u/outer-darkness-11

I’ve been teaching full time for three years in a lecturer role (4/4). My classes are small, never more than 25 students, and I only teach upper division and graduate level courses.

Since I am a Lecturer, the only measurements of my ‘success’ is student evaluations. Because of this, I feel I have to be extra accommodating.

I’m an excellent teacher and course creator. I have over a decade of experience in the training sector and thoroughly enjoy public speaking, education, and course creation.

But holy shit I was not prepared for the emotional labor of feeling like I’m constantly being taken advantage of.

Of course I have a syllabus and of course of have rules around attendance and late work and AI and all of the other things that should theoretically protect me. But I still get 5-10 emails a week from students wanting to be the exception because they have been sick, stressed, on their honeymoon, fill in the blank.

I did one semester of being really strict with due dates, AI usage, and attendance and my student evaluations TANKED despite me still being a great, understanding, and engaging teacher.

So now I feel like I just have to let students do whatever the fuck they want or my job is at risk. And I feel so mentally and emotionally defeated by that. For the most part my students are great, but sending the email that says “sure, you can complete that assignment late, here is a document you can fill out to make it up” takes something from my soul every time I send it.

Not looking for advice. Just ranting. I feel like I’ve become a doormat and that’s not my natural disposition. It doesn’t help that I am a young, extroverted woman which makes students feel even more so that I should be accommodating to them.

I just don’t know how much longer I can do this and work in a job where it feels like I’m getting taken advantage of and ignoring my morals and integrity constantly.

Hello! Yesterday I felt my spark for teaching come back and it was entirely due to changing my class structure to be reverse classroom. I saw a post recently about how to structure it so I thought I’d share here!

For context I teach in the business school and hybrid schedules, so one 75min class per week. There is an expectation because of this that they do a lot of work outside of in person class time. I have about 30 students in my classes.

I also teach a subject that would not necessarily be seen as cool (HR) and most students in my classes are not planning on majoring or working in my subject.

Structure
Everything students do for learning outside of class is graded. I have found this has to be the case or they will not do it lol.

They have an ebook that they read a chapter from each week, do learning checks and self assessments in, and take a quiz at the end of the chapter. This is due Friday nights. These are graded for points and are 40% of their grade.

They then have an application simulation that they do each week that is due Sunday night and is on the content from the textbook chapter that they read. This is graded for participation and is worth 20% of their grade.

Then we meet on Tuesdays. Attendance is 20% of their grade.

They have a final at the end of the semester that is worth 10% of their grade.

Class Time
Every class starts out with them getting into groups of four and discussing the textbook readings and simulation with prompts (for about 15 minutes). Each group then picks a different spokes person each week to share one insight they had about the content and one question. We discuss these as a class for another 15ish minutes.

Then I bring in a real world challenge related to my topic and the chapter content that either I have experienced, I have seen happen, or is a current event out in the world. They have prompts and discuss this in pairs for 5 minutes and then we have a class discussion for another 10ish minutes.

The rest of the class (about 30 min) is a small lecture with different activities (discussions, kahoots, etc) scattered in.

Results
I will literally never go back.

The level of engagement from the students is off the chart. They have so many questions and comments and personal examples to share because they’ve already been thinking about the content at least since the previous Friday when they did the textbook assignments. It’s almost hard to get them to change subjects so we can move forward because they are so interested and invested.

It has also created a peer pressure to complete the assignments on time because if they don’t they cannot participate in the group discussion and are embarrassed about admitting to their group that they didn’t do it.

It’s the first time I have wished my classes were longer so that we had more time to hear everyone’s thoughts and questions!

I’ve gotten amazing feedback from students. They love the simulation versus traditional assignments because it puts them in real world situations and they have to use decision making, interpersonal, critical thinking, and persuasion skills. They cant really use AI to do the simulations so they are actually learning the content.

Happy to answer any questions! I know this wouldn’t work for every class or subject, but I have absolutely loved it and plan to incorporate it into some of my other classes.

“Canvas isn’t letting me submit the assignment due this week.”

That’s it. That’s the email that I got. No explanation of what error they are getting, nothing about what they have tried, no screenshot, and did not clarify what assignment they are even talking about as many are due this week. No ‘dear professor’ or sign off or anything.

I don’t mind students emailing me when they clearly explain the issue they are having and what they have already tried. That lets me know if I need to forward it to tech support or if it is a common user error and a one response resolution from me.

But GOD IT GRINDS MY GEARS when they act like communication with me is a text. I hate the feeling of getting an email like this and knowing it’s going to be a 10 message back and forth of me trying to pry information from them about what they’ve tried, what they are seeing, etc. I DONT HAVE TIME FOR THAT.

That’s all.

For context, I (30F) have been teaching for five years, three as an adjunct and two as a lecturer. I’m currently working on my PhD and have about 1.5 years left. Before teaching full time I worked in my field for five years.

My current gig is really good, I teach in a highly accredited business school, my university is thriving, I make six figures, have complete control over what I teach, what I teach, what modality, and course size (never more than 25 students). As a lecturer I have a 4/4 load (TT is 3/3)z My coworkers are incredible and supportive and very fun to research and collaborate with. My Deans office is even helping pay for my PhD. I only teacher upper division and graduate classes so I don’t have to navigate freshman who don’t know how to do college.

Theoretically being a professor should be perfect for me. I am an exceptional public speaker, extroverted, love organizing information, I’m passionate about my topic, and feel a deep purpose and resonance with the goals of higher education as a concept.

The problem is I am already so burned out and I can’t figure out why. Ive always been incredibly ambitious and for the first time I find myself daydreaming about being a stay-at-home wife (childfree) for a few years lmao.

Part of it is I have always loved school, so I struggle to empathize with lazy or incompetent students. It’s emotionally exhausting for me to grade and see students just use AI or completely disregard all instructions and rubrics. Or to answer the same question 30 times that was in the weekly announcement and answered in class 5 times.

I think I also overdid myself the last 8 months as I decided to do my first solo research study and was teaching six classes last spring semester (in addition to still working on my PhD). I’ve never been more mentally exhausted in my life.

I guess my question is, what boundaries do you set to avoid getting emotionally or mentally burned out so that you can make this a long term career?

I was explaining to my never Mormon husband this morning about Stake Dances and how they were a way for boys and girls to socialize before they could date at 16. I had this extremely funny memory pop up and I want to hear yours!

There was a kid in my grade who I didn’t know very well, we will call him Greyson, but frequented Stake Dances. He seemed pretty normal, just a little shy and usually didn’t dance with girls during slow dances.

If my crush wasn’t there I usually didn’t want to participate in the slow dances either, and the night in question was such a night. As soon as a slow song started playing I would make a beeline for the door to go grab some snacks from one of the side rooms.

On the last slow song of the night, Greyson grabbed my arm as I was trying to leave and asked me to dance. We were taught as girls that we couldn’t say no, so I reluctantly said yes despite having never talked to him in my life.

This boy proceeded to spend the entire dance telling me a riveting tale about how right before the dance he had stopped a burglar from killing his whole family. He told me how he had hid in the closet with a broom, and then jumped out and beat the burglar with the broom handle.

The best part was that he went on to tell me how the burglar had stabbed him in the arm (both of his arms were showing and there was no blood or cut or bandage in site) so he had to use the broom handle to kill the burglar and save his family. As soon as he knew his family was safe, he left for the dance before the cops could show up and asked questions.

I genuinely had no idea how to respond to this besides “wow” and “that’s crazy” over and over. Longest song of my entire life.

Never saw or talked to him again. Maybe he was telling the truth lol.

Anyone else have any good stake/youth dance stories?

I am planning my wedding, so I get a lot of recommended posts from the wedding subreddits.

There was one today (that has since been deleted) where a woman had asked for a childfree wedding. She had three friends with babies who would be 5-8 months by the time of the wedding. The wedding was in their city, all of their babies take bottles, and they all have family really close who are not invited to the wedding who could watch their kid(s).

Every single one of them said they will not be coming to the wedding if they cannot bring their babies. They eventually pressured the bride into allowing babies to the ceremony.

Can I just rant really quick?

The nuclear family is a relatively new invention in society and for thousands of years babies were raised and watched by a large community. Mothers often left their children in the care of others, it’s what we are evolutionarily designed to do. It is not damaging for a child to be taken care of by someone other than their parents.

But these parents act like you are asking them to commit genocide if you ask them to leave their 6 month old baby with their grandparents for 5 hours.

I’m sorry but if you aren’t willing to make a very small sacrifice (being a little worried about your baby for a few hours) to show up to one of the most important days of your friends’ and family’s lives, you cannot say you are a good friend.

These helicopter parents are one of the reasons every single kid has some form of anxiety these days.

(Disclaimer: there are obviously valid reasons to not leave your baby: if they will not take a bottle, you have literally no one to watch them, or are being expected to travel or stay over night. None of these women had any of those excuses)

Luckily almost all of our friends and family don’t have children, and the ones that do are begging us to make the wedding childfree so they can have a fun night out lol.

Hello!

As we are doing our wedding budget, we were shocked that our wedding planners said that simple florals would be at minimum $6,500.

Our venue is a massive garden so we really do not need many florals. All we are wanting is 10 small table centerpieces (mostly greenery) and a small (like really small) bouquet. We are not doing a wedding party so we do not need other bouquets or boutonnières.

Will it actually be $6,500 for that?? Especially if we put them together on our own??

I recently asked my childhood best friend of 30+ years to be my MOH. We are not having a bridal party, but I knew it was important to my friend so I am having a MOH and my fiance is having a Best Man.

When I asked her to be my MOH I was very clear that we have a full wedding planning team and so everything is taken care of (including bachelorette party/night/rehearsal dinner/etc) except for the bridal shower, which won’t be happening for another 18 months. I was clear on expectations and framed having a wedding planner as something that takes the burden off of everyone, including her and our families.

It’s like she totally misheard me and thought I asked her to be my wedding planner. She has started to try and take over things that, imo, are way over bounds. Things like trying to control what certain guests wear (we are not doing a specific dress code), what food options we should pick, sending over wedding invitation designs she made, trying to book beauty appointments for me that I’m not even interested in, and has even started contacting vendors without talking to us first. She is much more traditional and has started guilting us for not doing things like a garter toss, parent dance, and paying for our whole family’s wedding attire.

Whenever this stuff comes up I try to kindly reestablish expectations and that I really only need her help with the bridal shower. I’ve tried to redirect her energy towards other, smaller details, but she gets easily offended and I find myself walking on egg shells. If I revoke her MOH status her really call her out for this I am 100% sure it will ruin our friendship.

I truly have no idea why she is doing this, and she has never been this way in the 30 years I’ve known her. She got married 6 months ago and it went very poorly due to poor planning, some idiot guests, a fiance who didn’t help, crazy in-laws, lack of sufficient budget, and being in a different state than she lived (we are in the US). Part of me wonders if she is trying to redeem that experience for herself? She also recently quit working to be a SAHM so I wonder if this is something she is using as coping mechanism to adjust to her changing identity and have something outside of motherhood.

The problem is I genuinely do not need, and as harsh as it sounds, want her help. Our wedding planning team is taking care of everything and she has a very different style and approach that I do not want for my wedding.

How do I approach this? Is the only answer just ending the friendship? It seems harsh after 30 years and knowing she is going through a hard time right now.

Tl;dr: MoH is overstepping bounds with wedding planning and gentle redirection is not working. How can I maintain the relationship?

Hello everyone!

Relatively new to the publishing world. In the past I have gotten some R&Rs with publications and they usually follow the same pattern. The reviewers list the changes they would like to see made and then recommend the paper be published once those changes are made. The editor passes on the feedback and gives a date to have the changes resubmitted by.

Some colleagues and I recently submitted a paper we were really excited about to a high ranking journal that seemed like a very good fit. Passed the desk acceptance, and then waited 8 months for a decision.

We got the decision email today where the editor said that he “agreed with the reviewers” that our paper should be rejected and then included the reviewers’ feedback on the email.

Upon reading the reviewer’s feedback, both gave great recommendations for improvements (changes we could make easily in under a week) and both said they recommend that the journal publish our paper.

We are feeling confused. Is this normal? Is it worth pushing back on? Or do we just take the awesome feedback from the reviewers and submit to a new journal?

Some background: I was married previously at 18 because I grew up in a religious cult. I had a 1 month long engagement and didn’t like anything about my wedding. I was someone who had always dreamed of a big wedding and thought I had to give those dreams up because we were so young and poor.

I eventually got divorced (thank god) and years later am now engaged to the love of my life. He has never been married so this will be his first wedding.

For the last year as we have talked about getting married, he has been the one pushing for a really nice wedding. We both have great jobs and can afford something nicer (nothing crazy, like $35k).

I kept pushing for an elopement because wedding planning sounds stressful and spending that much on one day seemed irresponsible to me.

After a year of discussing this I finally saw the value in having this one day to celebrate us and get everyone we love in one place and throw a kickass party. We got engaged a few weeks ago and I tuned back into younger me who dreamed of a nice wedding and have started to get excited. We even started working with a wedding planner to take some of the logistical planning load off. We seemed to finally be on the same page now that I was on board with a nicer wedding.

After our budget meeting with our planner I was really excited because we realized we can have the wedding at our dream venue we’ve been talking about for months and stay within budget.

Out of nowhere my fiance mentioned that he wanted to find a cheaper venue. I was confused and asked him what other areas of the wedding he wants to spend more on that would require us to cut back on venue costs. He said nothing, he just wants a small cheap wedding now.

Then he went on to say he changed his mind and just wants to elope.

I was honestly shocked and a little hurt to hear this. After a year of hearing him talk about how important a nice wedding was to him, and a year of me coming around (and frankly now getting attached) to the idea of this nicer wedding, I feel betrayed that he is now saying we can’t do what we wanted even though we have the budget and money already saved for it.

Has anyone experienced this whiplash with their partner? What’s the best way to approach it? I want to validate his feelings and concerns and get to the heart of it, but I don’t really know how to start and don’t want to come off accusatory.

Tl;dr: I wanted to elope and fiance wanted a big, fancy wedding. I finally agreed and got attached to the idea and then he pulled a 180 and is now wanting to significant cut back or elope despite us having the funds already saved.

I woke up sad this morning and couldn’t quite place the source of it. I’ve been out of the church for five years now and often have the mistaken belief that I’ve worked through everything church-related.

Then my mom randomly started sending old pictures from our childhood to me and my siblings as she cleans out her storage closet, and I realized what I was mourning: the loss of community.

But not just any community, specifically the community that the church was able to create 20-30 years ago.

The massive ward holiday parties. Egg hunts for Easter, neighborhood parades and breakfast for the Fourth of July, movie nights in the park during the summer, costume parties for Halloween, Thanksgiving dinners, and elaborate Christmas parties.

The talent shows, road shows, plays, and performances we would practice for during young women’s and mutual activities.

The girls camps and youth conferences and Ward campouts where my best friend’s dad would tell ghosts stories and my mom coordinated a lip sync to ‘Welcome to the 60s’ with full music and costumes.

The volunteer projects every other weekend that I hated as a kid but helped me get to know my neighbors and learn the value of service.

The New Beginnings and Young Women in Excellence and the young women’s activities hanging out at my leaders houses with my friends.

The Ward basketball and volleyball and getting ice cream after.

I recognize how privileged I am that these were good experiences for me, and know that they were not for everyone. I also recognize how intertwined these things often were with extremely harmful messaging that has taken years to unpack. I can see how many of those relationships were conditional and how many of those people turned their back on me as soon as I left the church. And I can see the amount of unpaid labor that (often women) put into making these things happen.

I also know that this is not how the church is anymore. Leadership has gutted funding and members are overworked and less likely to be willing to be free party planners (rightfully so).

But damn do I miss that community. It’s so hard to foster something like that without a faith tradition and structure to rally around. It takes so much work to plan that level of events and I took for granted how nice it was having things planned for me that I just needed to bring a side dish to. Relationships take a lot of time and energy to maintain and everyone is so exhausted with the state of the world right now that it doesn’t seem possible to develop or maintain more than three even semi-close relationships.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just feeling nostalgic for my childhood, but it makes me sad that I will never have something like that again.

I have a student who has EXTREME anxiety, the worst I have ever had in a class.

Every week she sends me 5-6 paragraph messages about how stressed she is about each assignment (so 3 or 4 of these long messages a week).

She does great work, is always on time, and I give extensive feedback on assignments that is always positive. I answer any direct questions she has. Yet the anxiety and anxious messages have not let up 6 weeks into the semester.

Sometimes the messages aren’t even about assignments, just how stressed they are about their life and getting everything done and how their family pressures them etc etc etc

My school has a 24 hour response expectation for every message. I feel like I have tried everything to help this student: reassuring them, giving them time management tips and resources, explaining assignments more in depth, directing them to campus services, etc. but the messages do not stop.

It’s taking up more time that I would like to respond to all of these messages and I hate to admit it, but I’m starting to get really annoyed. It’s not even like they are playing the victim card or trying to get accommodations, they just complain.

What would you do in this situation?

This is slightly morbid and kind of depressing, but I’ve recently been really struggling with the idea of putting so much time, energy, and money into one day. I’m a normally very efficient and frugal person, so the idea of spending $30k on one day made me slightly sick, even though we can easily afford it.

Then I had a thought the other day that because we are child free, this is probably the last time our friends and family will be all in one place and there to celebrate us until we die. We won’t have baby showers or kids birthday parties. We won’t have high school graduations or kids weddings.

That has helped me make a total mental reframe and realize it’s okay to splurge and create a day that I really love and enjoy that is just for us! Hell, it’s the last time something can be just for us!

Hopefully this can help some other people here who are like me and struggle to spend money to celebrate yourself!

I am in the midst of wedding planning and have been reflecting on my past Mormon wedding and the dozens of Mormon weddings I have been to.

The entire time, from sealing to luncheon to reception, every single person in that wedding is thinking about the couple having sex.

Especially young marriages where they have only known each other sub six months. Everyone knows they are getting married to have sex. Everyone knows the first second they have alone together they will be having sex. And there is usually a pretty good assumption they are both virgins so there is also the knowledge of every person in the room that two virgins will be trying to figure out sex that night. They are full of people giving the *nudge, nudge, wink, wink* to the couple the entire time.

My first wedding, when I was 19, I had a panic attack driving away from the temple because I knew everyone knew I was going to lose my virginity that night. The thought of 350 people thinking about me having sex freaked me the fuck out. At our reception the next day MULTIPLE PEOPLE OF VARYING AGES AND RELATIONSHIPS TO ME asked me how many times I had had sex the day previous.

I’m just really grateful that my upcoming wedding will not be about sex at all. It will be about celebrating our love and relationship and having a good time with friends and family. We probably won’t even have sex the day of our wedding because we will be up all night celebrating and have had the last four years to have sex lol.

Anyway, did anyone here get weird sexual comments at their Mormon wedding from people??

Here is the post I made. I was a fencesitter for a long time and genuinely made this post to be helpful. It initially had a lot of really positive comments, especially from people who had kids.

Then it got removed and I got blocked. I didn’t receive any message or notification of why. I had checked the rules before posting and did not break any rules. WTF??

”I am an academic who studies motherhood and who has interviewed hundreds of mothers of varying backgrounds, ages, etc.

For a very long time I was on the fence about having kids, but what I learned from these women is what helped me make my decision.

I would say of the mothers I have interviewed, about half of them have told me (and often no one else in their life) that they regret having children. This does not mean that they do not love their child or that they do not show up for their child every day. Just that if they could go back in time, they would make a different decision.

There are two common threads for all of these women:

1. They had kids for someone else. Their partner, their parents, their culture, their religion, their friends (fear of FOMO), etc.
2. They did not do their research. They did not know how it would permanently affect their bodies, minds, marriages, identity, sex life, finances, hobbies, etc.

Now I also have interviewed hundreds of mothers who LOVE being a parent. Again, the two common threads of these people are:

1. They did their research. They knew what they were getting into and decided they wanted to be a parent more than they wanted the things they would be required to sacrifice.
2. It was their choice. They did not feel, or listen to, the pressure of external sources.

Hopefully this helps some people on this sub to hear. The realities of parenthood, and especially motherhood, are life changing and irreversible. Because of that it needs to be purely and completely your choice to do it.

I got divorced because I realized I did not want to have children and it was the best decision I have ever made. My now partner is also childfree and we have the most beautiful and fulfilling life that I did not know was possible.

And I have my friends who made the opposite choice and are equally as happy. But they are happy because it was their choice. It should always be your choice.”

This is a really niche question, but I’m hoping people here might have some insight.

For some background, I grew up in Utah and have been to over 50 Mormon weddings. I also had my own Mormon wedding when I was 20. I am very familiar with the casual nature of Mormon weddings.

My fiance and I are getting married this fall. We are planning on spending $40k+ on the wedding and have a very limited guest list. We are having a sit down plated meal, customized seating assignment decor, etc etc.

Because of this, we need a solid RSVP from people so we get their food order, etc etc.

We do have some Mormons we are inviting (mostly my family members and some friends from before my deconstruction, since my fiance is never Mormon).

The problem is all of these people have never been to a nonMormon wedding before. They don’t understand the necessity of an RSVP or how expensive even just one guest can be. The concept of an intimate/personal wedding and not inviting every single person you’ve ever met is completely foreign. Some have even mentioned in passing bringing their kids (even though it is a childfree wedding) or inviting other mutual acquaintances that were not initially invited. They also have mentioned just “popping in and out” versus staying for the entire event (about 5 hours).

In these situations I have tried to reiterate that the RSVP is necessary to we have a guest count and their food order, that we can only host so many people, it’s a childfree wedding, we would love them to be there the entire time, etc. but they just cannot fathom that because in their minds weddings are basically backyard BBQs where anyone and everyone is invited. I also have a feeling they are not going to follow the dress code on the invitation because, again, many people show up to Mormon receptions in shorts and a button up.

Has anyone else here had a nonLDS wedding and invited Mormons? How did you navigate the difference in expectations?

I am a NTT faculty and my entire job (security) is based around student evaluation results. I also genuinely appreciate feedback (to the point I ask for it on my own in the middle of each semester and implement it).

Because of this I do read through all of my student evaluations and try to take them seriously.

This semester I got glowing reviews. Truly some of the most kind and heartfelt and detailed and thoughtful comments from students. I was just beaming reading through them and loving my job.

But of course, because no teaching style fits every student and no personality meshes with every student, there are always a handful of students who make unkind comments.

Im 100% fine and actually ask them to give constructive feedback on the course structure, assignments, etc etc etc. But the ones that get me are the personal comments that are unkind.

Logically I know I should ignore them and that 1-2 of these does not outweigh the hundreds of positive ones. But I find myself dwelling on them instead of all of the constructive and reinforcing feedback

I know this is natural and negativity bias, but what do you all do to navigate this during this time of year?

Disclaimer: “I just don’t read them” is not helpful. Glad that works for you but that’s not a route I want to go at this point in my career.