BostonBlueHen

Classes=Dunzo!

Hi there,
  Well, classes are officially done!!! You'd think I'd be super excited but I have a lot to do before Thursday.
  I am done with Juvenile Justice. We visited a juvenile facility in Roxbury this past week and it was really interesting. Was a very educational and helpful field trip. I handed in my paper which ended up being about 16.5 pages. It felt so good to print it out and hand it in!
  As for Stats, our presentation went fine-and we got a 98%! The professor was very fair, taking into account the difficulty of the material we were tackling. My friend and I met Friday to work on the third assignment together, and it was really helpful. I plan on completing the assignment tomorrow and handing it in Monday! I feel pretty proud of it.
  Critical Victimology-final next week...Wednesday night. Must start studying!
Criminalistics presentations Thursday night. Need to add more on to the paper and presentation very soon--tomorrow!
  Crunch time!! The point is-in 5 days I will have completed the semester, and my first year of grad school, and that is pretty awesome! I cannot wait to read fun books & magazines on the train, rather than doing work, reading, highlighting, etc. Time for some fun!
But not until the work is done!! :)

Last FULL week of classes...

Hey there,

I'm in one of the Suffolk computer labs now and I just officially made the page requirement for my 15-20 pg paper for Juvenile Justice! This weekend I will re-read, edit, and finalize it! YAY! Once I hand that in on Wednesday, I am officially done with that class! We are going on a little field trip next week for that class, so that should be interesting. I'm pretty sure we are touring a DYS facility.

Stats-We haven't had our presentation yet because class was canceled last week. Luckily, our professor heard our concerns and directed us to a specific area of the article to focus our presentation on. My group and I are meeting tomorrow afternoon to work on it, and presenting on Tuesday. Didn't start the third assignment yet, but I chose an article, and will begin this weekend.

Last night I had my last Critical Victimology class! It was REALLY interesting-we learned a lot about mental health issues in prisons, and also about wrongful convictions in our prison system. We discussed the Innocence Project and other issues related to people who have been incarcerated on wrongful convictions, and exonerated. It was a great class! I'll have that final in two weeks.

Tonight I have my last Criminalistics class. Last week we had an Assistant DA come in to speak to us about legal issues concerning Forensic Science. He was a great speaker, and explained about how much planning and theatrics goes on in the courtroom. He mentioned how much it matters when the expert witnesses are presented, and how to speak to a jury to keep their attention, etc. Very interesting. I have barely started my paper and project for this class. This weekend I am aiming to do a big chunk of it!

Alas, after tonight, I will have completed my last full week of classes this semester. Next week I only have class Tues & Wed nights. I will be relieved once I am officially done and have completed everything necessary!

3 Weeks of Classes Left!

Hi again,

Sorry I'm not doing so well with making an entry every week. Here's my excuse: grad school. I think that's a sufficient excuse for this time.... :)

So I did my presentation in class on Monday evening. It went very well! I wasn't nervous, felt confident, and did a pretty good job, I think. My professor and some classmates complimented me on my power point, so that was nice! It was nice to get that over with. Now I have to crack away at the paper. I now have about 6 pages written out of 15...almost halfway done!

I have a presentation on the 15th in my Stats class, and I'm really concerned about it. I read the article that we are presenting on, and it may as well have been written in gibberish-made no sense whatsoever. Too many statistics in there! I just emailed my professor about my concerns, and also had received an email from one of my partners explaining she had no idea what she read. This should be interesting! We also have our third assignment due by the end of April, and it is more work than our other two assignments we had. I don't know why that came as a surprise to me, but it did. Ah, just add it to the pile!

Great news # 1: No more papers in Critical Victimology! He is behind on returning graded papers to us, so he decided that we've had enough with the paper writing. How nice it is to read and answer the questions without having to write a paper! This week we start our final book for the class-yay!

Great news # 2: That Criminalistics final...I got a 96%! I was really psyched to get that midterm back! We had a guest speaker last week on fingerprint analysis. She was a senior Criminalist at the Boston Crime Lab. I love having speakers in class, although the more I hear about people's job I get nervous wondering what I want to do for a career and can my CJ master get me there? I'm assuming these are normal concerns...I hope!

Working on my forensic entomology project. Read one article so far and there were so many "buggy" words; I was a bit confused as I read.

Conclusion: I am getting tired and a bit apathetic of school at this point. This always happens when you need motivation the most!! But luckily, I don't have a choice so here is what is standing in my way of finishing the semester:

My daily readings/response papers for all the classes, my 15-20 pg juvenile justice paper, my presentation next week and Assignment 3 for Stats, a final in Critical Victimology, and my 5-10 pg paper and 20 min presentation in Criminalistics.

Just typing that makes me want to scream!!

But I can do it....I hope!