The Details

So yesterday was more orientation, today was the whole Ed. School orientation, and tomorrow and Friday is class shopping.

I still have to say I like it here. Today a professor (who does a lot of work in other sectors) talked about being flown to Virginia Tech after the shootings there to counsel their counselors and work on their crisis team. She talked about how we, as students, were at HGSE because we care about people and students, and want to impact the world of public education. Our idealism is a good thing. Unlike my interview at BYU for the PhD program where a professor said "Even though people say they go into counseling to 'help people' and 'make the world better', they're essentially trying to cover up the fact that going into counseling is an extremely selfish thing to do. How do you rationalize your selfishness?" Excuse me?

So I like that HGSE trusts our intent, and wants to capitalize on our idealistic views of education and our passion to change education, though it may be a little naive. BYU just felt like "Oh please. You don't actually believe you're going to 'change the world' do you?" and if you did, you weren't PhD material. If you said you wanted to pursue a degree in counseling to help others, you were perceived as insincere and dishonest, and I don't think that's fair.

Back to class shopping. This means professors hold 1/2 hour sessions of their classes and you go to as many as you want and then enroll in the ones you like. Each course offers two shoping sessions back-to-back. This sounds like a great idea, and it is, except that they hold 4-5 classes' shopping at the same time. So, even though each is offered twice, you still have to forfeit others.

And, then you realize it's a way to get the syllabus information out of the way so the first day of class can be focused on material, instead of being a fairly low-key throwaway day like usual.

If I want to be a candidate for the second year certification, I have to take some classes this year to keep me on track. This is fine because they're classes I want to take anyway. But, it will be sort of disappointing if I don't end up staying because there are so many classes I want to take.

The way the program works, I'll take the required core class which discusses risk and resilience in adolescents. It's a year long, for 4 credits each semester. Then I'll take the practicum seminar class that's year long, for 2 credits each semester. So I have to take 32 credits over the year, meaning there are 20 credits left after that, and therefore 10 each semester. But most classes are 4 credits, though there are modules (like Block classes at BYU) for 2 credits. So, I either take 4 classes and a module for Fall, and do the same Spring semester, or I take 5 classes Fall and 4 Spring. Or, I stay around campus for "J term" (during January break from January 3-28) and take one or two classes which count as modules.

It gets complicated.

And then I have to be placed for a practicum. If I wasn't trying to keep guidance counseling licensure as an option, I would have many more options for practicum. As it is, there are about 7 sites for the guidance track. All are accessible (the term "accessible" is relative) by public transportation, but only 2 offer Work Study funding. (Again, if I wasn't doing a guidance track, there are lots of NPOs with work study funding for practicum.) For practicum, we have to be on-site for 16 hours a week, which usually means two full days, usually a combination of Monday, Thursday, and Friday since pretty much all HGSE classes are on Tuesday and Wednesday. Practicum shopping happens in the beginning of September. We meet all the site supervisors, sign up for interviews with them on-site (which will be a PAIN!) and then rank sites according to our own preference. The site supervisors do the same and you hope your rank aligns with theirs. If not, the program faculty help you find a placement.

So that's another thing to work a class schedule around. And then, if I end up not getting one of the WS sites, I have to go sign-up to work on campus with hours outside of class and practicum. Obviously it would be hugely preferable to get into one of the sites offering WS.

Right now, I think my classes will be the two required classes, then individual counseling, and possibly group counseling, and a module on rural schools. Or possibly a class on educational policy that discusses laws and things like NCLB and merit-based pay for teachers and how they affect education. I would really like to take that one actually, but it's at a time for shopping when there are three classes I want to go to. (Generally, you have to shop a class to enroll later, so you have to spend a lot of time prioritizing.) Or possibly a class on child and adolescent psychopathology, but that's offered on Fridays and if I have to be at a practicum site, that won't work.

Students at HGSE don't get their grades until they complete class evaluations, so that was suggested as a way to weed out courses. Every semester's course evaluations are all compiled and published in a great big book and kept in the library. I only got to see one volume of last fall's ratings, so I'm hoping to go back tomorrow morning before shopping and check it out.

I've been getting free meals all week. The happy hour social they had on Monday was at a bar where dinner and drinks were free. We got a free tote bag today, which I was really excited about because I almost went and bought one after realizing the zipper on my backpack is broken. I got a free water bottle the other day, which was exciting too. We also have a 100 page printing allowance for the semester, which I wish I knew about before I bought a printer. So, while obviously it is wicked expensive, it is nice to see some tiny bit of it coming back to us.

I have been exhausted though. I think that's partly because of all the walking, meeting people, and paying attention, but also because of the dreary weather! Hopefully this weekend I'll get to walk around and see my neighborhood a little bit. And hopefully I'll get my energy back to start school next week!

Also, it's rained 5.5" in the last three days.

Also, I discovered there's a fire station a block from here. Hence the sirens!!

Also, I got my official Harvard ID today. I feel all fancy flashing it to get into the libraries.

The end.
-mollie