Induction (Duh Duh Duuuuuuuuuh)

Attended induction at my university today (and doesn't that sound like I'm joining a cult) which was both a lot more and less than I was expecting from the day. I don't actually matriculate until tomorrow, which means that I am still without a matriculation number, student ID, or a class schedule, though I do have a much better idea of what that schedule might look like now.

If you want to go to my programs website, by the way, this is the link. 

I found out that the program does several very cool looking trips over the course of the year, the first being a three day, two night excursion to The Burn in October, with a stopover to tour DC Thomson. The other trips include a Publishing Scotland Conference, the London Book Fair, the Edinburgh International Book Fair, and MagFest. 

First trimester we study Publishing in Context, The Business of Magazine Publishing, Creative Toolkit (whatever that means), and Publishing in Practice: From Concept to Creation.

Second trimester is Publishing in Practice: From Creation to Consumer, Publishing Placement & Professional Development (which I believe would be our internship) and then we get to choose one of New Venture Planning, From Script to Screen, Interactive Media, and Magazine Publishing.

Third trimester we don't actually have any classes (so if anyone wants to come visit me, come during the third trimester) but instead just work on our dissertation for the duration of the trimester. Depending on your internship, that may also stretch into the third trimester. 

Total, we only have three days of classes a week, which is nice. 

Today, we met up at noon for induction (basically welcome and introduction). It was very nice to arrive and see already familiar faces (I briefly considered the benefits of sitting with new people before going to sit with the people I already know - there are only about forty of us, I'm sure we'll all get to know each other quite well). We broke for lunch from 1-2. The campus is quite easy to navigate, I was worried I might have trouble finding our meeting room, but it was quite easy to locate, as was the cafeteria. We didn't actually go to our program rooms today, which are apparently equipped with locks that are opened by swiping our student cards (so only publishing students can go in those rooms - so fancy!). Doing my BA, while lots of other departments had rooms with specific resources that were only open to students in that department, the English department was not quite as lucky. I'm very excited to have our own space! And they use macs (thank god). The Merchiston Campus of Edinburgh Napier, which is where my program is located, also has the main University library and a 24-hour PC Barn with about 500 computers. It is also just finishing renovations, so it is very nice and new. 

After lunch we returned and were introduced to the Scottish Centre for the Book, of which the MSc Publishing students make up a major part. There are several internship positions being offered through SCOB for the first trimester, which I am probably going to try and get one of (the workload only amounts to about one afternoon a week, for 20 weeks). 

Then we were given our first assignment - in randomly assigned groups (the girls in my group seem lovely) we are to, by next Wednesday, research publications of Merchiston Publishing, contact an elementary school which will be assigned to us tomorrow, arrange to deliver a box of free books which we will have chosen from Merchiston Publishing's published works, pack and print a list of outgoing stock, secure authorization from a staff member for stock distribution, compose and print a letter to the school, deliver the books in person, securing a photo of donation and (hopefully) a thank you letter from the school (which is apparently discretionary, as compared to the mandatory photo), and prepare an article for uploading to the school website. 

By Wednesday. When we don't know what our class schedules are (and we could all be in different tutorials). 

Tomorrow morning we start at 9:30, getting more detailed information on the program and module structure, before matriculating at 11:00, with lunch from 12-1, so after we all matriculate, we will need to quickly figure out when works for all of us to go to the school and call the school and arrange that over lunch. 

Its a bit much.

Anyways, we finished off today with a tour of Blackwells, which was really cool and interesting, as it included a behind-the-scenes look at how a bookstore operates, as well as a lot of information about how publishers interact with bookstores. Which got me back from completely overwhelmed to excited (but still spinning a bit). We finished at 7pm, so I was pretty wiped (I think we all were). 

Tomorrow we also attend a lecture on "Personal Goal Setting for Postgraduate Students" and a guest speaker event, finishing at 5pm. Then monday we officially start classes!

In other, non-school news, I rearranged my furniture in my room today, only to discover a built-in-cupboard hidden behind my wardrobe. I need to call my landlord tomorrow night anyways, so I will definitely be asking him about that - because hey, extra storage, always a good thing!

ETA: Just found this in my pocket...

This obviously being the way that my program leaders decided to divide us into random groups... by having us draw numbered mini boxes of raisins out of a bucket.

But hey, no niggling nasties!