The semester is coming to a close here and I can't believe how quickly it has gone by! I have definitely survived my first semester as a professor, but I need to figure out how to make them slow down a bit. I gave my last lecture on Tuesday so I am already done teaching. Woo! I do like teaching but I am soooo happy that I don't have to deal with PowerPoint for a while. Next semester I will be teaching the same courses plus a new astronomy lab. Since I taught that lab class at UT that means no new prep! Thank goodness. So next semester I should actually have time to do other things, like research. It's a little scary that I wasn't even able to finish a referee response over this whole semester. But things were really crazy at the start of the semester, so hopefully that will not be the norm. It better not be if I intend to get tenure!
It's a little sad thinking that I won't see my students again. The science majors I will probably see or hear about over the next few years, but my Gen Ed students are going off into the university. Hopefully they enjoyed my class and got something out of it. Which reminds me that it is a bit more nerve-racking to do Course Evaluations (or Student Evaluation of Instruction as they are called here) when they actually count for something. I generally got good ones at UT (hence the faculty job out of grad school), but you never know. I know that they will improve over time as I get more practice and figure out new techniques, but I feel a lot of pressure to get amazing evals now to show everyone that they did the right thing in hiring me and that I know what I am doing. They are trusting me to run a new major program, after all!
Anyway, even though I'm done actually teaching that doesn't mean I'm quite done being a professor this semester. We are now in the land of tests, projects, and grading. In fact, I am procrastinating on writing a test right now, and I have a stack of lab books next to me waiting to be graded. Guess I better get back to the grind!
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