It’s a common question, one I ask and occasionally try to answer myself. When talking with other students in the department, the typical answer is “oh, fine,” or some other brief explanation with little detail. In that sense it’s like asking how somebody is when meeting; you don’t neccessarily want a real answer, it’s just something you say.
On the other hand, really telling how your courses are going–just like explaining how you are–can be tough. As an undergraduate I had many more opportunities for feedback from professors. That’s not to say that I had more interaction with professors, because I didn’t; all my in-class time nowadays is discussion, whereas my undergraduate courses were largely lectures, a much less intimate experience. But feedback in the form of quizes or tests gave some indication as to how things were going. And I have none of that now.
So answering the question means relying on my own feel for how I’m doing–pretty good, so far. On whether or not I feel overwhelemed–I don’t. There’s a lot of reading, but I knew that coming in, and there’s not as much as I’d been led to believe.
The one thing that gets to me is being at the bottom again. Being in courses with students in their third, fourth, or fifth year means there’s a great deal that they bring to the table that I don’t know… yet. The main thing is historiography, and the only way to catch up in that regard is to read as much as I can, and pay attention to who’s arguing what.
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