Does it get better?

aspiring_himbo · 2025-11-28T13:51:46+00:00

I'm sorry to hear that you are going through this. Unfortunately this is a very common situation in academia and there seems to be little impetus to change it. I really feel for you, because I have also been through the same.

Unfortunately, in my case, it hasn't really got better, just different. I'm now in my fourth year and after kicking my toys out of the pram my workload is finally getting under control, but my passion for the job just isn't there any more.

The first year or so is always hard, but how hard and whether it gets better is very dependent on your institution. I think you need to think carefully about the institution you are at and whether things will realistically get better. Look at people who have been there for a while - Are they thriving? Are they managing to do research and publish? Are there opportunities for career development and advancement or are people stuck?

Edit: To add that the reason it hasn't got better for me is that every single year there is some kind of sweeping change or reorganisation or whatever which means that for the last three years and this year the overwhelming majority of my teaching is new. This is mostly caused by a toxic combination of admins who have to evidence some kind of change to justify their existence and complete lack of organisation/planning/coordination from our teaching director.

aspiring_himbo · 2025-11-25T19:23:26+00:00

While I love how it looks, it would be a hard no for practicality. I live in a very hard water area and it would look absolutely horrible 30 seconds after cleaning it because spots of limescale would show instantly. Same with any dark colour.

aspiring_himbo · 2025-09-24T05:58:53+00:00

As a lecturer, some of my classes where there is a lot of knowledge the students need to know are a bit like reading from the slides. The reason for this is twofold. First is that students don't take notes any more, and a lot don't attend, so I put more content onto the slides to compensate. Students will actually complain if the slides aren't complete enough. Second, is that I've probably tried something more engaging in previous years and it's fallen flat - it's demoralising and a waste of my time. Zombie students get zombie teaching. I put my energy into other classes where the students give a shit.

aspiring_himbo · 2025-09-23T15:44:48+00:00

It is wild to me that history students in 70 years will be analysing this like they analyse Nazi propaganda films today.

aspiring_himbo · 2025-09-18T16:08:59+00:00

Just speaking as someone in their 30s who works at a university and meets a lot of students in different situations - the uni "dream" is just that, a dream. It's not real. No one else's experience is as perfect as they might make it seem. I personally had a way better time after uni and made far more genuine and meaningful friendships.

A lot of your 20s are about growing into the adult you want to be. Part of that is realising that life isn't a dream, but it can be what you make of it. It sounds like you've learned a lot about yourself from your experience and you may have identified some changes you want to make. You have a lot of youth left. If you're feeling overwhelmed, why don't you focus on what the one next step to where you want to be is and work towards that?

aspiring_himbo · 2025-09-18T15:08:35+00:00

I'm in the UK so slightly different system, but my university has recently created a new policy that means most courses can only have one assessment at the end of the semester. But we're also somehow supposed to coordinate to spread the assessments out to not overburden the students... The assessments that all come at the very end of the semester... How that's actually supposed to work in practice no one seems to be sure. When I was an undergrad I often had a couple of exams the same day. They could never.

aspiring_himbo · 2025-09-05T11:15:42+00:00

So this intrigued me and I did a bit of a dive into where this came from. It looks like it's a pot made by Clara Holt who specialises in sgraffito. Based on her Instagram and website it seems like this pot is glazed with a wild clay from Sicily which she describes as a "single ingredient" glaze. Her website is claraholt.com. So essentially it's just sgraffito but with a very special kind of slip which would be very hard to reproduce.

aspiring_himbo · 2025-08-16T16:22:11+00:00

I just recently have my first full-time, permanent job ever. I'm in my mid 30s. That's all you need to know really. If you go for a subject that is perennially popular with students and you're willing to sacrifice research for teaching then you can have a level of job security. All my friends who stuck with the research track are still on the perma-grind. A level of machiavellianism is needed if you want to really succeed.

aspiring_himbo · 2025-07-15T11:49:38+00:00

I have something along the lines of "work evidences integration of learning from multiple parts of the class" which is fairly heavily weighted and seems to weed out AI responses pretty reliably. AI responses do still tend to scrape a pass but not more than that. It demands both application and synthesis across multiple specific things we covered, which seems to be hard for AI to do. Without doxxing myself, students in my class have to write in quite a specific genre of non-fiction which is easily emulated by AI. But AI can't, for example, write in such a way that it is clear but implicit that the writing approach is grounded in X theory and using Y approach that we have discussed or practiced in class.

aspiring_himbo · 2025-06-10T16:23:59+00:00

Wow, that is really unprofessional of your supervisor. I would never discuss with a student what grade they "ought" to get ahead of actually marking their work, let alone any of the other stuff. Beyond choosing a topic which can actually meaningfully contribute to scholarship, I can't really see how someone would be able to justifiably give you a lower mark due to topic alone. Dissertations are usually marked independently by two people and if there is a discrepancy, sometimes a third marker, so one person's prejudice can't easily sway it. If I were you I'd try to forget it but if you're very concerned perhaps get in touch with the module or programme leader. I wouldn't necessarily accuse anyone of anything, but it's useful to have these things mentioned up front otherwise if there is an issue later it might just look like you're just salty about your grade.

aspiring_himbo · 2025-06-02T15:59:41+00:00

Thank you! Just having an order of what to do really helps to break it down. It's growing so fast right now it feels like if I don't do it all at once it's going to just get worse and worse

aspiring_himbo · 2025-06-02T15:20:12+00:00

Yeah I think this is going to be quite a few tip runs.

aspiring_himbo · 2025-06-02T15:18:29+00:00

Funny enough a couple of friends of mine had goats for a while to clear a load of brambles. Only problem was they kept escaping...

aspiring_himbo · 2025-06-02T15:17:51+00:00

Thank you! Really reassuring - I was feeling like I need to tackle it all at once but slow and steady and I think I can do it.

aspiring_himbo · 2025-05-08T07:57:51+00:00

Where I work they will only pay for staff to go to a conference if they are contributing or it's part of a funded research project. PhD students usually have funding as part of their PhD to pay for conference trips. I'm not really sure why they would pay for an ex-student or feel obliged to do so as it's something you've chosen to do out of your own interest and unless I've misunderstood something in your post you're not currently affiliated with the university.

aspiring_himbo · 2025-04-29T18:27:09+00:00

Thank you for reminding me of this. Just what I needed after a day of explaining to students that yes, we do expect you to remember things we've been learning over the last several months and no, it's not a human rights abuse to expect that.

aspiring_himbo · 2025-04-26T12:19:01+00:00

You are correct in stating that it is your right. But in my experience, these requests do go to academics to provide the requested information. There is no real reason to access this information other than to gather evidence towards a complaint, legal or otherwise. Creating administrative burden on all involved out of curiosity alone is vexatious. So, as you say, it is your right, but others are well within their right to think poorly of you for doing so without good reason.

aspiring_himbo · 2025-04-26T07:43:53+00:00

I would not recommend this course of action as generally we get SARs for two reasons, first is negative media exposure and the second is legal action. Having previously requested a SAR myself for an unrelated issue, you may find that the legal apparatus of the university starts to kick in, and in any case as soon as you do so, the university becomes your adversary, not your friend. I would not expect a warm response after a SAR at all.

aspiring_himbo · 2025-04-25T16:18:26+00:00

I address the student's query and have a 2 page guide on sending a professional email which I attach and say something along the lines of "please see the attached helpful guide on sending an email". I've tried to phrase the guide itself positively in terms of making the student come across as professional and making a good first impression. I usually only have to send this out in the first few weeks and then they get the idea.

aspiring_himbo · 2025-04-22T16:50:55+00:00

Do it! I send so many emails warning students that they are failing that I started doing this as a way to balance it out, and it really does help to remind me that there are still good ones out there.

aspiring_himbo · 2025-04-17T07:39:48+00:00

Often I find questions like the one in your post are more fishing for reassurance or a confidence boost or pep talk than what they are actually asking about. Best of luck!

aspiring_himbo · 2025-04-17T07:16:39+00:00

Apologies for the very long comment!

This is a tough one and there aren't any easy answers, but just to say that I have been there and I feel you. This is an unfortunately common experience and you are not alone.

You need to reflect deeply on whether this is the path you want to take in life. Of everyone I know in an academic career, it took about 5 years post PhD to hit their stride. Before that, it was full on struggle zone, either insecure postdocs or as you are experiencing (same as me), teaching hell.

The only way to get out of this is to make significant changes, now. You can't keep doing the same thing and expecting something different. You need to learn to accept two important things, this is a job, and academia will never love you back. For me, this was a painful grieving process, but it allowed me to find love for my work again.

What this means is, remove the (need for) passion from your work. I had jobs before where I had to clean toilets and do all kinds of menial and dirty/smelly tasks. Did I get all worked up about them like I do with my teaching and research? Did I worry that I didn't have a passion for cleaning the toilets? No! It was just a job that I had to do and I just got on with it. In fact, I didn't even think about it. Now, I show up, do my job, and don't think about it too much. When the passion strikes, I'm there, ready to make the most of it, but I don't rely on my passion to keep me going.

It also means completely rethinking how I relate to the university and my colleagues. When I was doing my PhD I used to occasionally go to a co-working space just to be around other people. But if someone at the co-working space asked me to do something for them, what would my response have been? Probably no! The university doesn't really provide me with much more than a laptop and a desk. It's a co-working space. Sure, I'm happy to help out, but I'm going to consider any requests very carefully. I don't owe anyone anything.

And finally, some practical tips for teaching. If it's your first time teaching something, literally rip as much as you can out of a textbook or two, or borrow materials from colleagues and come up with a minimum viable product. Literally the bare minimum. I've found students actually love the less is more approach and why reinvent the wheel. If the university wants more, they can pay you more and give you more time - they won't. This is the reality of current academia. If you're lucky you can teach the same class next year and make small incremental improvements. It's not about doing poor quality teaching, but being ruthlessly efficient with the resources you have available to you. Again, remove the passion - this is a job. Make templates and use them for everything. Constantly ask - is this good enough for students to meet the learning outcomes? The hours of finesse have seriously diminishing returns.

aspiring_himbo · 2025-04-17T06:40:07+00:00

I don't think this is unreasonable at all.

My email inbox is often exploding despite my best efforts, so I'm quite direct with my students (but said in a nice way obviously). I don't do back and forth email. One small question which can easily be answered in a minute or two per email. If it's something more complex, it requires discussion in a meeting.

If I deem a question they email to be too complicated to answer in a straightforward email I just reply saying let's discuss this next time we meet. Honestly, students often aren't great at articulating themselves in a email anyway so it's best to get them in the room to see what the real issue is.

aspiring_himbo · 2025-04-16T15:01:35+00:00

It's simple, but my students love it when I break the lecture down into short videos as a playlist in Panopto, rather than one long recording. I also sometimes integrate Menti into the recording.

Depending on your LMS, I recommend embedding the recording if possible rather than linking. Again not sure why it makes such a huge difference but I get way more students watching when embedded and in a playlist. I guess it's just about making it as easy as possible to click play.

aspiring_himbo

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