Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Let's get this party started

It's party time.  Registrations have ramped up, textbooks are stacked, students are sharpening their pencils, and the nerdy professor is in.

My courses are far more developed than I expected them to be at this point. I've worked a hell of a lot of hours over the past two months, but it was time well spent, as I now am feeling like I can do this. They're not completely complete, but honestly I'm about a day away from them being as complete as they really should be at this point. I want to leave myself a little wiggle room, just in case, but they're basically done.

So, if all goes well, I just might survive the fall semester. I might even survive the winter semester if I play my cards right. I haven't started prepping those courses yet, but the thing is, I already seem to be getting better at this.  I'm building courses faster, making them more interactive, and fairly easily and substantially improving on the ones I developed only one short (long??) month ago.

I can do this.

I might even be able to do slightly more, and get in some *gasp* research this year. You know, the think I actually want to do most?  Timelines are looking reasonable. I.Can.Do.This.

I'm giving myself a pep talk, it seems.

Is anyone out there? I know this is an invisible little blog where I talk into the void, but I'd love to connect with some other first year professors. Methinks a little forum search is in order. Surely there's an e-place for us.


Thursday, August 15, 2013

Cautiously optimistic

A couple months into this whole backwards adventure, and I'm cautiously optimistic. That's good, right?

I mean, the two-bit town is what it is, but I'm finding a few little jewels in it. Amidst the grunge of it all, there are a few little diamonds around -- unpopular ones in these parts, but I'm okay with that.

As far as the professorship goes, it really is hard to tell on so many counts. I mean, school hasn't started yet. I haven't given a single class. All I've done is plug away at building my courses, alone in my little office in an abandoned building. But, although the number of hours I've been working is a little over the top, I don't dislike the work. It's kind of fun.

Part of it, though, is really, really, really good. Which part, you ask, dear Internet?

The "independent" part.

You see, they always talk in academia about getting to the end of the schooling bit and getting an independent position. That's what I've done. And, as it turns out, I was right on one count anyway. THIS is what I NEEDED. I had been crawling out of my skin through the Ph.D. and post-doc because I felt like I could do more, was ready for more, was being held back, was ready for independence.

Now, I'm just in the very early stages, but OH MY MYTHICAL DIETY, it feels so friggin' good to not be anyone's lackey anymore. I'm on my own, I answer to myself, nobody is looking over my shoulder. It's been two months and nobody knows if I've worked a day. I've worked WAY more hours than I ever would have worked if I had been on the clock, but it's okay, because it's my choice, it's my work, they're my courses. I'm not serving someone else.

Of course, you could argue that my pay stub still says a number of hours on it, which is way lower than the number actually worked, and that I do actually have a boss who will some day decide whether I stay or go, but it's just not the same as it used to be. I'm not going to go whining to the boss that I worked extra hours and can I please get paid (obviously I can't be - that's what salaried means), but I'm also not going to go groveling to my boss saying I worked extra hours last week so can I please leave early for an appointment on Friday. If I need to, I will, and it's nobody's business but my own.

Basics, perhaps, but it's been a long time coming and I've been so ready for it for so long. Basically, it feels like I finally, *FINALLY*, have an adult life. And it fits me quite fine.

Monday, August 5, 2013

On the power and freedom... and responsibility of teaching

Here I am, Professor Zil, developing undergrad courses.  Of course, I've never really done this before, so I have no clue what I'm doing. But, dammit, it can be fun.

Through our doctoral studies, we push one very well-defined topic to its extreme, taking it apart and looking at it in its finest detail. Interesting enough, to be sure, but this is not what I originally fell in love with. Now, as I develop undergraduate courses, I'm getting back to the basics -- and, I'm rediscovering the material that I fell head-over-heels in love with in the first place.

It's more than that, though. I'm rediscovering that basic material, but I'm doing so in a context where I get to cherry pick. Yeah, there are some basics that really have to teach -- not because anyone is telling me I have to, but because I know that it's the foundation of the field and anyone with this degree should have certain knowledge.

In addition to those basics, though, there are so many other peripheral topics, or applications, or twists that I get to choose from. I get to pick what makes ME excited, and use it to teach new students what this field is all about.

I was just developing some tangential course material a few minutes back and it occurred to me: as I pick these topics that somehow define me, who I am, what I'm interested in, I'm creating the undergraduate experience and shaping the minds of a cohort of students. Of course, we know that in higher education every single degree is different. I've always known that it depends to some degree on what the students interests are -- what they choose for term papers, what they integrate and what their brains purge after each exam... but I guess it just occurred to me that their degree also depends quite profoundly on what I'M interested in.

That's kinda cool.

You see, there were things I had to sit through during my undergrad that I didn't particularly agree with. And I'm sure my students will listen to me ramble on about things they don't really believe in. But my courses will contain nothing that I don't agree with. I will purge the nasties from my curriculum and replace them with things that I learned and liked, or -- more excitingly -- things I never did hear about during my degree, but that I wish I had.  I have the freedom and the power shape their vision of this discipline in the way I see it.

Of course, with great freedom comes great responsibility. I hope I can live up to the responsibility that has been bestowed upon me. I hope my additions make sense, my deletions don't detract from their foundation, and that somehow through my choices and my interests my students will discover whatever it is that gets them excited. I hope that in my courses they will find what they were looking --- but that somehow they also find at least a nugget of something they didn't even know they wanted.