First Day of Class!

Thanks to three days of orientation, I felt prepared for the first day of classes today. We're starting out with the basics of a research degree: philosophy and theory. I am a fan of philosophy. My most memorable undergraduate class was a philosophical class.

In fact, if I wasn't interested, the first reading might have been a little overwhelming! Thankfully, there are some good on-line dictionaries. We are asking some really interesting questions in our classes. Today we discussed what knowledge is and whether it can accurately reflect reality. We discussed reality. We talked about what constitutes and comprises nursing knowledge. We wondered whether nursing has to have its own theories or how important nursing theories are if there are strong research theories already developed. And like every philosophy class I've ever been in, we didn't resolve anything. I loved it. It is really nice to just think.

In the very short time that I've been working on this degree (the entire first day) I've noticed that there is an emphasis on thinking. My previous degrees emphasized skills. We did learn how to read research and we studied some basic statistics, but our goal was to develop and use skills. That is a great goal, and I'll use those skills my whole life. My nursing knowledge is what defines a good part of who I am, no matter how I define nursing knowledge. But I am really excited to begin to understand the history of that knowledge and the theories that helped create it.

Knowledge is power! Well actually what is accepted as knowledge may be influenced by who is in power therefore making it less representative of reality for some people...but still, yay!

I worked a little on my project after class but my cat was really a little too interested in helping and I ended up giving him a brushing and then making dinner.

He is very helpful.