Academics

I'm going to start a new series on my classes here at PTS, just a brief description of each and what my experience was like.  Before I do so, I want to say something about the level of academics here.

This topic seems to interest a lot of people because I have been asked about the difficulty of my classes just about every time I go home.  Something about the Princeton name just seems to rock people back on their heels, and their immediate reaction is holy crap, I bet that's hard.  I have to admit, I was pretty nervous about how difficult the work would be before I started.

In general, I'd have to say that classes here aren't as difficult as I feared they might be, but they're certainly harder than my undergraduate classes.  At IWU, I wasn't normally forced to work all that hard in order to keep up with a class.  I could do enough to get a grade without engaging if I felt like it.  There were several classes, when I simply wasn't interested, where I did almost none of the reading and still just sort of cruised through.  That can't happen at PTS.  Here, in general, is what I would say about academics at PTS.
 
1)  Yes, the classes are harder than undergraduate classes.  No, they're not absurdly hard.  Just as college was the next logical step after high school, graduate school (for me) has been the next logical step after college.  The level of work required at PTS is the sort of work I could have done in undergrad had I put in the time and been invested.  I am not required to do work at a whole different level than undergrad, I'm just required to do my best work all the time.  If I let something slide, its going to hurt.


2) When I decided to come to PTS, I had visions of myself buried under stacks of books, trying desperately to keep up with the reading and wanting to kill myself.  While there are moments that feel overwhelming, the work load isn't unreasonable.  I would say that I spend an average of 2+ hours a day reading the weekly material.  This doesn't include projects, papers or tests, but the number of assignments is drastically lower at PTS than at any other point in my life.  Most classes have 1 or 2 papers, and maybe 1 test.  Those tests and projects are stressful, but they don't come around often, and they are manageable when they happen.


3)  The classes here may be harder, but they are interesting and you almost never feel like you are wasting your time.  I've not had a class yet in which I wasn't engaged or didn't find some value in the class.  The reading assignments are all relevant and (usually) interesting.  The classes cover interesting topics and issues.  I confess, I have a hard time putting effort into something I don't enjoy.  I'm not very disciplined in that regard, but this hasn't been an issue so far at PTS.


4)  There are very smart people here, but most of them aren't scary smart.  There are something like 400 people on campus, not all of them can be geniuses.  It turns out that most of them are normal people.  They're bright, but they live on the same plane of existence as the rest of us.  What I've found makes a much larger difference is familiarity with material.  Those who are well-read or well-versed in a particular area have a huge advantage over those who aren't.  The intimidating people here are not people who are extremely smart, it is the people who are extremely well-read.  Nothing trumps experience in a particular area.

One last thing that I want to discuss: How well has IWU prepared me for PTS?  I have felt remarkably well-prepared academically for PTS.  I wasn't in honors college, I didn't do anything special to prepare for PTS, but I don't feel out of my league or behind the rest of the students.  Again, I think this goes back to what I was saying about experience in a discipline.  IWU exposed me to the major topics, figures and ideas that I'm learning at PTS.  My classes haven't been completely new material for me, which has helped a lot in managing the workload.  Overall, I think IWU did an excellent job preparing me for grad school at PTS in everything from academic topics to my writing.

There are 3 major areas, however, that I feel like I'm a bit behind.  I don't feel like I was exposed much to major German theologians (from about 1800 on), I didn't learn much of anything about the major current theologians or the discussions and debates currently taking place in theology, and I don't have a clue when it comes to the Chicago Manual of Style.  Given the objective of IWU's program, which I think is more pastoral than academic and rightly so, I'm not upset that I wasn't exposed to that stuff, but I do feel a bit behind some of my fellow students in those areas.

Coming soon:  My Old Testament class and frustrations which lie therein.