My first grad student.....AHHHHHHHHHHHH!

     So...it happened today.....I tutored my first graduate student. I have faced many challenges in my first couple of months as a tutor. Whether it was an dealing with ESOL students (finding the correct balance of helpful versus being flat-out directive) or students who just wanted me to fast forward through a session because it was mandatory for their class, but this graduate student was on a whole other level.

     From the moment she walked in I was nervous because I knew she was a graduate student, all-be-it I am not very far from her position and she wasn't an English focused grad student, I was still nervous about how the session was going to go. She came in with 5 versions of a paper that she had been writing over the course of the semester each COVERED in red-ink, marked up to the point that it made them difficult to read. (Not to judge a professor's grading style, but I have never even met the lady and she scares me). At the end of the semester this (soul crushing) professor left my tutee with very low writing self-esteem, not knowing what other direction to take her (analytic art) paper in or what changes to make. She brought in a fresh copy of her last revised draft and we went through it. There were a couple mistakes, but really nothing major enough that I would have spilled any ink over them. I was astounded...and at a loss for how to really help her. I offered what little criticism I could, explained which parts I thought were just terrific, and stressed to her how I really didn't know much about what the paper was discussing, but that it flowed, was cohesive, I understood her points and found them valid, without being knowledgeable in the field. We talked and talked, discussed her ideas, I asked her questions, she thoughtfully answered them, and she made a few changes as we talked. Through all this however, no major changes were made.

When we were wrapping up the session, out of nowhere she asked if she could make another appointment with me in the future to discuss other papers......................................................... << these dots are what my face said back, it was mystified and blank. I quickly recovered, however, and enthusiastically exclaimed, "Sure, I would love that!"

Although I am still not sure how much I really helped her and am still kind of confused about how what little  help I gave had her wanting to come back to me, I am thrilled! Graduate students aren't sooooo scary after all! :)