This is an elm tree. It's very little but it will grow up into a giant tree

Today I was flipping through my first semester Statistics textbook in search of some insight into binomial logistic regressions (after excessive Googling, of course). For those of you who know me a little too well, you might be thinking, You're not taking a Statistics course this semester. Why would you be flipping through the book? Well, because the data analysis for my research experiment necessitates a binomial logistic regression. The final sentence in the chapter on logistic regressions was a caveat. Something to the effect of, "Don't carry out a logistic regression until referencing other textbooks cited at the end of this text." Now what?

As a Psychology major, my academic experience has been unlike those of other science majors out there, in that after my introductory course, there was no steady progression of difficulty. I just sort of took courses that (from sometimes misleading descriptions) seemed interesting and it just happened that I experienced my most challenging Psychology course first semester sophomore year (here's looking at you Cognitive Neuroscience!).

So naturally, after Cog Neuro, the courses I took this past year were not impossible (not to be confused with intellectually stimulating, though one is lacking in that department as well). But this year hasn't been entirely lackluster with respect to my Psychology-student self. Enter my independent research project (thesis). The phrase independent study is a bit deceptive. Yes, there are no exams, no pop quizzes, no stress over grades. But it's not a joke. And by the time you come to the "independent study" point of your life, you better be doing it for something more than a grade (yes, there is life beyond grades).

As I plough through, I'm starting to realize that "independent study" not only means that you study alone, but you also learn alone and teach yourself. There is nobody standing in front of my clicking through slides and lecturing away. Nobody telling me what I should and shouldn't know for some arbitrary assessment. And more than ever, I wish there were. I promise, I won't Gchat while you teach me. Just walk me through a binomial logistic regression problem! Give me some practice problems. Go over them with me in recitation!

Now it's up to me to take the initiative. To ask the questions. To pose the hypotheses. To pursue the results. Of course, I receive feedback. But in the end, I make the executive decision. And I'm not going to lie. It's scary. Because everything I "need to know" is not tucked away in the pages of a textbook written or highly recommended by my professor.

I guess this is what they mean when they call it the real world. No spoon feeding. No hand holding. Having the motivation to keep chugging along and the drive to pick yourself back up when you fall flat on your face.

As I look ahead at my last week of undergraduate courses, I have to say that in a weird way, I'm going to miss those slide decks whose length and denseness I so frequently cursed over these past four years. Charlie Brown was right. In the book of life there really are no answers in the back.