It’s Great to Be Back: An Experience Report Comparing Course Satisfaction Surveys Before, During and After Pandemic

University and college level course satisfaction is usually appraised through feedback surveys. Course satisfaction items and comments commonly orbit around course content and quality of teaching or teaching staff abilities. With the COVID-19 outbreak, teaching strategies and course delivery tools were forced to change, bringing up considerations that previously were not necessarily regarded as key elements for course evaluation. After almost two years of fully remote courses, the declining of the pandemic allowed several institutions to return to in-person activities, bringing back the traditional in-person course format. With the closure of the first courses carried out again in person, it is possible to review course satisfaction surveys in a post-pandemic environment, and gain insight about the trends, changes, and evolution brought by these difficult times. In this experience report, we discuss the results of the course satisfaction survey of an undergraduate Software Engineering course through a time span of three years that includes pre-pandemic, pandemic, and post-pandemic conditions. Results show that even though by the beginning of the pandemic the course satisfaction level were kept high, as the pandemic aged there was a mild declining trend on course satisfaction and general student engagement. These indicators came back to their traditional levels as the institution brought back in-person courses. The goal of this experience report is to call attention to the production of research works that assist on understanding what are the elements that were relevant for course satisfaction before and during the pandemic, how these prevailed as after the outbreak, and what indicators returned to their original, pre-pandemic standards.