Eastern Illinois University.

[wildebeest]

Four weeks in. There is always quite a bit of reading, which I struggle to keep up with while working 45 hours a week and raising kids. I have managed to keep up, but barely, and skipping the readings would make the assignments nigh impossible. Most weeks every class has both a discussion post, one or two comments, and an assignment due, either a worksheet or a paper. Occasionally a class will have only an assignment or a discussion post plus comments. I enjoy the discussion posts more and more, as the folks in my classes have been very insightful, and raised a lot of interesting points. The feedback from professors is thoughtful, and you get a sense that they actually care, which is nice. Slightly overwhelmed doing nine credits in 16 weeks, but not more than I was doing undergrad at UMPI. I did 42 undergrad credits at UMPI in 16 weeks, for reference, and am probably spending a little less time on school now, though not as much less as you might expect, given the difference in credit count. The grading is tougher here, as I suppose you might expect. I've received no grades below a 93%, but I have worked significantly harder to achieve As. Although I'm only 1/4 of the way into my first semester, I feel like I'm learning a lot, and will be better equipped in a professional setting than I would have been otherwise. Still very happy with this school. 

I will note, however, that there is definitely something to be said for being able to take one class at a time and focusing all your attention on it, which you cannot do here if you want to graduate within a reasonable timeframe, rather than being mentally spread over multiple subjects. I wouldn't pick a different grad school. I love the small class sizes (between eight and ten) and, as I said, the professors seem to actually care, and they're good at what they do, but (at least right now) I do wish I could take one or two classes at a time over seven- or eight-week terms rather than three classes over a sixteen-week semester. I think I'd feel much less scattered. But that might just be me and the way my mind works.