At the University of Cambridge, the academic year has three eight-week terms. I’m now celebrating a successful conclusion to my first term at Cambridge – a good time to look back and reflect.

A term goes by really fast, but it’s a bit more than eight weeks in practice. In fact, the Cambridge academic calendar is quite confusing! Lectures don’t start at the beginning of term, but rather a week or two later. “Full Term” begins two days before the start of lectures and ends two days after. Students and Fellows must be in residence in Cambridge during the entirety of Full Term, with few exceptions. The days at the beginning of Full Term are time for academic advising and settling in before lectures start. The days at the end are not for exams, as they would be at most US institutions. Instead, they allow for supervision and academic advising meetings after the last lectures are over.

My previous post was published Monday, January 19, the day before the first day of Full Term. As I write today, it’s Thursday, March 26, the day after the last day of Lent Term.

Although there are precisely eight weeks of lectures, the first lectures are on a Thursday and the last are on a Wednesday. Since my workweek is Monday through Friday, I’ll number my weeks as such below – starting, of course, from 0.

Week 0, January 20: Full Term begins

Although Full Term started on Tuesday, the work of Full Term started on Monday. My predecessor Api Hasthanasombat generously offered to join me in meeting the Part II (third-year) students for whom I would serve as Director of Studies (DoS). Eight 30-minute meetings took up two hours on Monday afternoon and two on Tuesday.

Having Api there was incredibly helpful. Not only was he an outstanding role model, he knew the students well and what questions to ask to engage them. Meeting the students with Api helped me feel confident conducting DoS meetings on my own at the end of term.

Api also suggested we schedule the meetings in blocks when students should be available, rather than waiting for students to sign up. For the most part this worked well – students in fact showed up at their assigned times. A couple of students returning late to Cambridge asked to reschedule; after some back-and-forth, we met them the following Monday.

For students, lectures started on Thursday. I didn’t attend those lectures or any others, as most lectures at Cambridge are now recorded. My urgent teaching business for the week was to set a schedule for supervision meetings in my three courses. I followed Api’s advice to schedule supervisions in blocks soon after the last covered lecture.

I spent a bit of time looking at the published materials for my three Lent Term courses and decided to focus on learning Prolog, even though all the lectures would be in the last three weeks of the term. I had already started learning the material for my teaching demonstration, so I thought I might as well continue. I was also afraid that it would be too much of a crunch to learn it all in the last weeks of the term.

During this week I also kept up with regular meetings in the Cybercrime Centre and participated in online meetings for a CRA-E project and SIGCSE Liberal Arts Committee projects – a lot of evening Zoom meetings. I had decided to try a ReMarkable tablet, since I now had two offices and didn’t want to shuffle papers around. But I found the resolution insufficient for reading research papers without eyestrain, and I decided to return it.

Week 1, January 26: Admission to King’s

This was the first regular week of term, with a full week of lectures scheduled Monday to Friday, but strangely it was not at all a teaching week for me. Students needed to attend lectures and do problem sets before we’d have anything to talk about. In fact, I only had a little time to start watching Computation Theory lecture recordings and doing problems.

What consumed the largest part of my time was my admission as a Fellow of King’s College, which included an induction meeting with the Vice Provost and all the others about to be inducted, an hour of lightning talks, the admissions ceremony itself, and my first High Table as a Fellow of the College.

I was admitted with only two other Fellows – the new Dean of the Chapel, and a Research Fellow who had missed the Michaelmas Term induction due to travel difficulties – but also a whole cohort of College Research Associates. These are members of College who hold academic appointments elsewhere in the University – typically as postdoctoral researchers – and are invited to participate in the social and intellectual life of the College.

The orientation with the Vice Provost focused on expectations, resources, and privileges. It was immediately followed by an hour of lightning talks open to the College as a whole, in which each of the College Research Associates (and the one new Research Fellow) gave a five-minute talk on their work, with time limits strictly enforced. Although neither the new Dean nor I got to speak, this was a very good way to get to know all the other new people quickly, and I still refer back to it.

The admission ceremony was held by candlelight in the famous King’s College Chapel. I took an oath in Latin and signed my name in the ledger book with countless other Fellows. Some have asked if I was overawed by the ceremony, as they were. Despite how I’ve described the setting, I wasn’t overawed. Maybe it’s because this is not my first faculty position, and I know that “marrying” a College doesn’t mean it’s for life. Or maybe it’s because I had a headache and would have rather gone home to bed.

After the admission ceremony was a receiving line. All of the old Fellows in attendance got to shake hands with all of the new Fellows and Associates. After this, a formal dinner with place cards – even more formal than the regular daily High Table. It was after 10:30 by the time I left.

During the rest of this week, I started to establish my weekly work habits – Monday and Friday at the Computer Lab, and Tuesday through Thursday in College. On Mondays, I joined in the Cybercrime Centre weekly status meeting and attended lectures in the Cybercrime module for upper level and masters students. On Fridays, the Cybercrime Centre reading group in the morning and some concentrated work time in the afternoon.

I also set up my new iPad with Zotero and Notability, joined in CRA-E and SIGCSE Liberal Arts Committee meetings, and wrote recommendation letters for Whitman students.

Week 2, February 2: Out sick

This was a short week as I spent Thursday and Friday at home with a respiratory infection. I had to miss my students’ practice talks on their Part II projects, but fortunately Alice had already offered to co-organize the event, so she took it over.

On Monday, I attended a 6 pm Congregation of King’s College Fellows – a faculty meeting, academic gowns required. While home sick on Thursday, I attended a King’s College Directors of Studies meeting on Zoom. I continued to study Computation Theory, set up a Moodle site for students to submit their supervision work, and did an online training on inclusive teaching. I investigated CHI workshops and concluded I didn’t really have the time or energy to write a full position paper. Otherwise, I kept up with the usual weekly activities as much as I was able.

Week 3, February 9: First supervisions

This week marked my first ever supervision meetings: three hour-long meetings with groups of 2-3 students to review Computation Theory concepts and exercises. After this, I felt like I finally understood what my job is about. Supervisions are a different kind of teaching from lectures, labs, or office hours, but I still felt I was able to draw on all my years of teaching experience.

I also found that marking supervision work is much less stressful than grading. The focus is on formative feedback, with very little summative assessment. Having a small number of papers to mark meant I could give quality feedback – and the deadline of the supervision meeting itself means there’s no agonizing or procrastinating.

Beyond the usual weekly activities, I attended a talk by Jonathan Swinton titled “Alan Turing’s King’s and the invention of mathematical biology.” I was interested because I had learned about Turing’s late-life work on reaction-diffusion systems at the London Science Museum years before, but I also learned a lot about the history of mathematics and queer culture at King’s. I had dinner at High Table afterwards, having realized this was less disruptive to my family than having them wait for me to get home.

Over lunch at King’s, Alice introduced me to Dorian Peters, who is proving my gateway to the HCI community at Cambridge. I also met with the department chair and a supportive colleague about the possibility of teaching a course in the Computer Lab next year when the regular lecturer will be on sabbatical. I investigated and planned quite thoroughly over the next few weeks, but in the end my proposal was not accepted. C’est la vie!

Week 4, February 16: Half-term

This was another short week, with my daughter on half-term break from school. My daughter spent Monday through Wednesday at Nature Club, which was a bit of a hike compared to her school, making each work day shorter. On Thursday and Friday, I worked only in the morning. On Thursday, we met some friends at the Cambridge Science Centre, and on Friday my sister and brother-in-law came to visit for a long weekend.

Due to lucky coincidence – I mean careful planning – I had no supervisions scheduled for this week. I kept up with my weekly activities and continued to study Computation Theory and Prolog. I had lunch with my students’ Tutor – who provides their students with pastoral care, complementary to the academic support of the Director of Studies – and received a briefing on capital projects at King’s.

Week 5, February 23: Settling in

This was a long week, but not unusually so. In addition to the usual weekly activities, I had my second round of Computation Theory supervisions, continued to study Prolog, and started to prepare for Operating Systems supervisions. I listened to the “Dead Ideas” podcast on Ungrading with Jesse Stommel and discussed it on Zoom with the Teaching & Learning Community of Practice Podcast Club. I met with a Whitman senior on Zoom and wrote a recommendation letter for an alumnus.

The most stressful part of this week was waiting for a much-delayed pizza delivery for the Thursday evening study group. Only four students attended, so they each took home a pizza.

Week 6, March 2: Looking ahead

This was another full week, with the first round of Operating Systems supervision (four groups of two students each) and getting everything organized for the final rounds of supervisions at the end of term. I dined at High Table not once but twice: to join in the women Fellows’ dinner on Monday, and to support the student formal in honor of International Women’s Day on Wednesday. I started scheduling end-of-term DoS meetings. Finally, I booked travel for CHI 2026 in Barcelona during Easter break, which was part of my original sabbatical proposal.

Week 7, March 9: Hell week

Week 7 was my personal hell week, with supervisions in all three courses. I learned it was hell week for my students too: supervisions start slowly as lectures get underway, and then pile up towards the end of term as lectures are completed. While the quality of most students’ work didn’t suffer too much, many seemed frazzled and short on sleep.

During this week I was delighted to host Matthew Nielsen, a Grinnell alumnus passing through Cambridge on vacation. Over the previous weeks I had hunted up a Fellow with common scholarly interests to join us at High Table. I also took advantage of my Fellow’s privileges to book Matt a room at King’s. We had a good ramble through the Cambridge University Botanic Garden while we were catching up on the last 15 years.

I didn’t have time to do much of anything else, even skipping most of my weekly meetings.

Week 8, March 16: Last week of Full Term

Week 8 was relaxed compared to Week 7, with 4 supervisions in 2 subjects plus five DoS meetings, rather than 10 supervisions in 3 subjects. Computation Theory was done, with only the supervision reports left to write; one supervision was deferred until after the end of Full Term, and two were deferred to Easter Term, after the break. I started to write supervision reports, and even started mapping out a schedule for Easter Term supervisions.

However, I spent this week solo parenting, and the daily school run made for some short work days. I had to dash out after the first hour of the Thursday Congregation, and forgot my gown to boot. But for Monday, I got a friend to pick up my daughter so I could attend the final lecture of the Cybercrime module.

Week 9: March 23: The aftermath

With no ungraded homework and no projects or exams, there was not much work to linger after the end of term. I had only the three remaining DoS meetings, the one remaining supervision meeting, and a few last supervision reports to write. I had a lazy “weekend Wednesday,” working a couple hours from home to read a research paper and finish writing a recommendation letter for a Whitman alumnus. And that brings us to today, a Cybercrime Centre writing retreat at King’s College, which I left early to take my daughter to her swimming lesson. Which is where I am writing now.

Reflections

• The Cambridge academic term is short but intense. I learned there was once a student petition to add mid-term reading days – which was rejected by faculty to protect their research time outside of term.
• Even with a “hell week,” my work-life balance was reasonable. My longest work weeks topped out at just over 40 hours.
• Near the start of the term, I resumed my weekly reviews (a la David Allen’s Getting Things Done method). They had completely fallen off over my last couple years at Whitman, and while I was keeping up with my day-to-day tasks, I had no time set aside for medium- to long-range planning, with the expected consequences. Starting a new job, I realized I needed some more explicit looking-ahead to unfamiliar and irregularly-scheduled tasks.
• I always used to do a weekly review on Friday afternoon to clear the decks for the weekend. But if Friday afternoon filled up, the review got pushed to Saturday or Sunday – and often dropped altogether in favor of family time. I decided to try doing my weekly review on Monday mornings, just before the weekly Cybercrime Centre status meeting. Although it’s not compatible with MWF morning teaching, it seems to be working well for me now.
• I have met a lot of people dining in College. I wish I had kept a journal of who I’ve met.

What would you like to hear more about in a future blog post? Comment and let me know!