Making the Grade
5 takeaways from my first semester back in school
This year, I decided to do one of the scariest things someone can do: I decided to try something new *gasp!* at the ripe age of 25 *double gasp!* and that something was investing in myself and deciding to go to grad school *biggest gasp of all! As with anything new comes new learnings and here are my 5 takeaways.
Starting something new will always feel a bit scary. And that’t okay!
I remember on my first day, wandering around the library feeling once again like a scared freshman, thinking “Why did I do this?! What am I even doing?!” As the days went on and the routine began to build, this feel started to settle and ease, but I always kept reminding myself that pursuing this is something I dreamed of and I am doing it to learn more and better myself.
Remembering how you learn and practicing learning in that way takes time
Your brain is a muscle and as with any muscle, use it or lose it and I certainly felt like I had lost any ability to absorb information. Between graduating in the height of COVID and online learning to spending my first three years professionally working from home, my ability to retain information felt non existent. I remember feeling so frustrated with myself, not understanding why I was struggling so much, but over time building a routine, practicing the methods that are effective for me and perfecting them began to regrow my love for learning.
It’s okay to not function in the capacity you did in undergrad
This was a semester of learning I can not hang like I used to, in more ways than one. When I started to be hard on myself, wondering why I couldn’t function at the speed and fervor I did at 19, I had to take a step back and tell myself just that: you are not 19 anymore. I realized I have much more of an established life and routine than I ever did in college which is a good thing and makes sense as to why I wasn’t functioning like I did then.
Learning more about things you care about will always be worthwhile
With classes four nights a week going into the dark, short days of winter, it was certainly easy to feel myself getting into a funk and feeling unenthused about making the commute and sitting in a class. However, even if I was feeling down, I realized that showing up really is half the battle. Even if it wasn’t my favorite class, I found I learned something new every single class and felt my creativity coming out even when I may have not felt so excited originally
It’s okay to still not have it figured out
I’m writing this one down like you would say a mantra to yourself in the morning in the hopes of internalizing it. Yes, I just spent the semester learning tons of new things and exploring all these new areas in the food space, but no, I don’t know how much closer i feel to having it “figured out”. I’ve met awesome people who think like me and care about the things I do, learned about subject matters I never would have on my own and most of all, have shown up for myself and continue to do so.