The second semester starts in late January. Early January is reserved for exams. And late January is very far away! But I already have it on my mind. Why? Because it is summer, and that is already the time to prepare for the dissertation module of the upcoming academic year.
The students produced their dissertation in the second semester, but this means they need to have their topic in the first semester. And they are encouraged to design their own topic. That takes a bit of time! So in order for them to have plenty of time I always want to launch all the necessary documentation in summer. Then in the early first semester, students who indeed design their own topics can finalise this, and all the other students can just choose from a list and get assigned one of their choices. That list has to be ready on the first day of term at the latest. So I need to do have all the documentation ready in summer, and make sure all staff have their proposed topics ready as well. There is nothing wrong with using the same topic two years in a row, but of course there needs to be a bit of turnaround. If topics don't attract students they need to be replaced with topics that might, and staff can just have nice new ideas. So I am quite busy with this in summer! Getting everything ready for the students while herding staff cats.
It has happened that I had to get everything ready for the students while the module websites were not made available yet. That is right been in the backside. But this year, they have been released really early! So I can put everything exactly where belongs. Excellent. And there is something quite satisfying about having a lot of work already done on the module that far ahead.
It's impossible to do this module the way I would like it to; we have a lot of students and not so many staff, and it is hard to give every student a topic they are interested in, and a supervisor that can confidently supervise this topic. But one tries. And getting the logistics sorted at least helps!
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