This is the second part of a two part series that I intend to publish. Originally, this was supposed to be a second compilation of entries from my journal, but it became more of a reflection.
I’m graduating this semester in a virtual ceremony. It is close to midnight, so we're talking only forty more hours. This change was enough of a stressor on its own in this era of COVID-19, this uprooting of my last academic semester. I’m sure most students can relate to this experience. However, I experienced the COVID cancellation not just from a student’s perspective, but from an instructor’s, as well.
UVA has a program for students to propose a course to teach, a course that the student instructor themselves designs. It only involves taking a one-credit course on teaching methods, which lasts for half a semester, to then propose the course that you want to teach.
I enrolled in the one-credit course for my penultimate college semester. When I decided to take it, I had a plan for the course I would propose. When the time came I did in fact propose this idea. Inspired by a thesis I wrote in my senior year of high school, the class would look at the superhero film genre through the lens of 9/11, starting with Batman Begins (2005) and finishing with Avengers: Endgame (2019). It was a long time coming, you could say.
The class was approved, and I was to teach it in my final semester of college.
It was a slow start in terms of getting completely comfortable teaching, but after the first couple weeks the class and I found a groove. The experience became very rewarding for me and, from what I can tell from the thank-you notes I received recently at the end of the semester, it was for at least some of the students, as well.
Then, Spring Break rolled around beginning Friday, May 6, and I said goodbye to friends, thinking I’d see them again once we returned. I had finished up the last bit of the current video-editing project at my job, and I was told that when we returned, I could take over more responsibility at that job. Everything seemed to be going all right; while COVID-19 was spreading and starting to become a real concern, it was still unfathomable for me to think that UVA, let alone the entire world, would come to a halt because of this. Then, in the middle of break, UVA cancelled in-person classes until April 5, though I knew then that it was unlikely we were going to be back for the rest of the semester. Everything had begun to change. Rapidly.
Since my class was discussion-based, it wasn’t difficult to find alternative arrangements. I had decided that, as opposed to doing full-class Zoom call every week, I would split them into groups of three, and each group would develop a PowerPoint on one of the assigned six final films of the course, and the rest of the class would respond to that week’s PowerPoint through online posting.
It was a stressful experience, certainly, but I’m grateful for the learning experience in creative adaptive management that this gave to me. Even though I had waited so long to teach this class, I did not feel like I had lost much as an instructor. The bigger impact was definitely on my student life.
While it’s been very hard for me, having my semester cut short, not be getting to say goodbye to friends, I also can’t complain too much. The loneliness I’ve been feeling is nothing compared to the financial worries that many of the people in this country are experiencing. My heart goes out to them, and I can only hope that things will get better.
I thought of this entry as a way of recording my exact thought process, not just events. How would I express this kind of personal and global change in the years to come for those who will not remember? I am not sure that anyone can put their finger on what is different in how neighbors now interact or why the sight of people standing next to each other is unsettling. At the very least, I cannot.
For now, I keep telling myself that I am graduating like an actor rehearsing his lines. Without the rest of the semester, it may not feel like I am graduating. I may have to feel like I am acting the part. But these feelings will catch up to me soon, for sure. In the meantime...
~R. J. Ten