I haven’t written much for this blog for a while now. The reason is that I had some serious lecturing duties this semester, which runs for 12 weeks until next week. If you are an academic in a university, you almost certainly have to do a fair bit of teaching. So I thought it might be appropriate to give you a flavour of what that means in practice (just in case you were considering an academic career yourself).

Obi-Wan Klaasnobi

This semester, I teach an introductory astronomy course for first-year students from all over the university although most of these students are from physics and chemistry. The middle third of it (about planets), I have taught for the past 10 years. This year, I took over the first and third parts as well. On the face of it, it does not sound like a lot: two unique lectures a week (repeated once) for total of 24 lectures (48 including the repeats). However, this does not mean that I just spend 48 hours teaching this course.

So here we are. Made it, got through the rat race, and found a safe haven in a Physics Department in a different country. They even offer state-of-the-art lab space and a small startup package (not sufficient to do anything substantial in photonics). So where to begin? Here is a brief description of my first steps as a university lecturer, which has little to do with science as I knew it.

1. Know the right people

Being in a new institute in a new country without any equipment, my first strategy is to get known and make friends among institute directors and clean room managers. It is amazing how friendly most people are toward new academics. The well-trained scientific paranoia however stirs in the back of my head. What do they want of me, why are they giving me free access to clean rooms and laser equipment, who do I have to put on my papers later on? For now I forget this voice in the back of my head and hope for the best, as there is nothing to loose and a lot to gain.