T-minus 1

First class starts tomorrow!   Got an email AND a phone call from the MG folks today.

Email was a summary of the January syllabus.... suffice to say, we ease into things with the first class tomorrow and then WHAMO! the work really cranks up.  I'll fill you in as things move along..... we'll be working hard from the looks of it.

Phone call was delightful..... my group lead (GL) called.  She wanted to find out how I was doing, any questions/concerns re: the program or what to do for tomorrow etc.   How nice!   No-one ever called me before my first day of grad school or before any other program/course I've taken for that matter.   I keep getting more and more impressed with how this program is being run.  

We spent 10-15 minutes chatting about this and that..... here's what I learned:

We've been organized into teams/tables, with 7 students to 1 GL/table.  Our GL is to be our first point of contact if/when questions arise or we need help etc.    Makes sense to divide and conquer.  100 or so students for one person to babysit Q&A would be insane!    Anyway.... we stay with our home team throughout the entire program but will rotate out for various classroom assignments to network with other students/GLs and gain broader exposure.   There didn't appear to be any logic that we could figure out as to who's assigned to what team.  I would have thought I'd be hanging out with some geographically similar peers, but that's not the case.  Maybe they think we'll inevitably link up with them down the road, so good to engage with folks from afar for now.

Classroom format will consist of a mix-up of lectures, activities within our teams/tables or in mixed teams/tables, show and tells and the like.   Bottom line we won't have to endure long days of one-way lecturing - thank God! 

We have assignments that say read Chapter so and so, but we won't be getting a text book.  All the readings are done online.... in fact, a sizeable chunk of the reference materials, assignments, quizzes etc are all online.  We'll be learning how to navigate through all the courseware and information during tomorrow's class.  I'm from the old school..... you have to buy a big hunking boat-anchor-sized text book, and start highlighting stuff, scribbling notes in the margins, referencing pages with colored post it notes.  Will be interesting to see how I do in a virtual world.

I asked her about her MG background..... she graduated from the MG program just two years ago.   There's no requirement that you be a seasoned MG to be a GL.... she used to be a school teacher so loves this kind of role.

Well, that's it...... off to school tomorrow.   One topic on tomorrow's agenda is SOILS.... guess they're starting from the ground up..... ha ha!