Column: Undercover Academic

’Twas the night before lectures.

The thought of teaching filled me with dread at the start. 

I had heard rumours of students, fire-breathing, sharp-toothed, litigious, sometime somnambulistic students. What fate would await me on the day of the first lecture? They probably thought the same of me, the new one and unknown. 

I had spent hours pouring over my lecture notes, fretting over formulae and stressing over structures. My desk had been littered with the discarded carcasses of textbooks, exam papers and lab scripts for several weeks and I had almost given up hope of finding my mouse mat again. I have a tempestuous relationship with the topics: in a fit of lecturer duality, I both love and loathe them. 

There was, of course, a more serious side to my lecturing angst, one which goes beyond my desire to be liked. I want to do a good job, with fair marking and comprehensible classes. I don’t want the course evaluation to give me an F^- for effort and a dismal D for achievement. Yes it is possible for the lecturer to be more afraid of the students. 

The   Undercover academic is a university lecturer in the UK