ABSTRACT
Many of you received a phone call or a letter last spring or early summer and the text of that letter or phone call went something like the following: “Congratulations, you've been admitted to our graduate program AND we will support your graduate work with a teaching assistantship.” Hopefully, your immediate reaction was “Yippee!” as well as the appropriate degrees of pride, resolve, and relief. After further thought, and maybe as you began packing and preparing, you may have had a second set of reactions that sounded like, “Oh, no, I don't know if I can do this. What was I thinking?” Both of these reactions are normal and you are encouraged to pay close attention to the first set of reactions, for there is a great deal of accomplishment recognized in the fact that you have been accepted to a graduate program and that you have been granted a teaching assistantship. However, you may have noticed that the second set of responses does not easily go away.
