Teaching Begins

 Hello there!

So, this week has been my first week of course content. It's been a bit of a hectic week, but an interesting one. I have had to be in self-isolation, so all of my learning this week has been conducted from my room in halls...

The content of my lectures and seminars this week has had me thinking about a massive range of concepts. I've gone from looking at the concept of heritage to styles of ancient Greek statues, and from perspectives on reading the British landscape to an analysis of how Romans viewed time.

My university offers a series of extra-curricula seminars delivered  by different researchers that the university hosts for a couple of hours. I believe when they used to be in person, it was more of the post-grad students that attended. But now everything is conducted online (for me most things are happening on Zoom), it was much more accessible for a first year like me. I also liked this set-up because it allowed me to have my camera off and just sit there with a cup of tea listening to what was going on (one thing I stress about when I'm actually sitting in a talk is whether I look attentive enough, which then leads to me focusing on how I'm sitting and trying not to fidget rather than listening to the speaker!) So, I quite liked having the lecture online. I definitely think I will attend some of the other lectures. 

I would really recommend to students, well anyone really, to have a go at these types of activities if they are available. First of all, it was a really interesting topic given by a speaker I probably would never have heard from normally (they work at a different university). Secondly, it's something nice to do, especially with the ever growing 'threat' of a second lockdown and winter is on its way. And thirdly, I think it's a good idea just to give things a try- the great thing about all these types of events being online is that if you don't like it, then it's really easy to just slip out of the session! 

In the early part of the week my university made the decision to conduct pretty much all of their teaching until the end of October online. My lectures were all online anyway, so that wasn't too bad. And because I was isolating I was going to be attending online seminars for the first week anyway. So even though it sounded rather a dramatic change, when I actually thought about it, there wasn't a massive difference in how my course was being delivered. 

And this I think is something really important. With a lot of the events over the last few months, yes they have been horrible and I'm fully ware how lucky a position I have been in, I feel like the way information had been conveyed to people has been rather dramatic and negative. And I feel like it's really important that we all take a step back from the constant stream of information so many of us are exposed to these days to actually evaluate what it is we are seeing and hearing. Something that on the face of it might sound rally awful, like my course having no human contact, is actually not as bad a situation once it has been evaluated, it's not that different a situation and I can still go to the library and local parks to study. So, to anyone out there who's feeling a bit overwhelmed by everything that is happening, step away from your screen, take a deep breath and allow yourself the time to do something nice for yourself. Because yes, this is a horrible situation, but we can choose how to deal with that situation in a way that helps us stay healthy and a bit less stressed.