Class

So, I wanted to accelerate the program, because I'm starting my third year of graduate school and I'm ready for it to be over!!! This means that I'd have to do two semesters of three classes to graduate one measly semester early, and none of the work that I did at my previous school will transfer. This semester and next I'll be taking 3 classes, but next semester will be a bit different, because one of the classes will be my international trip.

This semester I have:

Project Management: I hear good things about 95% of the offered classes, and this one was of course recommended by a professor for those who "wanted more depth" than the cursory first year classes. It was actually my add-on third choice - the other class I was considering ended up looking like a lot more work, in LA (which is far from work), and this one at least fit in to my potential specialization. Believe it or not, I want my cake and to eat it too - if I'm taking this many classes, it had better be interesting! So far it is, but there's a lot of busy work. I'm told this will get better, both by students and by the professor who admitted the class is front-loaded.

Database Management: I planned my whole schedule around this class. I almost regret going to business school over a computer science degree.
I talked to the professor about the class at a general advising session, and it sounded like just the right class I needed for experience and to get my next rotation. Turns out there are no exams, which is good, because that takes the pressure off knowing weird little details because they might be on the test. But the semester project is going to be a lot of work. Luckily I have people in my group that I like!

Leadership and Self-Management: I am not kidding. I'm really taking this class. Widely referred to as the "yoga class," the professor changed before the semester started, so I don't think it's quite what it was. But, I really like the professor - he's laid back, interesting, and admitted on the first day that the class won't be a lot of outside work. Music to my ears! There is a 10-15 page semester paper instead of exams, but writing up that much has gotten easier. On top of that, we have about one book to read every week (the last of which came
yesterday: reimbursement time!), which gets a little tough.

Altogether, three interesting classes that ended up being a lot more work than I expected. My friend at work told me that the second year, even with three classes, will be better than the first year. And another classmate told me he wished he'd taken three classes during his international trip semester, because just the two were kind of lightweight. At the beginning of the semester I was really panicking, remembering last year and the stress and always feeling crappy, and having a lot of homework. But there are only 11 weeks to go (not 52), and it will only get easier, and I'll be taking classes of my own choice rather than repeats of my undergrad degree. The drop date was last Friday, so here we go!