Who knew it would actually happen!

At some point in my undergraduate career I was told by a few of my professors that it was possible to get paid to go to graduate school. I had heard of this concept before it was voiced to me in college and it had always intrigued me. From then on I was convinced that I was going to be paid to go to graduate school! I wasn't sure how exactly that was going to actually happen, but I knew I could make it happen...somehow!

Its May and I have officially completed my first year of graduate school in the Geography Department at Northern Illinois University! I received a full tuition waiver in addition to a full stipend as a Teaching Assistant (TA). My tuition waiver and stipend extend into next year as well and I will be teaching summer school starting June 18th. I was able to pick a desk in an office in the Geography Building (Davis Hall) that holds 10 graduate students. The office room number is 208, hence the title (just thought I would explain!). So I guess I did it after all and I am enjoying the adventure that is graduate school very much!

My first semester as a graduate I taught two lab sections of Physical geography 102, which is meant to accompany the Intro to Physical Geography 101 lecture. These two courses are separate however, and because of that the labs were a little trickier to teach. I couldn't assume everyone was taking the lecture at the same time and therefore I couldn't assume they knew anything about the material I had to present for each lab. I had to give them background and explain to them how to do each lab. I had never been in full control of a class before, although it quickly became clear to me that I was very lucky to have had the experience as an assistant in geography labs during my undergraduate at UW-W. In addition to the two lab sections that I taught my first semester, I also proctored the geography computer lab.

This past semester I was "promoted" to teaching four lab sections of the Physical Geography 102 lab. I was also named the lab coordinator, so it was my job to coordinate a weekly meeting with the other TAs as well as with the coordinating professor to discuss upcoming lab material. We would review the best ways to teach the material and make sure everyone understood the labs. The instillation of a projector in the lab rooms also helped in that we could now use PowerPoint instead of the overhead projector to teach the lab material. Therefore, all I had to do was convert my overheads into slides and tweak them a bit for this semester and I was set.

The first time I stood up in front of the class was to pass out the syllabus and my heart pounded the whole time. I knew I was turning red and knowing that only made me turn even redder. Surprisingly, I think that was the hardest day because I was new to teaching the class as well as to the University and there I was having to explain to the students all the rules and expectations that I barley even knew. I hoped at the time that when I began actually teaching the material it would go smoother and it did. Since I taught two sections of the same class, I always seemed to do it better the second time around. I didn't do a bad job with the first group, I just worked most of my kinks out after running it threw for the first group! Teaching became easier the more I did it and I made sure I was very prepared for each class. Some of the labs were VERY long and it was a challenge to fit everything into the hour and fifty minutes provided for each lab, but it all worked out in the end.