Codex

Last semester I had a strong feeling of ownership. It wasn’t that I did particularly well in my classes (although I didn’t do poorly) or anything like that; I just had a strong sense that I was doing the school work that I was doing because I had chosen it. This semester just doesn’t quite live up to that. It might just be some of the luster wearing off of grad school, but I think there’s more too it as well. Last semester was dominated by a very practical class – clear assignments, and a really clear idea of how everything we were assigned would help us as planners in the future. This semester there is no single class that dominates, and the only class that feels really practical has a serious lack of cohesion/instructor ability (not knowledge; teaching ability). My hypothesis is that it’s this lack of practical, applied learning that’s starting to get me down, as much as anything else. I feel like I’m being taught what the professors have decided I should know, not what is needed for me to follow the career path on which I have decided.

I suppose I should just get the hell over it. No one said that all classes would be fun, that I would have free time, or that I would get to learn precisely and exactly what I decided. Unfortunately, I don’t have a great history of getting over these things… I guess it’s time to put the head down and decide that what I really want to do is finish all this work that I don’t feel like doing. Back to editing of papers.

It sounds like I decided to take the most time-consuming class in the MURP program this semester, at least according to
other students.  On one hand this is a very good thing, as it means that I shouldn’t have quite so much of my time eaten in the coming semesters.  The other hand in this case is that the class is likely to only get more difficult, and I have a half semester course starting in a few weeks.  I should get my grades on my last few projects back in a week or so, and that should give me an idea of whether or not I’m spending enough time on school work.  I feel like I am, for the most part, although I did slack this weekend…

Working at the MCWD  is proving to be a good move.  Everyone there is fun and interesting, I’m learning a great deal about erosion control and general hydrology (which dovetails quite well with the class-of-crazy-workload), and I’ll get to push people around on construction sites.  I’m thinking that maybe the most useful aspect will be an inside perspective on the workings of local government.  The district is really it’s own governmental organization, and it’s kind of interesting seeing where it does and where it does not cooperate with the cities that share physical (if not regulatory) jurisdiction.  A lot of it seems to be personality based – there are more contacts with the DNR, which shares many of the same goals and values, than with other governmental organizations.  I have to wonder if maybe the land aquisition program would go more smoothly and have new opportunities open to it if they, say, partnered with a developing city or a parks and recreation board.  Perhaps they already do, to some extent…  I’ll have to figure that one out.

Grad school starts in a little over a week, and I’m very very excited.  I don’t think I realized how much I missed the academic environment until I went to orientation this past Friday and chatted with a few of my future classmates about global warming, politics, and New Urbanism (people who know what New Urbanism is!  Sweet!).  I still need to order books, get a new U-Card, get a U-Pass for the mass transit system, and do a few more orientation things, but I have this week off of work, so I should have plenty of time to get that done.

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