Pandemic Times

Pandemic Times

by

Victor Garcia Vazquez (ESR 5 / Stockholm University)

I´ve always seen the PhD as a marathon rather than a race. However, I feel that the last 6 months flown very fast due to a pandemic that, in Sweden seemed to do not exist. But how the pandemic has actually affected my PhD?

Lockdown in Sweden?

March was a month with many difficulties, in Spain the situation was chaotic and all the news coming from my family and friends were tragic. Due to the fear to an unknown disease with apparently lethal symptoms all our group decided to maintain ourselves in lockdown while the life in Sweden continued as usual.

Should I stay or should I go now?

Working from home was fine for a few weeks as I was writing my half-time report and we were about to publish two manuscripts that I needed to correct many times. Despite I wanted to maintain my working hours during the lockdown this was almost impossible and my working time was reduced significantly. Was then time to go back to the lab and work harder? The absence of an official response from Sweden to COVID-19 made this decision up to each of us, so we never knew which would be the correct answer.

Teaching without students?

This year I decided that I wanted to do some teaching at Stockholm University, which are the odds for having a pandemic in your first teaching experience? Apparently quite high…

All the teaching assistants were waiting for a decision from the department, but we all expected them to cancel the teaching labs. However, they decided to change them for a demo-labs where we needed to record ourselves doing the laboratory work. At the beginning I thought it was the worst idea ever but in the end, I think both teaching assistants and students enjoyed quite a lot the experience.

Back to normal life?

After my teaching experience I decided to go back to the lab as our department was asking everybody to continue working as usual, but of course with some social distancing. Apart from some inconveniences as less space to have lunch in the kitchen, our lab work has not been affected so much due to the pandemic. I have taken some decisions in my own to get away from COVID-19 as buying a bicycle, avoiding the public transport as much as possible.

To conclude, I think this pandemic has made us to change our life style in Sweden, although every time someone asks me about this I use to say that the COVID-19 apparently doesn´t exist in Sweden.

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