one year down!!!

So my first year of school is OVER and it's definitely nice to be done! I have learned a lot and enjoyed my first year but am looking forward to a change of pace for the summer. I won a research fellowship award so I am going to be working on an independent research project during the summer and I won't have any teaching responsibilities. The second half of the summer I will be traveling around with Mike Welch (the old ISU volleyball coach) doing camps and we were able to find Mikel cheap flights so he can visit family and friends in Idaho while I'm there. It should be fun!

In the spirit of being done, I came up with a short list of some of the things I've learned in my first year as a graduate teaching assistant and doctoral student:

1. Age and maturity are definitely not related
2. Education level and maturity are also not related
3. Just because people are incredibly smart does not mean they are good teachers
4. Idaho State prepared me better than I could have imagined
5. I credit that preparation to some great teachers there
6. The "traditional", "normal" path through school (high school to undergrad to grad school) is not very common at all
7. Having an advisor who knows EVERYONE and has been at school for 30 years is incredibly helpful
8. Having an advisor with basketball season tickets is definitely a plus
9. MSU students definitely live up to their reputation of "work hard, party hard"
   
10. People in Michigan are different than people in California or Idaho
11. Although people in Michigan talk like they have the worst winters ever, they are really not different than Idaho
12. Being nice can get you a long way
13. Professional courtesy is a foreign concept to some people
    
14. It's amazing what students will beg for
15. It's amazing how unprepared some people are to live their own lives day to day
    
16. One thing I like better about coaching than teaching is that you can be much more blunt with athletes than you can with students
17. One thing I like better about teaching than coaching is that I don't have to travel and I don't have to babysit
    
18. When I am done, I want to teach at a school with more of an educational focus than a research focus
19. I am much more productive when I'm incredibly busy
20. I love being a student
21. I wouldn't mind never living in a place where it snows again!

On a side note- HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!