lackluster first week

[ScreamingHairyArmadillo]

Did anyone else have a first week of grad school that did not live up to expectations? My advisor is gone for two weeks, so I've had no good thesis brainstorming, and my labmates went out last night without me (seriously lame).

I'm just bummed and want to wallow, anyone is welcome to join.

[alexis]

Mine was similar. Not sure if I'd call it lackluster exactly, but haven't been assigned the professors I'll work with yet, etc; just had classes and getting settled in the office. Kind of in that limbo phase where a professor (not in my specialty) will tell us "you should have started working on research already" while my specialty profs have said "wait until we have meetings/you get assignments/etc." Way to make a neurotic grad student even more worried! (And, shockingly, I'm not the most neurotic in my cohort. Wow, there are other people who stress out more than me, who knew!) So I'm trying to enjoy the slower schedule for now, because I'm sure things will pick up soon. It was weird to have 2 crazy weeks of orientation stuff (including an oh-so-fun, week long "math camp") and then to have the schedule be low-key again. But I'm sure what we're experiencing is normal; I remind myself that anytime I've started a new job, the first few weeks are always slow, and then things start to get really busy.

[socialcomm]

I agree with Alexis. I'm just kind of in waiting mode while things gear up.

I'm sorry you didn't have a great first week though... I hope things get better!

[Tall Chai Latte]

Glad to hear that I'm not the only one feeling this way!

My classes are... so slow...

[timuralp]

Ha my first year was spent in search of the right and interesting work to do. One game I kept playing with myself was to have a list of ideas every week that I could either explore on my own or bother my advisor with. Most of those ended up being tossed in the trash, but the process is very valuable, as I learnt to identify what the interesting questions are. Enjoy the time you have now, as once you dive deep into the work, it will disappear quickly, leaving you wishing you had more time to do things. At least that was my feeling.

[socialcomm]

Ha my first year was spent in search of the right and interesting work to do. One game I kept playing with myself was to have a list of ideas every week that I could either explore on my own or bother my advisor with. Most of those ended up being tossed in the trash, but the process is very valuable, as I learnt to identify what the interesting questions are. Enjoy the time you have now, as once you dive deep into the work, it will disappear quickly, leaving you wishing you had more time to do things. At least that was my feeling.

Thanks for your perspective timuralp!