{"id":1429,"date":"2015-01-04T17:46:24","date_gmt":"2015-01-04T22:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comgrad\/?p=1429"},"modified":"2015-01-04T17:46:24","modified_gmt":"2015-01-04T22:46:24","slug":"experience-is-a-teacher-grad-school-lessons-learned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comgrad\/2015\/01\/04\/experience-is-a-teacher-grad-school-lessons-learned\/","title":{"rendered":"Experience is a teacher\u2014grad school lessons learned"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Gina Kim<\/strong><\/a>
\nMS Journalism ’16<\/a>
\nBU College of Communication<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

My semester of graduate school has come to a close and I figure it\u2019s only appropriate to reflect upon and sum it all up as my final blog post of Fall 2014. Every day, every week, every course, everything came with a learning lesson at Boston University\u2019s College of Communication (COM). As a first semester Master\u2019s student, the past three months have not been a bag of gummy bears. Everything was so different from college, and everything I\u2019ve ever thought about school was thrown out the window. It was a completely different world equipped with completely different learning lessons.<\/p>\n

Lesson #1: Getting by on the hard days.<\/strong>
\n<\/i>Hard days are unavoidable. They happen to all of us. My strategies?\u00a0More like denial. I\u2019ll usually do something else, whether it\u2019s stuff I have to do anyway, like laundry or grocery shopping, or something that interests me, like reading a book for fun or dancing. Then, when I feel up to it, I\u2019ll come back and address whatever it is that\u2019s bothering me. I\u2019ll probably go out for a run or sweat it off at the gym, then make some dinner and try to forget about my problems temporarily with The Office reruns.<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s important to recognize that we all need some time to switch our minds to \u201coff\u201d and watch some TV or engage in something mindless without feeling guilty. When all else fails, if my motivation level just can\u2019t seem to climb back up, even after watching the antics of Dunder Mifflin Scranton\u2019s regional manager, I turn all electronics off and just get a good night\u2019s sleep.\u00a0I also try to think about my goals (why I\u2019m here in grad school) and my successes so far. This helps me counterbalance the setbacks and help feed my motivation to get up in the morning. Never go to bed angry or sad on a hard day, trust me, you won\u2019t be getting a good night\u2019s sleep.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_9858\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lesson #2: Handling A Full Plate<\/strong>
\n<\/b>Grad school is all about prioritizing\u2026everyone says you can do everything if you just make time. There are impending deadlines, projects to film, events to attend and write about, assistantships, extra-curriculars, jobs outside of school, actual studying, and of course trying to find enough time to cram in a social life and sleep. But the worst of the all is that dreaded virus we always seem to catch mid-semester: procrastination. It\u2019s contagious\u2026so don\u2019t give in! I won\u2019t lie, this was one of the most difficult things to handle but that\u2019s why it\u2019s a learning lesson. We learn to not procrastinate, (or do we?), we learn to get everything turned in on time, we learn to take one weekend off from drinking to catch up on schoolwork and sleep, and we learn to get any extra help we may need. As busy as my classmates were, and as much as we all struggled during those hard days, we all came out alive.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_9710\"<\/a>
\nLesson #3:\u00a0Maintaining Good Emotional\/Mental\/Physical Health<\/strong>
\n<\/b>There will be weeks where you feel extra frazzled and overwhelmed, and you think you\u2019re coming down with a cold. Stress can trigger so much of your emotional, physical, and mental health. It\u2019s important to make sure you try and get plenty of sleep. Planning on pulling an all-nighter to finish that last project or study for an exam? Forget it\u2026just go to bed and come back to it in the morning. Or, if you followed Lesson #2 and try to get everything done on time by planning accordingly, you won\u2019t be in that situation. Avoid procrastination at all costs, as that is the number one trigger of stress.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_9956\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lesson #4:\u00a0Taking Advantage of Resources<\/strong>
\n<\/b>Sometimes we forget how fortunate we are to have a university basement that\u2019s fully equipped with every single camera, recorder, tripod, etc. known to mankind. Not to mention, we have department newsletters that offer lists of internship opportunities, drop-in career advice time slots, or the excellent list of faculty advisors who are always just an email away if we ever need guidance. One of the best things about BU\u2019s College of Communication is the amount of invaluable resources handed to us at any and all times. You\u2019re spending enough time and money into your education, so why not take advantage of all the freebies and sources while you can? It\u2019s also important to take advantage of the amazing courses offered every semester, whether they are within or outside your intended concentration. It\u2019s also about learning for the sake of learning and practicing for the sake of getting better; grad school isn\u2019t about regurgitating textbook materials on an exam to receive a grade. It\u2019s about fundamental learning and\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0soaking in the content we are exposed to every day. We are offered a practical, hands-on vocational education where we learn lessons outside of textbook academia. We\u2019re also given extracurricular activities with several different publications around campus such as the BU Buzz, The Daily Free Press, Good Morning BU, BU News Service, etc. Don\u2019t think of joining publications as a chore\u2014think of it as an opportunity to network, gain experience, get inspired, get published, and have some fun.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0300\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Overall, it\u2019s been an amazing first semester at COM and it makes me sad to think that in only a year I\u2019ll be saying goodbye to this program, professors, and the wonderful friends I\u2019ve made in such a short amount of time. In just over three months, I\u2019m better equipped and more than ready to take on the spring semester, where I\u2019ll be taking 20 credits, writing for Boston University News Service (BUNS) and a graduate assistantship waiting. But hey, that\u2019s what I signed up for, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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By Gina Kim MS Journalism ’16 BU College of Communication My semester of graduate school has come to a close and I figure it\u2019s only appropriate to reflect upon and sum it all up as my final blog post of Fall 2014. Every day, every week, every course, everything came with a learning lesson at … Continue reading Experience is a teacher\u2014grad school lessons learned<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3725,"featured_media":1440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,36936],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3725"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1429"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1462,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429\/revisions\/1462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}