Thursday, August 5, 2010

Intro Methods Course

My areas of interest are not hot and sexy topics, alas, one more reason it will be difficult to find a job when I graduate, but I digress.  I'm okay with being "out of the box" but I was looking forward to graduate school.  I hoped that a large uni staffed with faculty who specialize in my area meant that I would actually be able to take courses that were in my specialty, or at least, what I think will be my specialty.  Keeping that in mind, I was thoroughly excited that the faculty member who would most likely be my advisor was teaching one of the Methods courses this year.  I registered as soon as I could and then emailed hir for the syllabus. 

Yeah, not so much.  Surprisingly, hir book list was all over the map - literally, chronologically, and thematically.  I'm really at a point where I am ready to study what *I* want to study.  I have been doing it on my own for so long, I'm just ready to do it in the classroom.  I was very disappointed.  I emailed the other profs who were teaching Methods courses and found a book list that jives with my interests.  Yay.  This prof is going to be very challenging, and I've heard scary, but I think it will be good.  A former prof of mine had hir during hiz graduate experience at MTU and commented, "The first time I ever felt like a real historian was in hir class."  High compliments indeed.

No comments:

Post a Comment