Professors, lecturers, even TA's, welcome to The Lounge. No students allowed.How's the semester been for you lads?
Fucking rough. Started a new position and I've had four from-scratch preps this semester (Modern Physics, Classical Mechanics, Mechanical Design, Electronics). I'm like 7-8 hours over the usual weekly face time I had at my last posting.
>>16845211Damn man. I've never had more than two preps myself, sounds like a nightmare.
As someone interested in going into teaching - what's the general vibe right now? Are you guys enjoying it? Are things pretty stable? Or would I be better off just taking an industry job?
>>16845600If you'd worked on your stand-up routine for two months, managed to get on-stage for open-mic night, and then watched two people sleep and six others play with their phones, how would you feel?
>>16845657I don't understand the question. I want to be a teacher, not a comedian.
>>16845657Gonna be lots of little tardos in every class. Focus on the 1-5 students per class who care the most. Belittle the rest.
>>16845660>i don't understandYou just can't teach that.
>>16845660hahaha good oneyou've got the job
>>16845600You'd definitely be financially better off not in this profession, but I love it. I'm actually excited to go into work.
>>16845600Like I tell my brother - I love teaching, I just hate being a teacher. The actual day to day of being an instructor is something I deeply enjoy doing and I can’t see myself being happy in another career, but administrative and supportive work and academic bureaucracy add a lot of needless headaches and complications. I teach physics and chemistry and this semester I’m finally getting to teach a specialty class on vacuum systems and microfabrication to our seniors that I’ve been developing for years, and it’s going fucking great. On the other hand, our department just got denied support for hiring a new faculty member that we desperately need (our eight-faculty department has been averaging about a twelve-person-load every semester) because the president and the board are currently redirecting most of our college’s resources to spinning up their embarrassing ‘doctor of chiropractic medicine’ pet program.A big part of teaching is dealing with the fact that you’re going to frequently be undersupported for retarded reasons.
>>16845188>High school, middle school and elementary school teachers all get paid more than me>None of them do their fucking job, so the students all make it to college despite being blindingly retarded>I'm left to deal with their fuck-ups>Students then complain because I expect the bare minimum - e.g. writing actual, coherent sentences instead of just random symbols scattered about the page>Have to then deal with administrators>Said administrators also get paid more than me, and their entire body of work involves making the university as bad as possible, while demanding an increase in their own salaries>Administrators tell me I can't expect too much (i.e. basic literacy and logical adeptness) from the students because of demands from the state department of education>Mind you, the people working there get paid more than me - and everyone previously mentioned - and their entire job consists of making education as bad as possible for the whole stateI just wanted to research math. Fuck this shithole country. Americans - zoomers especially - are the worst.
>>16845188Fall semesters suck donkey dick. 12 weeks nonstop with no breaks. Students are burnt out. I'm burnt out. Thanksgiving is so close.
First time TA.Do students simply refuse to read, or genuinely not know how? Whether it's the lab procedure, a Canvas announcement, or the big red letters on the board, they simply ignore it.
>>16848553Half and half.
I had one student write "hoax law" instead of "Hooke's Law" on a lab report. I laughed out loud.
>professor I'm really worried about my exam scores, how can I be better prepared for the final?What do you say?
>>16850315Depends on what it is they've struggled with on previous exams I suppose. If it seems like a time management issue, talk to them about reading through the exam completely before starting to work on anything, and prioritizing the problems where they recognize the material or methods they can apply so they get the easy points out of the way early. If it seems like there are just particular concepts or problem-solving methods they're struggling with, offer to go over some of that material with them (and if they're still struggling after that, nudge them to prioritize the content on the final that they're stronger with). If they've just been absolutely beefing it on exams, consider having a frank talk about whether they should be withdrawing from the class (assuming the deadline hasn't already passed).This is the most frustrating time of year for me - the last few weeks of the semester where suddenly all the students who've been skipping class and failing exams come out of the woodwork all wanting to know how they can "buckle down" and "finish strong" and pass the course.
>>16850315No idea. I wish I could just tell them to fuck off though.
