Oh to be a Grad student

First of all the Memorial Earth Science department is big. And not just even big versus my wee class in St Andrews. It's the biggest in Canada. We have 30 faculty, 150 undergrads, 90 postgrads. The building is 7 floors tall. We get more research money than the whole of the rest of the Science Faculty. It's a well respected research facility. I didn't realise the magnitude of the place until I got here.

Somehow though they've managed to retain the closeness that I loved in St Andrews. All of the girls in the office know my name, which will come in handy as I've realised that they are the most important people in the department (they allow me access to the Stationary Room!). The grad students normally hang out and have lunch together in the staff room. The Alexander Murray Club (i.e. their Geolsoc) have events every 2 weeks and already they've discovered I'm awesome at Beer Pong.

The department is also nice and shiny. The building is all modern. All the instrumentation is lovely and hi-tech. We are the envy of most departments. We even have space for vending machines Georgie! This is going to be a nice place to be for 2 years.

The Alexander Murray Building. See how shiny it is!

Master's degrees here are viewed like jobs. You come into work at least from 9 til 5. You are expected to be productive once you get here. Your supervisor expects a lot from you. After all they are paying for you to be there. 

So what does my day to day life entail? Well so far not much...Well I have class twice a week. It's taught by my supervisor and there's 4 of us, 3 of which are his students. We discuss papers we have been given to read which would usually take about 40 minutes, but we normally run over because my supervisor likes to talk and tangents often occur. But less bad things said about him, he's also Head of the department.

I also have to work as a TA (teaching assistant). Having lots of experience doing this in St Andrews I thought this would be fine and a lot of fun. Well it would be, if I was familiar with the work they were doing.. .One of the guys joked on the GSA trip when I told him my concerns with differences in the syllabuses "I can imagine the kids saying to you, 'God Stacy, you don't know what Minasgerasite is?'" I would love it if they would ask me that actually. I'm having to help them with in depth crystallography which is boring and unnecessary in most people's opinions. And I know nothing about it. I cannot wait until 3 weeks time when they actually get given a mineral to look at.

The silly stuff they want the undergrads to do and the text book I now have to learn for no reason.

Other than that I chill in my office. I'm currently on the 6th floor which is the soft-rock floor i.e. not where I belong! I have to wait until some PhDs move out downstairs so I can be on the hard-rock floor with people who do my type of research. But at least at the moment I can hide from my supervisor because he is not coming up the stairs to come find me. But the novelty of an office is great. I have my own space, I can leave stuff here, I have a kettle for a constant supply of tea. I've got it sorted.

My little office space. There's 2 other desks but at the moment I'm all on my lonesome. I'll pimp up my pin board more when I'm in my proper office.

Where the tea is made.

But Stacy, don't you have research to be doing? Well yes, I do. But I don't have my rocks yet. I am lucky enough that I can go out to the Mojave Desert, CA to collect them in December (Note, the winter as it is the desert.) So that's where the fun starts. Well, where the fun ends really because once I've got them back I've got like a year of excruciating lab work to do to get my data. So please don't be jealous of my jet setting and lack of busy schedule. I'll get my comeuppance. 

And I am actually quite busy. This week I've got a 2-day field safety course to attend and then I'm off on another field trip over the weekend to Grand Falls (Central Newfoundland) just to go see some more rocks and see a bit of the island. It's not all fun and games you know.

My current view from my office across campus. Signal Hill is on the right behind the green building.