Academic year wrap-up

Transcript

My university starts the academic year at the beginning of April and finishes with Commencement the following March. In January and February teachers are really busy. Along with entrance examinations, we have many activities that take a lot of time.

The most difficult work is wrapping up the academic year. We have to conduct thesis defenses and final exams, read students' reports and portfolios, and submit a grade for every student in every class. It's quite a job to get everything done on time, and this year was really hard.

Final grades require integrity and careful judgment. In Fall Semester I had 142 students in three elective classes. I failed 22 of them. It's easy to fail students who drop out or who don't submit final reports, but every term I face a few difficult cases in which students just haven't learned enough. I want to be a nice guy and show mercy, but that would violate my academic principles. Fortunately, most of those who fail return to take the same course again, and nearly all of them succeed the second time. It's painful to fail them, but I know that they learn from their experiences.

This year the last big job was to help graduate students finish their Masters theses. We try hard to maintain a high standard, and this year we put a lot of pressure on students to do their best work as they finished their final drafts. It was a hard and sometimes dramatic struggle, but everyone survived.

March is here, so we can relax a bit and get ready for April. I'm really tired but happy, and I'm almost ready to do it again.