First semester reflections

"Love your subject well before you ever start, because that passion will be tested mightily."

I'm about one week removed from the end of my first semester of doctoral study. In talking with my sister a few days ago, she pointed out that I didn't sound like I had all that much fun.

Hmm.

Initially, I agreed with her assessment - I was tired, felt like I had little to show for a semester of never-ending work, and was in a department that had a vastly different approach to education from what I was expecting or wanted. 

But there was still nowhere else I would rather have spent the last several months. Trust me, I asked myself that question repeatedly throughout the semester and pretty much daily around finals...

So being the person that I am, I decided to make a list of first semester thoughts/feelings.

Things I feel like I learned this semester:

• How to write research questions and hypotheses in the department way
• How to take a more systematic approach to variables and measures
• The criteria for making causal inferences
• Strengths and weaknesses of various study designs
• A little about that Rose guy's thoughts on population health
• Some stuff about migration health that might actually help in my dissertation
• International development pretty much ruins countries (which in all honesty I strongly suspected anyway)

Looking at it, that doesn't seem like such a bad list. If another first semester PhD were to run off that list for me, I might even go so far as to say that was a solid list of stuff to have learned in the first semester. 

So what's my deal?

There's a part of me that feels like I have sooooo far to get in just a few years that I should've learned more, contributed more to research projects, and have made more progress toward developing my initial thoughts around a dissertation idea. Its even worse when I look at some of the things more advanced doctoral students in my department have done. Plus I had to do way more rote memorization that I believe in this semester (since I believe at this level I should be doing ZERO memorization). 

Sigh.

Ok, maybe it was a decent semester and I'm taking some of my own joy away and replacing it with illogical angst... 

You'd think I'd be more used to going from big fish-little pond to little fish-big pond since I do it so often. 

Well, at least I have a few solid weeks of sleep, celebration, and general recuperation before I have to jump back in again. After all, I continue to want this above all else.