First Day Jitters

We were at a party recently, and a young doctoral student I was talking to said, “I feel so nervous before the beginning of the semester, and then I’m like, what does that mean when I’m pursuing teaching as a career?”

My response: “Well, I’m in my eighth year of teaching, and I still feel like I want to throw up before each new semester!”

My university course starts soon, and I’m definitely feeling those jitters. It’s a new course for me, but not a new class for the program, like the one I’ve been teaching for the past two semesters. This course is one of the key foundational courses for the major, so I’m teaching passages from a lot of the theoretical texts I studied in graduate school. On the one hand, the material is more familiar, but on the other hand, this course is really important for the students to master, and the level of rigor I need to require from them is also important. I’m getting a lot of guidance from my dept chair, which is fantastic, but I certainly feel like the pressure’s on.

But then, I do feel this way before each new term. It’s like performance anxiety, or stage fright– how will I be when I’m out there, in front of a strange new audience? I’ve been working on my syllabus and assignments, and I think it’s going well, but will they work on their own, once the semester starts? What will the students be like, and will we find a rapport or chemistry as a group? Will my weekly or daily performances fly or flop? What surprises are in store for me?

I love teaching, and I would never want to love it less, because I think it would be much harder to be good at it if I didn’t love it. But the fact that it does mean so much to me makes me want so much to be good at it, if that’s not too convoluted. And sometimes, like before the first class, all that wanting and love keeps me up at night, jittery and nervous, and I’m always glad once that subsides and I can dig right into the business, the practice, of teaching.