My heck week (Spring 2025) (#1341)

Topics/tags: Overcommitment

Back when I started at Grinnell, students referred to the last week of classes as hell week. Week 14 is hard for many students: They have papers and projects due, they need to get ready for finals, they are thinking ahead to winter or summer (and, in spring, to packing up their rooms), and some even have exams. As you might expect, I soon started to riff on this term. Week 13 became purgatory week. The week before fall break or spring break became heck week. There were probably others, but those are the ones that I best recall.

About a decade ago (perhaps more), there was a concerted effort to discourage the use of hell week. Words have power. By calling it hell week, we set up expectations. Some students pushed back, noting that it felt hellish to them, so it was appropriate to use the term. Eventually, most folks realized that the expectations associated with the term actually made it worse for the students who struggled with the week. It also made students who had less painful weeks feel more stressed. The term has mostly disappeared. At least I don’t hear people use it as much. And I don’t use it.

Last week was week seven of Spring 2025, the week before spring break. And, retrospectively, I’ll call it my heck week. Let me explain why.

The week started poorly. I had a conference during week six. Hence, I stayed up late on the weekend before week six to do grade exams, prepare the week’s classes for my substitutes, and such. That meant that I was tired entering week six. After teaching classes on Monday, I drove to Pittsburgh. No, that’s not right. First, I came home and packed. Next, I drove to Indiana. I wasn’t up to driving all night, so I stayed in a hotel overnight. On Tuesday, I drove the remaining six hours or so to Pittsburgh. Once I arrived, I chatted with folks in the lobby, then had dinner with a colleague, and, finally, prepared for the first day of the conference.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were conference days. Since I was part of the opening on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, I needed to get up relatively early. It felt earlier because I was on the East Coast. I suppose it was earlier [1]. And my days went late. Even if I could escaped the conference, I had email and Teams Messages to catch up on and respond to. So … late nights, moderately early mornings, and sleeping in a hotel bed (even a comfortable one) meant that I didn’t catch up on sleep. I may have even fallen further behind. On Sunday, I drove home. I left Pittsburgh at about 9 a.m. Eastern time. I arrived back in Grinnell at around 8 p.m. Central time. I wanted to go to sleep, but I still had Monday’s class to prepare. I got it prepared. Mostly.

I used to be okay with long drives. I could even do drives from Chicago to Boston (about 18 hours). Just five years ago, I drove straight back from Amherst to Grinnell without stopping (except for gas and food). But this drive wiped me out. At least it didn’t make me feel any more rested.

We’ve now arrived at the start of week seven. As you can tell, I was behind on sleep. I had my typically week to go. And … week seven had additional tasks, some created by my absence, some that often get added to the week before break. Let’s see.

I had to turn in mid-semester assessments for most of my students. Officially, it’s only the first-year students. However, most of my students are first years, so I thought it most straightforward to turn in assessments for all my students. Of course, to turn in assessments, I had to make sure that grades were (relatively) up to date. That meant I had to grade the previous week’s quizzes, quizzes they took while I was gone. Because I use a mastery grading strategy, there were three different quizzes to grade: a quiz on a previously unquizzed topic (Conditionals), a makeup quiz on the previous week’s topic (Documentation), and a makeup quiz on another topic (Tracing) [2,4]. I didn’t count, but I had about one hundred quizzes to grade.

Next, I got to do rough estimates of how students were doing. For mid-semester assessments, we’re supposed to use the SMR grading scale. I have trouble remembering that scale, perhaps because I use M for Meets Expectations and R for redo. Also, it reminds me of ASMR, which strikes me as a weird 2020’s thing. But it’s S for Satisfactory, M for Marginal Performance, and R for Risk of Failing.

Historically, when I turn in an R for a mid-semester assessment, I also turn in a current grade report on the student through our Academic Alerts system. However, not all grades were in, so I’m leaving those until midway through spring break.

A variety of factors also meant that I needed to write four quizzes for this week. Those included a quiz on a previously untested topic (Lists and the big three list procedures [5,6]), a makeup quiz on the previous week’s topic (Conditionals), a makeup quiz on a topic from the first SoLA (lambda-free anonymous procedures / cut and composition) [7], and yet another makeup quiz on an in-class only topic (Tracing). I also had to grade those quizzes. I missed a few. It was still close to one hundred.

Week seven is also the week in which we were supposed to select our summer research students. I had more than forty applicants. I used to do interviews; that’s far too many students to interview. Now, I just read their applications. However, even after prioritizing applicants, I have to do negotiate with my colleagues. After all, many students apply to multiple faculty. These days, many students apply to many faculty in multiple departments. Negotiations should be relatively straightforward: If more than one of us wants the same student, we should generally follow the student’s priorities. Of course, that means that we have to ask the student. And we have to ask them in a way that they are honest about those priorities. After that? If the student doesn’t have strong priorities, we generally let the less-senior faculty member take precedence. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work. This year, it seemed particularly complicated. Reading, prioritizing, wheeling, and dealing took time.

The week before spring break is also the time for students to finish their major declarations. While I’d tried to meet with my nine new advisees [8] in week five, most needed follow-up conversations about the four-year plans or their declaration essays. Yay! More work.

I also had a doctor’s appointment and a dentist appointment this week. Fitting in time for those wasn’t easy.

The week also brought other tempting activities. A Meskwaki poet on Tuesday. A concert at the museum on Thursday. A remote talk at the Billy Ireland Museum on Thursday. A convocation on Thursday. The Chamber dinner on Wednesday (with a talk by the founder of Raygun). A faculty social on Monday. A Community Friday discussion about the new GrinnBooks program. A march for science on Friday. Some other things I’ve forgotten about.

I skipped most of these things. I had neither the energy nor the time. Still, I spent the whole week exhausted. I tried to go to bed early, but regular work along with the extra work meant that I couldn’t catch up on sleep.

There you have it. A regular week plus exhaustion, major declarations, summer research selections, mid-semester assessments, and extra grading. Other things. Yup. It was a heck week. Or a heck of a week.

I’m glad that it’s spring break.

[1] Dear Grammarly: I realize that It was earlier. sounds more confident than I suppose it was earlier. However, your suggestion lacks the narrative tone that I prefer to employ.

[2] In general, I only give them two in-class quizzes on a topic before I move on to a take-home assessment on the next Set of Learning Assessments (SoLA) [3]. However, a few topics are only appropriate for in-class quizzes. Tracing is one of those topics.

[3] Thanks, Maddy!

[4] If you’re wondering how students take three quizzes, note that I give students time before or after class for the makeups.

[5] The big three are filter, map, and reduce. We teach them relatively early because they encourage a different kind of thinking. Someday, I’ll figure out how to add parallel versions to our class.

[6] What about car, cdr, and cons, which are core list operations? I suppose we could call them the core three or the little three.

[7] Because of some issues on the first take-home exam (SoLA), I decided to give a makeup on this topic.

[8] I have ten senior advisees who are graduating, so it makes sense to add about nine new advisees. I have thirteen returning advisees. Twenty-two advisees is more than I’d like and probably two standard deviations about the College average. Nonetheless, I couldn’t turn down my new advisees.

Version 1.0 of 2025-03-08.