In Good Company (A Bum No More, Part 2)

First week of summer classes, a.k.a. the gateway to 5^th year. Welcome to grad school. I entered the classroom on the first day and immediately knew it would be different – to begin with, we were only a class of ten students, the smallest I’ve attended in my entire academic life.

Our teacher for the subject had already been our teacher last semester. She’s quite a character, a real superwoman and a great person to emulate. I think the best teachers are those who inspire and motivate not just because of the way they teach or what they teach, but more importantly because of who they are as individuals.

Grad school seems quite different from college undergrad. You get to be treated as an adult, which entails both good and bad things. On the upside, you’ll feel a lot more deserving (and less guilty) about receiving exemplary education, while so many out there are suffering and don’t have enough money for basic necessities. You feel like you’ve truly earned your spot because you’ve worked so hard for it, and not because your parents have huge pockets to pay for your tuition

Surprisingly, the setup is much more relaxed. The teacher will talk to you as if you were two adults in conversation. You don’t have to sit in alphabetical order. When you sit at the back she won’t ask you to move in front. Basically, you’re more in charge of yourself.

On the downside, well, you know you’re not playing anymore. You’ll need to carry your load, and the load is pretty darn heavy. It’s definitely a lot more serious - after all, the stakes have been raised. There’s less room – perhaps even no room - to slack off. Thinking about it now, though, I guess this isn’t really a downside or a negative thing, because I guess in the end the training will make us more responsible and more prepared for the “real world”. I can’t wait.

The best thing about our teacher is she tells it as it is, and right from the beginning she was straight with us. I basically gathered from her little first-day-of-class speech that grad school isn’t for lazy asses. Here are some other lessons I’ve learned so far:

1. Invest in books, even if they seem incredibly expensive.
2. Work as a team (except in exams).
3. Welcome the suffering that lies ahead (she tends to be a bit philosophical at times).
4. There’s no such thing as a “night person” (remains to be proven, in my opinion).
5. You are young now, but you will be old soon enough.

Another thing about our class this summer is how I feel incredibly honored (and somehow intimidated) to be with the other nine people in the class. I get hyped up and motivated to do my best by their energy and their eagerness to learn – I could almost taste it, their determination. It’s quite intimidating but very inspiring as well. I’m pushed to really do my best. And it’s not so much the idea that I want to do better than they do or that I want to get better grades than them, not at all - it’s more like I want to constantly prove that I deserve to be in their company, to be in such good company. We may be small in number (and I may be small*), but we sure have big shoes to fill. Hopefully we’ll all survive.

Oh and by the way, it was so great of so many people to text their congratulations when the list of the people who made it came out. Thanks so much you guys, I miss your good company. We couldn’t have done it without everyone’s support, love, and faith. Senior year is a year I won’t soon forget. Good luck to all of us.

On behalf of our block, I would also like to thank the people behind Microsoft Powerpoint, Adobe Photoshop, SPSS for Windows, Starbucks, all the laptop-making companies, the inventors of the USB, the makers of Diner Dash and TextTwist, the brains behind Yahoo! Groups, Multiply, and Friendster, and the inventors of digital cameras. We wouldn’t have survived senior year without you. Hahaha.

Enjoy the rest of the summer everyone, I know I will.

*This in particular is for Arthur and Tiffy, haha.