It’s Wednesday. Hump Day. I’m having my least intense week since the beginning of the semester. I was even able to leave work earlier today and run some errands after work such as grocery shopping. It’s also Hump Week of the Semester. I’m in Week 8, and half the instructional days have gone by. We don’t have a Fall break/holiday this year – something to do with how the calendar works – so my students are feeling tired at this point. Me too. But being able to take it easier this week (I didn’t give any exams) has been nice. I did have a P-Chem problem set due but surprisingly my office hours were not as heavily attended this week.
Why am I having such an intense semester? Because I’m teaching a class that’s brand new to me but also workload intensive: First-semester biochemistry! I’m very much enjoying teaching the class but the prep has been relentless. My goal was to maintain being three weeks ahead in terms of detailed class prep. Thus far I’ve succeeded, but I’ve been working slightly more hours every week compared to my average, and almost all my time has gone to class prep. Since I keep a timelog, I know that in September slightly over 80% of my time went to class prep. That’s probably the highest it has been except my first year as a professor. It might be dipping down slightly for October (closer to 75%) but we’ll see where the numbers stand at the end of the month. I’ve done close to zero research although I have managed some reading and there are still committee meetings and admin work.
I’m now in the middle of enzyme kinetics in Biochemistry. Students seemed a little shell-shocked by the full derivation of Michaelis-Menten. We’ve also talked about how the equations and plots change when a competitive inhibitor is present. Non-competitive and mixed inhibitors are up next. That will bring the protein unit to a close. Nucleic acids will be up next. I think the first exam in Biochem went well. The class average was in the mid-B range. I’d like to think it means students are on average understanding the material.
We’ve just finished the hydrogen atom in my Quantum Chemistry class. That’s about right since we’re smack in the middle of the semester. The second exam is coming up next week. The results for the first exam were bimodal – not a surprise for a P-Chem course, and since it’s a small class, deviations from a normal distribution should be expected. One new thing I’m introducing into P-Chem this year is some computational work in class. The one exercise we’ve done went smoothly. Three more to go. Overall, I think the class is going well. I’m enjoying it – but then I’m a quantum chemist by training.
I have the Honors general chemistry class this semester. We’re smack in the middle of Lewis structures. We went through 20+ “easier” structures today, culminating in sulfur dioxide – which illustrates the four main guidelines for drawing good Lewis structures. Next class will be fully small group work and students will work their way through “harder” structures. I always enjoy teaching general chemistry and I teach it every year, and chemical bonding is one of my specialties so I particularly like teaching this unit! I’ve prefaced the unit with the general bonding curve; I like this approach having used it for quite a few years.
Overall, I’m having a good Hump Week. Even though so much of my time is going to teaching, I’m enjoying it. I feel I’ve built a good rapport with my students in all three classes. We’ll see how the rest of the semester goes but it’s nice to have made it to the hump!
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