And you thought being a student was hard...

Before my time as a Communication professor at Ivy Tech, I spent many years doing corporate and organizational training. When I decided to become an instructor, I thought it couldn't be much different from what I did for companies. Boy, I couldn't be more wrong! Although I'd never tell my students, I learn more from them than they will ever learn from me!

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Dear God, I Need Spring Break!

It has been a rough couple of weeks. After the blitz of trying to get everything together for applying to the ISU PhD program, I had hoped to be able to relax a little.

Nope.

I had a conference presentation proposal to type up and submit (which meant doing some research first!), get everything together for a passport, do some committee work, plan my vacation (Fort Lauderdale, baby!), catch up on grading, oh, and see my family.

I just need to get through today and tomorrow, then I am Spring Break bound. I'm not actually leaving for Florida until Wednesday, but that's okay. Until then, not only can I pack, but I can get all grading caught up and sent off, prep the two 8-week courses I will be picking up the week after Spring Break, and get my house and family ready for me to be gone for a week. That's right, they are not coming with me to Florida. My girlfriend and I are going, sans husbands and children, to lay in the sun and have NO responsibilities of any kind.

As I have warned all of my students that I will be MIA until the Thursday after Spring Break (I only have class and office hours on Thursday and Friday this semester, and I'm taking advantage of it!), I am getting bombarded with last minute questions. I do online tests, even for my f2f classes, and they are due before class the week after we get back, and there's always someone who is panicked. I did tell them that if something with BB happened, I would be checking in at least once a day to reset tests or fix any major problems, but I would not respond to emails or questions that could wait until we got back. Doesn't seem to be lessening the questions or panic, though.

Do they not understand that Spring Break is just as much for Faculty (if not more so!) as it is for students?!

1 comment:

  1. They always panic about tests whether they know we'll be around or not. I tell them from Day 1 that I check emails every morning between 5 and 6 am and if they email me after that, I may or may not answer before the next morning but they will definitely get an answer the next morning. Still I get 2 and 3 emails sometimes without a couple of hours from the same student about the same issue. *sigh* As in "did you get the email I sent a while ago?"

    Glad you've got a nice break coming up. I've got spring break coming up at one school (4 classes off YAY!) but the others are going full steam ahead. That's the bad thing about teaching for so many schools.

    Have fun on break!

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