"Do we have to stay?"

Wednesday was the first day I had actual, real, honest-to-goodness pseudo responsibilities as a student of the University. First order of business was to meet up with Alice and discuss Sidelights on Shakespeare, an interdisciplinary seminar series she set up last year with another student and that I will be helping with this year. The first seminar is next week, and so some of Wednesday was spent putting up posters. I'm going into campus on Tuesday to learn how to go shopping (where the store is, who to talk to to get the card, where to store the food and drinks) and then will help set up things on Thursday. It's kind of like the CREMS lectures, from what I can see.

After meeting with Alice, I ran a few errands revolving mostly around collecting loan deferment papers and my shiny new student ID before heading off to class, a required four week research skills class for all new English postgraduates. The first twenty minutes of the class was focused on how the expectations for postgraduate writing are different than what we've experienced in undergrad and do we all know what modules we're taking and this is what a thesis statement is. I oscillated between zoning out and fretting I was in the wrong place until a guy behind me asked raised his hand. "There are PhD students here and so far, none of this has been relevant. Do we have to stay?" A taken aback lecturer asked all PhD students to raise their hands, revealing about a quarter of the 120ish students in the room were actually research students, though she had been told she was only addressing MAs. We were told to stay and "scale up" the information presented.

Looking at the talk from an MA point of view, it was incredibly useful, and covered things I wish the Institute's version of the class had gone over. Also, it was nice to have the information reviewed. I'm sure my summary page of notes will come in handy when I start writing, it's just that nothing was new. Next week we are in the library, which I think will be more applicable since I don't know the University's features like I do Bham's.