: August 23, 2008. Nothing says honeymoon like back to school, right?