Resumen de We Can’t Ignore the Pandemic Fallout in Our Physics Classes
Our students are burnt out, and we need to pay attention.
Last fall, I attended the 2022 Physics Congress of Sigma Pi Sigma and Society of Physics Students (SPS). (The conference is sometimes known as PhysCon.) It is the largest gathering of physics and astronomy undergraduate students in the world—there’s around 1000 of them there plus around 200 other physicists there as mentors, speakers, etc. During the opening session, these students were surveyed about the top issues affecting physics and astronomy departments today. Among options like careers and jobs, lack of research funding, and many other issues, burnout rose to the top by a large margin. The number two spot went to mental health concerns.1 I hear faculty saying, myself included, that the pandemic is over, get the masks off, and it’s time for students to get back to 2019 levels in classroom intensity. But here’s the reality, we’ll...
