Lessons from Grad School

Hello again, one and all. School is quickly approaching, and I am trying more than ever to hide from my calendar as the weeks continue to dwindle down until I am once again chained to fifteen weeks of hard work, tears, and lack of sleep. As mentioned in my awesome bio on our team page, I am a graduate student, technically starting my 5th year at school, but also technically halfway through my 1st graduate year. This past spring semester was my first semester of physical therapy school, and let me tell you, I have never been challenged so much before in my life. I struggled, a lot. Because on top of my academics, I had a lot of other stuff going on, and little support from certain people up at school.

So with the upcoming semester approaching, I am challenging myself on a different level. I want to make this a different semester, a better one, and I think I know just how to do that. So shall we begin on what I am changing, based on the lessons I learned from my first semester of graduate school:

1. SLEEP!

Sleep was so crucial this spring semester. I used to be able to stay up until one, sometimes two in the morning. That quickly stopped. I suddenly went to having 8 A.M.s everyday of the school week, and I found myself falling asleep on my books by 10 P.M. But I would have to force myself to stay up until at least 11, otherwise I felt unaccomplished.

But sleep became so much more important this semester. And when the weekends came, I wanted to catch up on sleep. But I still struggled with that because as a resident assistant, I would be up until 3 A.M. on duty, and then would work early in the afternoon at my part-time job. So I am beyond thrilled to say that I will not be juggling as much, so hopefully I can catch up on some sleep this upcoming semester.

2. IT’S OKAY TO ASK QUESTIONS!

I was one of those undergraduate students that rarely asked questions; actually I rarely paid attention in class. I was business; it all came naturally. So when I was confused, I either wung it, or just Googled it. So when I got to my physical therapy material and it actually mattered, I was thrown into a bit of culture shock. I actually had to ask questions. And read the book. I don’t know why, but I always hated asking questions, and it was a real struggle for me to realize that it was okay to ask questions to my classmates, professors, TAs, etc. This is actually something I am still working on. But I realized that this material now is a basis, and if I don’t understand it now, I will really struggle in the upcoming years of grad school. So ask away folks!

3. I LIKE TO MOVE IT MOVE IT!

I think a huge reason I struggled this semester was because of my lack of physical activity. The years before I entered graduate school, I was pretty good with getting to the gym several times a week. I kept my weight at a healthy number, and I just overall felt confident in my body. This past year as a whole, I avoided the gym. Usually I found myself justifying it by insisting I had no time because I was so busy with school, and meetings, and duty schedules. And if I did come to find I had an hour of free time, I would rather nap than go to the gym because I felt I needed sleep more than working out. But oh how wrong I was. I felt terrible about myself, wore my baggiest clothes, and since I’m physical therapy, we spend our labs half naked. So standing in lab with a sports bra on was not the best feeling in the world. So this semester I plan on eating a lot better than I did this past semester, and working out several times a week. No more bad moods for this girl!

4. LOOK GOOD, FEEL GOOD!

Another mistake of mine this first semester? I put little effort into my appearance. I am typically a very laid back, low-maintence type of girl, and usually I don’t worry a whole lot about the appearance category. However, this semester, I totally let myself go. I wore sweats and yogas to class everyday, which typically we need sweats on for our labs, but still, I could have put more effort into my hair and face. I always did my “roll and go” method; roll out of bed and throw my backpack on and leave. So my goal this next semester is to put a little more effort into myself before I leave the house, and I’m sure I am going to feel a lot better throughout the day.

5. DOWN TIME IS REQUIRED!

I thought I did pretty good by setting aside an evening where I was to focus on anything but school work. Friday nights were always my nights off, and I loved it! It was great being done with class at 3, knowing I was not to do anything the rest of the evening. But I still felt myself getting burnt out? So my roommate, who is also my major, and I reflected this summer and realized maybe we should have done more stuff to relax? So I am hoping to put more relaxing time into my schedule this upcoming fall semester, as well as doing something fun. I just spent the night sitting watching T.V. as my down time, and now that I no longer have the number of responsibilities as I did this past year, I am going to try to fit in more fun activities to help relieve stress.

6. FIND YOUR STUDY SQUAD!

I used to study as a solo individual; it was the Johnna show. But this semester I realized that maybe I needed to study with others? And it helped! If I didn’t understand something, typically someone else I was sitting with would know the answer. And there were some awesome friends who would take time out of their night time schedules to go with me to our cadaver lab and take me through the entire forearm and hand (because folks, that part sucks) after I laid on the floor of the library crying (yes, this may have happened). But I found that sometimes its harder to study with certain people. So you just have to find those few people who really do add something, and stick with them. Sometimes people like to show off what they know rather than helping you, and they just aren’t the people to be around when you’re struggling to understand eight classes worth of material. So find the right people to study with!

7. TIME MANAGEMENT IS A MUST!

I thought my time management was awesome. And then I hit graduate school; where I had eight new subjects, and I had to study something for each class every night. You quickly learn to alter your schedule, what needs to be added and taken away to make sure everything fits. So I found myself breaking studying down into hour increments. For one hour I would study one subject, then move onto another after a short break for another hour, and so on and so on. A planner is a must for grad school, there is simply no getting around it.

8. BYE, BYE NEGATIVE PEOPLE!

I found that with the wrong people in your life, it’s harder to get through difficult semesters. And I struggled with this. Heck, I had negative people in the same major as me. I asked for help, and the response I got was “Read the book” or “I don’t know, teach yourself”. Thanks for the help, man. So I am excited that this semester, I will hopefully have no negative people standing in my way of awesomeness. Graduate school is when you here to do what you are really interested in, and it’s the time to excel, don’t let others bring you down!

So I am hoping that I can stick to my goals of bettering myself with these lessons that I may have learned the hard way. And I’m kind of excited about this upcoming challenge, but I am hoping I can keep my focus on doing the best I possible can without all of the added distractions I had last semester.

But then again, what would I know?

Until next time,

Johnna

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