I headed back to school today. And let me tell you, I was just as nervous as I was at my first day of college nine years ago. (Wait, seriously… that was NINE YEARS AGO?!) And to really make it official, my face decided to break out this week, as well.
I left early this morning to drive over to campus. I was definitely a little anxious and arrived about a half hour before I needed to be there. So I took a little time to try to relax in my car before walking up to where our orientation was held. It was a horribly rainy and muggy day (I don’t know why I even bothered trying to straighten my hair) so I was glad to have a little extra time to make it across campus.

We started the day with a breakfast and meet-and-greet with everybody. It’s a fairly small graduate department. There are about 15 incoming students, another 15 or so returning students and probably around 20 faculty and staff members. I always get a little nervous in these group settings where I don’t know anybody, but of course in this scenario, there’s a whole group of us who don’t know anybody else. Plus, we’re all communications students, we’re supposed to be good at this, right?

We got started after that with a short introduction to the program and then went around the whole room and each of us took about a minute to say who we are and what course of study we are most interested in. It was great to hear a little about all of the different courses of study that people are or will be pursuing. It made me realize just how many wonderful options there are out there for me.
After this, we had a faculty networking session that essentially like a speed-dating event. We rotated through a couple of groups of the faculty members and got a chance to meet them personally and tell them a little about your interests. I got some great feedback on some of the things that I’ve been thinking and a few of them pointed me towards another faculty member who I unfortunately did not get to meet face-to-face. According to her online profile she is interested in the “communicative coping processes of people with stigmatized identities and conditions”! So I definitely know why some of the others recommended speaking with her. Hopefully I’ll get some time in the coming weeks to meet with her and talk about it some more.
But back to today. The rest of the orientation was go through in more details what’s expected of us as graduate students and about how to handle certain situations that may come up. We also had time to bring up questions that we had about stuff and just to essentially get a feel for what’s going to happen in the coming days and years.
It’s a little different for me as a part-time student. In the incoming class, it’s actually only me and one other girl who won’t be full-time. She and I talked for a while and turns out, she works with my college roommate! I always love being able to make connections like that. Really, everyone I met today was interesting and good to talk to. I’m looking forward to getting to know the people in the program as much as I’m looking forward to what we’re going to be learning.
The last part of orientation didn’t apply to me since I’m not full-time, so I left a little early, which was good because it gave me a chance to get caught up on a few things. Since then, I’ve managed to make myself free pretty overwhelmed as I think of everything that I have to do and want to do over the coming months. I am nervous about all that I am taking on, but I am excited about every bit of it. Time management is going to have to become one of my top priorities.
And while I still have a million different things running through my head, I also did hear three completely separate references to Harry Potter today, so I think I’m going to like it here.