Day in the Life of a Grad Student

7:10 AM Woken by gentle buzzing of my Fitbit. Groan. Even though I’m excited about school, Monday mornings are still hard. Groggily stumble out of bed by 7:15 AM.

7:45 AM Complete with normal morning ablutions, feeding bunnies, making bed, standard morning routine. Remember to grab gloves since apparently it’s in the FORTIES, great, where did summer go?

7:50 AM Biking to school. Regretting not grabbing a scarf too.

8:05 AM Get to my office and start settling in, drink some tea, check email, contemplate my to-do list with dread.

8:30 AM Help a student who couldn’t make office hours with some questions on her lab. Feel bad for her being sick and also really hoping that I don’t get sick.

8:40 AM Okay, time to settle in and focus on a tough homework assignment. No one else is ever here this early, so this is my quiet time. Try to write some code, fail. Continue to skip questions until I’m just writing “tbd” and “uhhh” in the spots where rational, scientific answers should go. Curse the gods of python and numerical integration.

9:00 AM Abandon my pressing to-do list and depressing attempt at homework to watch press conference about LIGO. Get really excited and pester my boyfriend about it until he makes his whole office watch it too.

10:25 AM Time to attend lecture for the course I am TAing. I grade some labs during the lecture, which makes it actually quite productive. Mentally freak out over how long the labs are taking to grade and that they need to be done by tomorrow.

11:30 AM Back to my office to pretend I can write code. It fails.

12:00 PM Head to a meeting about fellowships. Free lunch, hurray! As the fellowships lady tells us about various fellowships that we can and should apply for, I start to inwardly freak out about adding that to my hypothetical to do list (in a year). Decide not to think about my future yet.

1:00 PM More useless attempts at writing code. I actually can do one part of one problem, I rejoice at the little plot that I get.

1:30 PM Class. Same class where I can’t do the homework. The class is interesting and makes sense, but I know that when we get homework on it I won’t be able to do it. Try to focus on just paying attention to the now.

3:00 PM Exoplanet journal club. A guest from Harvard is giving a talk and it is super interesting. Also intimidating. He is a grad student (although in his final year) and has many publications and can speak like a total expert. Journal club always makes me feel miles behind. There are many undergrads who attend who seem to grasp the conversation better than me. Always leave feeling inspired and dejected. On the plus side, cookies.

4:00 PM Special colloquium to discuss the announcement from LIGO. By the time I get there, no seats are open so I sit on the floor. It’s an awesome talk and everyone is really excited. I feel a little guilty thinking about my homework and grading and everything, but I’m glad that I opted to go. The finger foods at the reception afterwards are my dinner.

6:00 PM Back to the office. I really knuckle down on my homework and after a lot of frustration I realize I was missing a square in one of my terms. After I correct this, everything works better (still not well, but better). Manage to finish problem number 2 (of 3).

8:35 PM Decide to call it a day. Remember that the light burnt out on my bike the last time I rode, so hope that the street lights are good.

8:50 PM Get home and feed my bunnies. Poor guys act like they haven’t seen food for days. Wash some dishes. While washing dishes, freak out about when I am going to be able to work on my research this week.

9:20 PM Tell myself I should really either go to bed to get some sleep or grade those labs. Instead eat ice cream and write a blog post for my own amusement. Tell myself it is self care and therefore necessary.

9:30 PM Watch a TV show. In an optimistic move, take folder of labs out of my backpack.

??? PM Go to bed. Realize in a panic that I have 10 more labs to grade before 1 PM but it’s way too late for that now.

Thoughts on My First Week of Grad School

Well, I did it! I made it through one whole week of grad school, and no one pointed and laughed and threw me out on the street for not belonging here. In fact, I felt an energized sense of life and purpose that tells me I definitely belong here, even if it’s going to be a challenge and then some (and despite missing my boyfriend quite desperately and, oddly, being homesick for San Diego, where I haven’t lived for 11 months now!).

The first week went quite well, I think, but I know it is also not quite a true test of what is to come. For one thing, I didn’t get assigned any homework in my own classes, which I know will ramp up significantly in a short time. We were also still covering mostly introductory material, so I didn’t have to feel too out of my depth yet (I can already tell that the math is going to be my limiting factor). I also didn’t have any labs to run, which will be yet another thing to do in the coming weeks. And I’m still new enough to get the benefit of the doubt about having zero clue how to do or even start my research. So it’s not quite an all clear, but it does feel good to not have figuratively died during my first week.

Classes that I am taking this quarter are:

A million other things that I am doing this quarter:

  • TAing for an undergrad non-major course on stars (this includes attending their lectures, grading, holding office hours, and running 2 lab sections)
  • Attending various seminars/colloquia throughout the week
  • Sitting on a committee as a grad student representative
  • Probably other stuff I am forgetting at the moment

So it’s not the worst schedule but it certainly isn’t going to leave me a lot of free time or sanity. The good thing is that, since UChicago is on a quarter schedule, I only have to endure this for 10 weeks!

In summary: feeling good but a bit anxious and overwhelmed, still worried that I might not be capable of doing this (particularly the math), but super excited to be here. And now I have to go work on this week’s homework!