A new term begins..On a bad foot

Thankfully, this week sees us wave goodbye to the countless introductory lectures whilst waving hello to a new term and a fresh start. However, unfortunately I did not start on good footing last week. Due to a lack of clarification, some of the Media and Sociology students felt that we were met with poor course correspondence, yet again. Originally, I did believe it was due to my own lack of organisation that lead me into the chaos. After speaking to a fellow course mate who was in the same scenario, I was met with an ounce of reassurance that confirmed: I was not entirely incapable of organising my timetable.

Although it does vary between courses, in most of my modules all of the seminars tend to commence during the second week of teaching, giving students the opportunity to settle into their lectures. This semester my sociology modules followed suit, commencing in the second week whilst the media seminars took place in the first week – unbeknownst to me. As a result, a couple of the students (including myself) missed the first lot of media seminars.

This encouraged myself and my peers to experience a familiar surge of anger as we had been in this situation before. It’s frustrating because the chance to start afresh seems to have been pulled out from underneath our feet as we chase the missing information from the previous week. I don’t feel as if the timing of our seminars were very clearly communicated to us. If it is argued that they were, in my opinion, it didn’t seem clear enough if multiple students were finding themselves to be in similar scenarios. Occasionally, I wonder if one department assumes that the students have been taken care of by the other department, causing us to a feel a little deserted.