New Instalment: What I would be doing if I weren't striking

This is the fourth part in our series on how academic staff spend their time. Throughout the strike, we'll report from the frontline of unsustainable workloads. Have you ever wondered what a lecturer, a postdoc, a teaching fellow does outside of the classroom? Read on to find out...

I rush back to Chandler House well past 1pm for a talk which I am supposed to be organising

It’s Wednesday morning. I get up at 7, and after a shower and some breakfast soon hop on the tube where I get in a good 20 minutes of reading my book; if I’m lucky I even get a seat. I get to Chandler House around 8.30, and after making a cup of tea, start the working day with going through my inbox, sorting through what needs doing right away and those emails that can wait. I reply to a few student queries, and schedule some meetings later this week with the various project students I co-supervise. 

Then I work through some administrative work from the teaching I did yesterday; I had two back-to-back teaching sessions from 1 to 5pm, meaning I had no time to sort this out before leaving work yesterday evening. After finishing all this, I have about 30 minutes left to start taking a look at some of the marking that has come in earlier this week, before making my way to the main campus for a two hour lecture from 11am. 

I am not the only one having to come to the lecture theatre from further afield: the majority of the students have lectures across campus right before this one, so my lecture starts 15 minutes late to give people time to actually make it to the building. Even though I started later than scheduled I try to squeeze in all the material. It’s a topic I really enjoy teaching, but my schedule these past few days meant that I didn’t have the time to prepare as much as I would have liked to; regardless, students seem to be reasonably happy. 

I end up staying behind to answer some student questions about the upcoming coursework assignment before rushing back to Chandler House well past 1pm for a talk which I am supposed to be organising. Normally I help the speaker set up before their talk and chair the questions, but today someone else was kind enough to take this on, knowing I wouldn’t be able to make it in time from main campus. After an interesting talk I am off to my last teaching slot of the day at 2pm, where I teach a three hour long session for master students. It’s only a small group so the sessions themselves are very interactive, which is a lot of fun and makes for very satisfying teaching, but it’s also very exhausting. 

I end up staying late to finish up the administrative work after the last lecture, going through my inbox to check for urgent emails that I might have received since I last had time to look at my email 8 hours ago, and doing some preparatory work for my meeting at 10am tomorrow morning, knowing I won’t have time to manage all of the preparation between 8.30 and 10am otherwise. I leave, knowing that despite really enjoying all the teaching I do, my never ending to-do list will be similarly packed tomorrow.