First week at my new job

Oh yes, the new school year has started which means I have now officially gone back to work. I already stopped by last week, but due to not having any means to do any work, I left after 30 minutes and then set foot for Berlin. So last week really wasn’t my first week at my new job. This week however, I was back in full throttle. I picked up my laptop and cell phone from the IT guy on Monday and was in 3 meetings. All on my first day!

My living space until well… June next year. Source: weheartit.com

Monday started off with a breakfast for all employees, a speech by the director of the school and my first real duties: attending meetings. The first meeting was really just a discussion to get things going for one of the teams I will be working with. My other meetings all involved setting up shop for courses that all start next week. We discussed the materials we would be teaching and agreed on making some changes to the syllabus. As a teacher that is all in a day’s work when you’re prepping for a new season.

On Tuesday I got to meet a group of students. Already. I will be mentoring a group of first year students and I gave them an introduction to the school on Tuesday morning. Afterwards I helped out a colleague with some materials for the Linguistics syllabus and in the mean time I also decided to read through a few documents that were handed out to me before the summer vacation, but hadn’t had time to read yet.

Wednesday meant preparing most of my classes for next week. As a teacher at a new school it is not necessary to know all the materials for the rest of the semester, but it’s best to work ahead one week at a time. So I prepared next week’s classes as much as I could, but since not all of the material was available yet, I did what I could and left it at that. The subjects I’ll be teaching are English Skills/ Proficiency, placement preparation, study coaching and introduction to Linguistics.

Yesterday was a rather fun day. I had another meeting, but this time especially for all the people who are newly hired. It served as an introduction to what the school stands for and a getting to know each other round so you at least know who to say hi to in the elevator.

I have to say when I started on Monday I was rather nervous. A new job is always exciting and nerve racking as you never know whether you’ll fit in or whether it is the right place for you. But I have to say that with knowing what my courses would entail, I steadily grew more relaxed throughout the week. This isn’t the first time I’ve done this and my main advantage is that I am knowledgeable in all fields I am teaching, plus I have the experience of having taught college students before.

The next 7 weeks will be devoted to teaching, teaching and again… teaching. My studies are on the back burner for the month of September, as I want to give myself plenty of time to find my way at my new job. Then there’s autumn break in October and then the first term will already be over. Something tells me that this year is gonna fly by very quickly.