First Day

Last night I didn't sleep very well. It was probably the nerves. After all, today was my first day of actual attendance at Empire.

I showered, dressed, gathered my things and, despite still being half asleep, headed off to school. It's lucky for me that I live all of about five miles from the school, because I am not much of a morning person and like to sleep as long as I can. This is especially true when I'm adjusting to a new schedule.

When I arrived and went to clock in on the hand-scanner, I found it impossible to do so without my ID number. You see, the school had provided me with a slip of paper at orientation that had my number on it and I put it in a “safe place.” I should have known better. A “safe place” seems to be a place you put something when you want to hide it from yourself. Because of this, they had me sign in on paper until they could get a printout of my number.

After waiting around for a time for the rest of my class to slowly filter in, we settled into the room and started to get to know the teacher. Now, I don't wish ill on anyone, but it was reassuring for me to know that the reason she was teaching and not out working or managing her own salon was that she had been in an accident that damaged some of the nerves in her hand. In addition to her cosmetology license she also holds an esthetician license. This is just as well considering the first “module” we're starting in is skin care.

I had figured the learning order was the same at all times, but as I was about to find out, this wasn't the case. From what I can gather, Empire's curriculum is set up in rotating modules in order to facilitate rolling start dates. If you ask me, that's fairly genius considering the length of the program.

After we went over many lists of information about the school policies, our days off, and our freshman expectations we began to receive our student kits. Getting this was a great way to break up the time spent going over so many policies. Let me just say that this kit is huge and absolutely gorgeous. I could go on and on about everything that it contains, but I feel like it requires its own post with photos to go along with it.

Despite how tedious the introductory lectures were, I can't say I expected to move right into skin care today, but we did. I think this sets the pace and manages to waste no time at all. I'm wasn't really certain if I should be happy, or intimidated by that speed, but it did make me realize that missing one day would be missing a lot of material indeed. In fact, we got so far into the structure of the skin that we even went over to join another class to do a hands-on activity. This was an eye opening experience.

For the bulk of the day up to that point, I had been in a room with quiet attentive adults. What I walked into was a classroom with what I would call unruly children. They were mostly younger, they were rowdy, and they were loud. It was difficult to believe that they were in an adult education situation. If I had joined and ended up in a class like that I would have marched right back over to the office and asked if my class could be changed, or if I could push back my start date. There would be no way that I would pay almost 20,000 be in a classroom like that one.

It looks like this particular school is in the process of going through a lot of positive changes due to its new head of education and they are cracking down on behavior like that. Our teacher was equally taken aback and reinforced to us that, unfortunately, it takes all kinds and that we can only really focus on our own behavior. However, it doesn't look particularly good for the school after all of the emphasis on professionalism, and that is a shame.

I really did enjoy my first day, though and I can't wait to show everyone my kit.