I get it now. Being a student is hard.

For the last three years I’ve been balancing being a teacher while also being a student in a master’s degree program. It’s been difficult on quite a few levels, but it’s also been a wonderful reminder of what it’s like to be a student.

As a teacher, I get so annoyed when students incessantly ask me “Have you graded the essays yet?”

But as a student, I get it. I want my work graded within a few days of when I turn something in and can’t imagine what else a professor would be busy with besides grading my recent project.

As a teacher, I never understood why students in my journalism class were nervous about showing other people their pieces of writing. Or how they could get so upset or defensive when a classmate edited their work and made suggestions.

But as a student, I get it. I had plenty of professors who I respect give me constructive criticism on my pieces of writing, and at first it was really difficult to take. But they were always right, and my writing did get better. But still, it has made me a much more empathetic teacher.

As a teacher, I try to be as organized as possible. I try to create structured handouts, assignment sheets and rubrics that kids understand. But sometimes I don’t have time to do that, so kids would be confused or frustrated. I would try better next time, but I didn’t really understand what they were going through.

But as a student, it would drive me crazy when a professor’s page on Canva wasn’t organized well or their expectations weren’t clear. Or they were missing a due date on an assignment. I hated being confused or worried I was doing something wrong. So I’ve been trying that much harder to do things better in my own classroom now.

While I’m looking forward to being done being in the role of a student, I do hope the lessons I learned while in that role stick with me for a long, long time.