Residency Schedule

All of us MFA students at Seton Hill University's Writing Popular Fiction course have slightly different schedules while at residency. But, to give readers a flavor of how it works I thought I'd give some hightlights of what a typical student might be up to during the week:

• orientation and welcome
  
• first residency session, discussion of Common Genre Reading, Changes by Jim Butcher
  
• Workshop: "Practice Reading Aloud"
  
• Workshop: "What to Put In, What to Take Out"
  
• MFA Thesis presentations
  
• Mixed genre fiction workshop
  
• Workshop: "Sense of Wonder and the Sublime"
  
• individual meetings with faculty mentors
  
• SF/H/F fiction workshop
  
• luncheon with e-mail critique groups
  
• Workshop: "Maintaining Narrative Tension in Fantasy, SF, and Horror"
  
• MFA Thesis presentations
  
• student teaching sessions
  
• guest speakers Heather Osborn and Lucienne Diver present "Current Publishing Trends in Popular Fiction"
  
• guest speakers Heather Osborn and Lucienne Diver run "Query Letter Workshops"
  
• Alumni Panel Presentations
  
• Workshop: "New Trends in Mystery"
  
• Mixed genre fiction workshop
  
• Graduation

In the fiction workshops we students submit our work and are critiqued by our peers.
In the MFA Thesis presentations graduating students defend their MFA thesis, which consists of a reading from their thesis novel and answering questions from mentors, faculty, and students.
The other Workshops are basically classes taught by the faculty, for example UF author and SHU professor, Nicole Peeler, will be teaching my "New Trends in Mystery" Workshop.
Generally, we have different guest speakers and they present different topics each semester.
As for Alumni Panel Presentations, I don't know what they are. I guess I'll have to wait and see!

Anyone have any different MFA experiences? Or MA, or BA, for that matter? :)