First class ... for them.

As another quarter  (and another school year) starts I can feel a sense of excitement on campus.  I trudge through the hustle, bustle and usual parking hassles.  Sitting in my Data Analysis class I can pinpoint the first quarter newcomers versus the rest of us veterans.  The wide-eyed newbies have a trying-to-take-it-all-in look as they rigidly sit waiting for the professor to start talking.   Some still are wearing their MBA candidate name plates they received in orientation.  They are freshmen once again ready to be hazed by the flames of graduate coursework.  One the other side of class the veterans sit casually, gabbing and griping to each other about their previous quarter grades, their summer break, the same complaints about work that echoed in my last class.

Takeaways:   Get plugged into your classmates as soon as  you can, especially in the working professional program.  Your classmates have a world of experience that you don't.