The best introductory post ever

Things that make you a grad student: *being in grad school.
Things that give you imposter syndrome: * everything else.
* also being in grad school.

Yesterday I almost had my frist ever graduate school induced panic attack.
First: I received my first ever *grade* in graduate school. Last week I handed in a two page masterpiece of a lit review, complete with unpadded bibliography that had taken up most of my time the previous week. Seriously, I spent hours on the thing, getting it just exactly right, only to be extremely dismayed to be graded eight out of ten. Once the dismay passed and I convinced myself that 80% is actually a pretty okay grade (and still a 4.0 by the grading scale that my department uses) I decided that an 80% average is probably not good enough to get into a PhD programme, even a bad one. Insert shallow breathing. I also started fortifying myself with vitamins at this point- 0ne vitamin C everytime I feel sick or panicked, and one vitamin B (note to self: buy vitamin B) every time I feel panicked!

Second: I gave my first ever graduate school presentation, and I'm pretty sure that they are now going to fire me from the programme. Some of the contributing factors to the overall wretchedness of my presentation were out of my control. For instance, the guest that spoke for one and a half of our three hour class slot, and the fact that there were two presentations that had to fit into the remaining hour were out of my hands. Oh yeah, and the fact that EVERYONE STARED AT ME BLANKLY WHEN I SPOKE AND DID NOT RESPOND TO MY QUESTIONS . The actual assignment was to "facilitate discussion" for at least twenty minutes. Don't get me wrong, Im all for a good challenge, but this would have been a heck of a lot easier had I more than fifteen minutes all told by the time I was able to start. No one needs to relive the horror of it all, but suffice it to say that the whole ordeal ended with my professor kindly suggesting (after having stare at me like I had sprouted horns for a full fifteen minutes) that I post my discussion and questions on the online class forum. Heck.

At the end of this superbly shitty day I decided to make myself feel better (?) by researching potential PhD programmes (!?). Because I am a masochist. I sat down at my ipad, ready to put the day behind me and look forward. Except that when I googled "PhD Culture Studies" google suggested that I get my stupid, incompetent ass in gear and search my own goddamn field of study properly (or, asked me if I wanted to search "cultural studies" instead). So much fail.


Update: as of right now none of my colleagues have looked at or responded to my questions. *panicpanicpanicpanicpanic*