Above: If graduate school were a food item, it would be an expired, half-eaten cupcake that you decide to eat because of nostalgic attachment to memories of a previously good, food-standards-compliant cupcake.

I recently returned to Notre Dame to take up a master’s degree program, thus remedying my mistake of studying only the humanities as an undergrad (just kidding, my undergraduate experience was enriching and, if it did not prepare me for any kind of professional future, at least helped me, you know, build character. That’s worth something, right? Right? **cries in a corner**). Anyway, I’ve been on campus now for around two weeks, and here are my initial thoughts:

1. I forgot how to think. A couple of weeks ago I made the mistake of thinking that six and four added up to eleven, and right now I’m enrolled in a statistics course. Things that will be difficult: that statistics course.
2. People are nice at Notre Dame and in the South Bend area. Seriously. Since finishing up my undergraduate degree I’ve lived in large-ish cities (Vancouver, Canada and Washington, D.C.), and strangers did not, you know, randomly say “good morning” as they passed me by on the sidewalk or smile as profusely as they do here. Score: South Bend: 1; larger cities: 0.
3. There is Uber in South Bend! Score: South Bend: 2; Vancouver: 0; taxi lobby: -10.
4. Once you’re officially registered as a graduate student, some magical intransitive transformation occurs within you whereby you develop an organ for detecting the presence of free food. And given that a lot of the free food (+booze) is at receptions, you get the added benefit of feeling fancy and like you’re actually an adult (whereas in reality you know you’re just faking it).
5. I swear the freshmen get younger every year. I couldn’t possibly ever have looked that young, right?
6. Actually being able to think deeply about things is incredibly refreshing, particularly after two years of being in the working world. The readings in grad school may be long, but it is just fantastic to actually be engaged in deep reflection instead of shaking your work laptop in frustration because Excel confused you again.
7. I somehow have more money than I did while an undergrad but feel poorer. What gives?
8. I actually think that this is where I’m meant to be at the moment. Grad school is weird and different, but I know instinctually that, for the time being, this is where I belong.