A day in the COVID-19 life of a working mom and USC’s biology lab manager
Since mid-March, life for Gorjana Bezmalinovic, lab manager of undergraduate biology classes at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, has been a case study in extreme multitasking. Since she began working at home, she’s had to help homeschool her two children, support her husband during hard times and shift all 800 of her students to online learning.
“I had peace and quiet when I was at work, but I don’t now,” Bezmalinovic said. “Working at home means working more than ever.”
Out of bed and into the kitchen, she makes coffee and scans emails “because students love to send emails in the middle of the night.”
Her daughter Lara, 8, gets up first, followed by her son, Niko, 15. Then it’s time to make breakfast.
Next, the 47-year-old mom helps Lara get started on her homework before returning to her USC responsibilities.
On a good day, it’s not easy managing two introductory biology classes, one honors class, 20 teaching assistants, seven professors and 800 students. But life for Bezmalinovic, who coordinates the needs of this sprawling enterprise, changed dramatically when classes moved online last month.
Gorjana Bezmalinovic’s children, Niko (left) and Lara.
Her biggest challenge was figuring out how to teach dissection online. Students were disappointed that they might miss disassembling a frog or lamb heart or testing blood types — rites of passage in undergraduate biology. Bezmalinovic scrambled for solutions.
Working with her assistants, she cobbled together online instructional videos that helped students complete the exercises from the lab manual, YouTube dissection videos and an online blood transfusion video game. Her lab instructors recorded their Zoom lectures, and voilà, she had a virtual lab.
Bezmalinovic came to USC Dornsife in 2006 as a lecturer after completing her graduate degree at California State University, Long Beach. Prior, she lived in Croatia and attended college there. She loved science and jumped at the opportunity to manage USC’s biology courses.
Most of all, she enjoys working with the students. She remembers their names; they call her “Mrs. B.” She’s their advisor, lecturer, administrator and counselor, available at all times of the day.
If there’s a consolation, it’s the fact that she doesn’t have to commute to work or worry about picking up her daughter from school.
“I’m more relieved that I don’t have to be stuck in traffic, but there’s too little time in the day to do everything,” she said. “But you know, I love helping the students. They like me, and I’m always in a good mood with them. I love my job. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
[Karla Reid contributed to this story.]