What do Academics do During Winter Break?

I am sure that much of the public wonders (when they wonder about academia at all)...What do academics do during winter break?

 Oh, you know - we go to the movies, eat out, sleep in, read books, write blog posts, and visit family and friends. It's just like being on "vacation!" I do think that this is how the general public thinks that I spend my winter breaks. I confess, the first part of that list is basically true. It is a time to catch up on lots of things in life, including some leisure activities, getting well-rested, and spending time with friends and family, who we may not see again in any meaningful way until May. That said, it is not a vacation, because this is also the time to tackle the backlog of professional work responsibilities and to prepare for the coming semester. I think that most academics have lists that look something like my list that follows:
  1. Prepare/update four syllabi for the spring semester; sometimes this is as easy as changing dates and updating some readings and assignments; in other instances, it means writing a whole new syllabus, with as many as 4-5 articles per class session - which can mean locating as many as 50-70 readings for a single course - now multiply that times three or four courses
  2. Emailing students with prepared syllabi and sending them their readings for the first week of the semester
  3. Setting up my course "Blackboard" sites; Blackboard is an online course management system; I can't see how I would teach a class anymore without this resource
  4. Write/edit three papers/book chapters/articles; I have one article to write from scratch; another to revise; and a third to compile with several different authors
  5. Doing data analysis for said research paper that I am writing from scratch
  6. Committee work that needs to be addressed
  7. Meetings on campus, including with research assistants, and other committees or colleagues
  8. Looking for grant opportunities that I might want to tackle now or later in the semester
This is my list of tasks for the first three weeks of January until classes begin. It seems like a lot of work to me, and it is. But, I really can't complain. I am working 90% of the time from home in the company of Neil and Drake, and writing about/tackling issues that are of intense interest to me, both as an individual and a professional social scientist.
I've got a good start on this list, but I also only have 10 more days until the semester begins. Now...ready...set...GO!

Comments

  1. Kathy in MDJanuary 13, 2013 at 8:48 AM

    Go, Emmy-Lou, go! You forgot to add all the exercising you do and you do with Drake!

    ReplyDelete

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