[This is from back in January- I hadn’t made my plans to go to graduate school known back then and, well, living in a small town, word gets out one way or another, so I was being cautious. Now that people know that is the rapidly approaching plan, it’s probably ok to publish this post.]
Tomorrow, I am going back to school.
Sort of. I’m taking one class- it’s on how to do proper historical research.
When I was in college, I was in the unusual situation of only being in school- I didn’t have a job, school was my job. I really enjoyed being in school, even having to run from the top of one hill to the top of another in 10 minutes to make my classes. Well, maybe not that. The rest of it was pretty enjoyable though.
It’s hard to believe that I got out of college in 2017, almost five whole years ago at this point. I told myself I would go work for a few years, maybe one or two then go back to school when I knew what I wanted to get my masters in. The timeline stretched out a bit- I had flexibility in my job and my interests changed multiple times- and then of course the global pandemic. It’s now pretty apparent that I have the length of time in a museum to qualify for jobs elsewhere, but not the degree so now is the time.
One catch though- my background isn’t in history. The graduate advisor I’ve been speaking with gave me two courses I should plan on taking so I could get into the Masters program, one class being this history method and theory class and one being the senior seminar (sometimes called capstone) class for history undergraduates. Luckily, I know the teachers teaching the courses so it’s not a huge undertaking to get all signed up for them. It is a bit funny, showing up at a history cohort in their last semesters and being like “I am in this class now, hello classmates”.
While making dinner tonight, it crossed my mind a bit frivolously- what am I going to wear on the first day? It’s tradition for me to have a good first day outfit mostly for myself to honor the excitement of a new semester. This pandemic has really cramped my style though. I used to wear dresses on the daily, and now my go-to is jeans and a t-shirt. Part of that is because I finally got tired of being cold and not wanting to change clothes between warmer clothes to walk Parker and work clothes, then back to warm clothes for the evening walk.
I could go bold with my Museums are Not Neutral t shirt, or go professional with a nice blazer and stick out like a sore thumb in laid back Arcata, or just jeans and a t-shirt to blend in with everyone else. Backpack or no? Maybe I’ll break out some of the earrings I’ve been buying on Instagram. Shoes- likely running shoes since I’ll have to park far away to avoid having to pay for parking and schlep myself all the way up to the second floor of a building on the top of the main hill on campus. The last time I made the hike up there, likely 2019 at this point I realized I really needed to do more walking. Maybe tomorrow will be a little better with all the hiking I’ve been doing with Parker.
One of the textbooks for the class arrived at my house a few days ago and I eagerly sat down to read some of it- the other three should show up tomorrow. It feels a bit like Christmas Eve. I figure this time around, attending a class while also working full time, is going to be rather different than when I was a full time student, but it’ll be a good trial run for me to see how I can make it work, as I’ll likely have to do that when I get into the actual Masters program.
Here’s to honoring the excitement.
Katie Buesch 