Attending a lecture in a lecture hall, discussions in a seminar, going out in the evening or team sports, many activities that are central to normal student life is impossible during the Covid-19 pandemic. A workshop gives guidance to dealing with this special situation.
The Elite Graduate Program "Theoretical and Mathematical Physics"has in international reputation for offering first class education in many advanced subjects. About two thirds of its students come to Munich from abroad to study in this program. But instead of meeting new fellow students at university and working together on challenging problems, this year’s situation is quite different: Due to the Covid-19 pandemic with social distancing and stay at home orders, teaching in the winter semester 2020/21 is predominantly done online. Professors hold their lectures as video conferences or record them as videos for time independent studies.
Instead of going to university or attending a theatre or restaurant or hiking in the close by Alps, students find themselves in their own room and all contacts with fellow students and professors is only via tiles on a laptop screen.
Under these circumstances, how can the day be divided into meaningful units? How to find a healthy work-life balance and how to separate work from leisure if everything is confined to the same small room? How to motivate oneself to concentrate on the next 90 minute lecture video if thanks to it being recorded one could wait for another day to watch it? What can provide structure for the day if there is no reason to be at university at some specific time? Why wear anything else but sweat pants if only the upper half of the body if visible in a video conference?
To offer practical answers to such questions, students of the elite study program TMP met for a workshop at the beginning of the new semester. It took place, not surprisingly, as a Zoom conference. Two experts from the counselling team of the student union (Studentenwerk München) provided practical guidance. It started with an introduction to stress factors. Participants learned how to structure their working day as scheduled breaks and a definite end of the working are important as a successful and sustainable study environment. They explained how to set meaningful and achievable goals and pointed out that setting a regime on absence from social media and messaging services is essential to have focused periods for uninterrupted work.
All this was not only presented theoretically but repeatedly discussed in practical exercises in breakout session. Those were particularly praised as helpful by participants in retrospect and could even be extended in future workshops.
Text: Robert Helling, coordinator of the Elite Graduate Program "Theoretical and Mathematical Physics"
