So here's some grad school bragging for you: I'm going to be presenting at the Phi Alpha Theta Biennial conference this January down in San Diego. I'm not going to go into any real detail on what my paper topic is but to be vague, it's on antebellum slavery. I'm pretty excited as this will be my first conference. It will be great experience and networking...not to mention it will pad my C.V./Ph.D. applications nicely.
I have been sick the past week. Nothing major - it's just a cold. It's a pain getting sick at all during the semester because I prefer not to miss any school, especially since one of my classes requires a 3-page analysis for a missed class. That's not something I want to do when I'm sick. So I just bucked up and went to class on Wednesday night. I didn't participate as much as I usually do, but I performed well enough. To paraphrase Woody Allen, 80% of success is just showing up.
Thursday was a furlough day for the class I T.A. for. I offered up my services to run a study/review session since the midterm is tomorrow and considering some of the quizzes lately, the students kind of needed it. My throat was sore and my head ached something awful but I made a commitment, dammit! Overall, I think it went well enough. What's nice about a 400-level course is that I don't have to hold hands nearly as much as I did for the 100-level that I T.A.ed last semester. I outlined on the board while the students did most of the work. My role was merely to guide. When I run review sessions I make it very clear that my role is help, not to repeat lectures because that is simply a waste of time.
So in lieu of going into too much boring detail, here's a break down of how to run a good review session:
1. Show up on time.
2. Make it clear right away that you are not repeating lectures.
2a. Ask if anything from the lecture notes need to be cleared up or further explained. There is a difference.
3. Go over only the pertinent information since time is limited.
4. Admit if you can't answer something. That's what the professor's email is for.
Daily Advice:
Use Purell, drink Emergen-C. If you get sick anyways, take a cold pill, buck up, and shut up.*
*I stole that from the movie Zombieland. It's awesome. Go see it.
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