It is fascinating how many students think that academics get three months off each summer. Now wouldn’t that be something. Three whole months to do whatever we please – but alas, it is not the case. We thought that maybe our students might find it interesting to know what it is exactly that we get up to over the summer. So, here is our attempt to explain.
After you finish your exams in May, we begin furiously marking in order to meet deadlines that are tight and inflexible. Don’t underestimate the amount of work that goes on before your grades can be made available to you. Peeling back the flaps to reveal your name is time consuming enough, but on top of that, all results need to be collated, reviewed, and presented at examination and award boards as well as being verified by external examiners. All of this has to happen before anything can be released. If we missed the deadlines your result release would be delayed. Once we are finally finished the relief is only short lived as just a few weeks later, the entire process is repeated for the referrals – albeit on a smaller scale.
Graduation, a highlight in all of our calendars, is what we look forward to in July. We love to see our students all dressed up and walking across the stage, to meet their family and friends and to see how proud they are of your achievements. We always have such a fabulous day, and it is sad when it is over. Whereas for many of you this marks the beginning of your holidays, for us, it is back to work.
Most people think of the clearing period as being in August. In fact, for some students clearing starts at the beginning of July and this is an incredibly important time for them. We have to ensure that throughout this period we have academic staff at the end of a phone line to provide our future students with the correct help and advice. Mid-August brings the A-Level results and we are busy confirming places and speaking to students who enter clearing at this point. This is an intense time with us working in shifts from 6.00 am to 9.00 pm for the first few days.
Alongside all of this, we are already planning for the new academic year. This could be preparing new material, updating existing material, discussing what was effective and what was not and making changes accordingly. This year we have undergone a re-approval event (something that takes place every 5 years). This means that we have been through all of our courses and updated and changed them where necessary and completed a huge amount of paper work to ensure that our courses are up to scratch. This inevitably brings about a lot more work – all changes need to be communicated to students, and we must ensure that all external and internal facing information is correct and – of course – there are many new lectures to write.
On top of that – we are biologists, and as such, we are life-long learners, so we are continually trying to develop ourselves as well. We are attending conferences, workshops, seminars. We are writing papers and articles. We are meeting with colleagues in other departments, we are sharing best practice, we are planning outreach events, and we are signing up for courses ourselves. This will continue throughout the summer and the coming academic year.
And perhaps the biggest surprise to some of our undergraduates – we also teach! Our MSc students come for residential weeks in both July and in September with students travelling from all over the world to complete practical sessions. These weeks are great fun but require a lot of work from many members of staff.
However, it isn’t all work, we do get to have holidays as well – we are sure you want us to relax a little over the summer don’t you? This year Sarah is heading to Germany to enjoy Waldfests with friends, and Harry is heading to Mt Blanc – with ropes and crampons! Sue has been to Italy and so has Paul O. Pete and Pauline have been to Dubrovnik where they saw the iron throne. Kevin has been relaxing in Turkey and Paul M has stayed closer to home, heading down south with family. Angela has been to Majorca to recharge, Ian has been to Malta, whilst Dave went to Tenerife – he will tell you all about insect life on a volcanic island if you ask nicely.
The Coffee Lab – Costa Coffee – Science Centre
So, despite the commonly held belief that we get 3 months off, we do have some breaks but we really are working hard for most of the year! And, although there is never a queue for coffee during the summer, we still look forward to seeing our students return in September ?