Too Cool for School

My first week of colloquium began Sunday (9/10) with a film screening of Singin' in the Rain and a BBQ. I had never seen the movie before and was glad that's what we watched when I found out the year before they showed the movie Alien (I would not have enjoyed that). The BBQ offered the chance to meet and talk with my peers, which was great.

Monday started with a breakfast with our three cohort mentors. There are 100 of us and these mentors went through the program last year and are here to help guide us through our year. After that we had a presentation from the grad school career councilor. I have already set up an appointment to see her in the beginning of October so she can tell me what I'm going to do after this program! Then we had our first Core lecture. As a group our interests are very diverse, I am the only person studying Spanish literature. I've talked to folks studying the classics (Greek and Latin), philosophy, art history, French and Italian literature, 16th century British literature, etc. So this Core course is the one thing we are all taking together. It reminds me of the Honors Program at Sac State, I would go off and take my teacher courses but have specific Honors courses each semester that were only with my cohort of Honors students. There are two professors tag teaming this Core course and they both lectured about Singin' in the Rain. At the end of their lecture I learned I needed to read a 100-something paged book that night in preparation for the next day's lecture. From there, we went to meet our preceptors and our precept group. So in addition to mentors, I have a preceptor who is a PhD student in charge of me as well. I am in a group of ten other students, under her charge. They all happen to be art history students and the reason I'm with them is because Savannah, my preceptor, studies murals in Mexico and Latin America. She shared a lot of information about the program, what was coming this week and so on. Finally, it was time to walk home.

Tuesday's lecture was on Freud's Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. In which I discovered the philosophy students are at a huge advantage here, they've already read and written about a lot of the texts for the class, including this one. But that's ok because I have buddied up with some of them and will be leaning on them throughout the quarter. After the lecture, the mentor's had arranged a trip to the Museum of Contemporary Art. We took the Metra, which is the train I can hear right outside our windows and has a stop on our block. About 30 of us participated, Maggie came with, and once we got downtown we walked about 25 minutes to the museum. My favorite aspect of this museum was all of the references to Chicago or art by Chicago artists. There's one woman from Chicago who has painted abandoned houses in the notorious South Side, bright colors that represent some cultural part of the neighborhood (A link to the art I saw and an article about her work). There was also a huge display of art from a Japanese artist, the one who did the album cover for Kanye West's Graduation album.

Wednesday we had a presentation about the student health services and then our second lecture on Freud where I was given my first paper: one page analyzing the argument Freud makes in a passage of the book. Then I met with Savannah about which classes I'd like to take.

Thursday we had a lecture about the type of writing we will be doing (argumentative) in the Core course.  Then we were given a tour of the library resources but not before an elderly librarian who couldn't see the computer screen attempted to show us resources on the library's website. It was painful, the guy next to me left when he saw where the presentation was headed. Someone told me later that the girl next to him started snoring.

Friday we listened to presentations about civic engagement (college speak for volunteering) and getting involved with student government. Then I went to my precept meeting where we critiqued each other's writing exercise. After that, social hour! Every Friday they feed and booze us so we will come and socialize with each other. I enjoyed it and during I was invited to join a study group! That was one of my goals after writing the paper on Wednesday, to find one or more people to work on this stuff with. I knew I couldn't force it ("hi, can I be your study buddy?) and was therefore so glad when it happened organically!