Tarek Eid
Second year, BSc Management

What is your new normal?

I have been back in London for two weeks. Prior to that I spent the last six months at home in Beirut. It was quite difficult to adapt to online teaching in LT2020, since I had never been exposed to it before. However, the LSE teaching team did an outstanding job and I am confident it will work again. I live in a flat with my best friend not far from LSE and plan to study a lot from home, so it’s important for me to create a comfortable home-study space so that working from home does not become an annoying task.

What challenges do you anticipate?

For the second year, I anticipate having a hard time not going to lectures and classes as frequently as last year. I really enjoyed going to university every day, but I am ready to adapt to the new way of teaching and assessment in these difficult times.

What are you looking forward to this academic year?

Beirut, where I’m from, and to where I returned in March for lockdown, is in a bad shape: violent protests every other day, rising criminality and thus growing fear amongst citizens. This made life in Lebanon very difficult; not to mention the chaos that followed the explosion in August. Thankfully, I was able to meet my submission deadlines and complete my assessments. I feel bad for my city and I feel bad seeing my country falling apart without my being able to do anything concrete.

Nevertheless I am looking forward to my second year at LSE and in London in general. I found the new, 24-hour assessment method extremely useful and hope LSE adopts it on the long run. I will do everything in my power to balance my studies and personal life in a healthy way.

Tine Hanrieder
Assistant Professor, Department of International Development

What is your new normal?

I have just moved to London and LSE (from Germany) and started my job as an Assistant Professor in Health and International Development. So almost everything is new! I have already been to campus and will come in to teach the hybrid seminars. I did the hybrid teaching on-site briefing with colleagues, so I have some experience of meeting on campus. But otherwise, it is all via zoom from North London (mentee meetings, staff meetings etc.). As my colleagues are also adapting to the current challenges, there is lots of communication, team energy, and sharing of tips for the current situation. But mostly, I experience this as meeting many new people – colleagues at the Department of International Development, in other departments and at the Global Health Initiative, and students from many diverse backgrounds.

What challenges do you anticipate?

I teach in an interdisciplinary programme. This requires both, finding a common language for joint learning and discussion in the classroom, and appreciating and indulging in the diversity of perspectives. And then of course we face a dynamic situation, so having different effective communication channels will be important.

What are you looking forward to this academic year?

I look forward to engaging with new colleagues and to working with students who have come specifically for a social science-based Master’s in the field of global health. Global health goes to the heart of how we want to live together on this planet, how we can combat inequity, and how we may emerge from this crisis. There is a lot to work on.

David Trodden
Guest Teacher, Department of Accounting

What is your new normal?

I am contracted to do the same job for this academic year as in 2019-20 (a relief!): to mentor half the first-year BSc Accounting and Finance students, in addition to some first-year teaching, etc.

Last September I shared an office on the third floor of the Old Building with other guest teachers. I met regularly with the other Accounting department mentor, and often called in to the department office with many minor questions which I had been asked by my new students. And sometimes I dropped in with my cup of tea when I wanted a chat over a biscuit.

In September 2020, I share my office too. My office is my home and three of us – my 18-year old daughter, my wife, and I are not only family, but office-mates too! My daughter works in her bedroom and my wife and I swap between the desks. A first for me this year was meeting LSE’s senior management team on Zoom earlier this month. Reassuringly, they seemed to emphasise working from home if at all possible.

What challenges do you anticipate?

How can I get to know my 70 students? We have increased the duration of the students’ meetings with us (mentors) and also increased the frequency this year, but I am open to suggestions.

How can I keep in contact with fellow GTAs and Accounting staff and students? Last year I would leave the door open, and students and colleagues popped in, and I would do the same on my walk down the third-floor corridor. Come Autumn 2020 and I will miss those casual hellos with many of my students and colleagues and the quick chat over the Accounting kettle and copier. I got to know all the new members of staff in there.

What are you looking forward to this academic year?

This year we are setting a formative assignment for Year 1 students: to analyse their assigned airline company. This year we are focussing on how their company has responded to Covid-19 – it’s a new normal for business too. We are intending to meet each group every other week and give them feedback as they present their answers to each question. We are giving them longer to tackle it to give them a reason to meet up, and hopefully, form friendships while working on it.

I am looking forward to meeting the new students and the infectious enthusiasm they bring with them. I am determined to create for them a great first-year experience despite the Covid restrictions in place.

Francesca Humi
Fundraising and Project development Officer, Kanlungan Filipino Consortium was the (Former Graduate Intern for Inclusive Education at the Eden Centre; MSc Empires, Colonialism, and Globalisation, LSE)

What is your new normal?

When my internship at the LSE Eden Centre ended in August 2020, I was faced with the fairly unattractive prospect of entering the job market in the middle of a pandemic and an unprecedented economic crisis. My outlook was not optimistic. However, thanks to hours spent on Zoom, Teams, and various other working-from-home technologies – and more importantly – having helped to write a lot of LSE’s guidance on using this software for teaching and assessment, I wasn’t entirely panicked at the idea of going through the whole job search process online. Making the shift to working from home early on at LSE definitely boosted my confidence when it came to virtual job interviews and presentations – and now, that I have a job – suggesting innovative ways of conducting activities online.

It was also incredibly odd finishing my job, alone, at home, away from colleagues and from campus. Although the whole Eden Centre team made a massive effort to give me a truly heartfelt send-off, it was slightly anticlimactic on my last day to exit a Zoom call, close Outlook and Teams, shut my laptop, and be done with LSE – just like that. Getting my things from 20 Kingsway, alone, a week or so later, was equally odd. It was like stepping back into time, passing by the March 2020 calendar in our meeting room and seeing my desk as it was on the last day I was at the office. I would’ve liked to give a proper goodbye to 20 Kingsway and LSE more broadly, where I did my Master’s, rather than a highly securitised brisk exit through silent lobbies and corridors.

What challenges do you anticipate?

I am now working as a fundraising and project development officer for Kanlungan Filipino Consortium – a grassroots charity empowering Filipino migrants in the UK. Contingency planning for an online webinar? Piece of cake after working on Curriculum Shift 2020!

However, working in the voluntary and community sector at this time has many challenges. Given the devastating impact of Covid-19 on the Filipino community (nearly a quarter of all Covid-19 deaths amongst NHS staff are Filipino), Kanlungan’s resources and services have been stretched to the limit. We’re often the first port of call for our community. This has made fundraising a priority, but this is the case for many – if not most – charities and community organisations today.

My high workload and changing Covid-19 regulations have meant I’ve also had to adjust expectations of what I could do and what’s actually feasible. Participating in an in-person welcome for the fresh intake of students at the Department of International

History as an alumna is no longer realistic. Reflecting on my experiences in the “new academic year” for the LSE Higher Education Blog – very doable.

What are you looking forward to this academic year?

I hope there will be ways for me to keep engaging with LSE through online events or contributions like these (I actually have a piece coming out in the new LSE Southeast Asia Blog – totally not a plug!). From my MSc to my internship at LSE, I’ve grown quite attached to my community at LSE, at the Eden Centre, with the Decolonising LSE collective, and the Department of International History. I hope Covid-19 won’t get in the way too much.