“This class blows.”

This was how my instructor kicked off our first class last night with the honorable intention of managing our expectations. She told us it would likely be the most boring and demanding class we would take in grad school, but we have to take it and the crap we do will prepare us well for the rest of our classes. If we play our cards right, she said, this required, draconian course will set us up really well for our thesis.

I heart her. I’m very, very glad she doesn’t expect us to act like this is interesting. This is like learning knife skills as a chef—incredibly important, but not nearly as interesting as, say, pastry.

Thus began the required course for this term…and my renewed relationship with APA style, which I haven’t touched in years.

Communication.org got off to a good start the night before. There’s an interesting mix of experience in this all-female class—one was laid off in the last six months, one’s working part-time at a concert venue (I think), and the rest of us are split between nonprofits and agencies. Like the required class, the entire term and all the assignments are wrapped up in prepping and writing the final paper. If I’ve understood the assignment for that paper, it can be directly tied to some stuff I need to do at work this summer anyway. Hooray!

I want extra credit if my plan actually gets implemented.