Education

I am a firm believer that a solid education can be shaped by the learning environment around you: good teachers and peers. I don’t remember much of what my teachers taught in elementary (aside from tees and tas in music class), but the teachers in high school indirectly influenced some of my habits today: Mr. Shiu’s lectures prompted the development of furious note-taking skills (and shorthand), and his “rules” are now embedded in my writing and editing at work, such as not ending sentences with a preposition or using ambigious referents (including the words “stuff” and “things”); Mr. Williams gave out mini chocolate bars every time we had a test – that certainly made exams less stressful, and I liked his teaching methods (for some reason, I still remember what the endoplasmic reticulum looks like illustrated), and ended up taking at least 3 classes with him; Mr. Thompson encouraged me to not give up in math, despite my hating it (with much help from my mother). I was impressed that he was impressed at my mother’s ability to teach me how to solve the hardest questions, and when he found out that she majored in pure math, his next question was, “What does she do now?” I think he was expecting it was math related (does personal tutor count?).

In high school, I had hard-working and smart friends, which kept me working hard as well. In undergrad, friends who were older and wiser spent many hours patiently teaching me concepts I struggled with (computer science), which paid off because when we got to assembly language I understood it; another friend had actually taught me UNIX syntax in first year (for fun – at that point, I was more interested in hacking and computers more than course work); yet another friend even took the time to explain how to do matrices on the day of my exam (I got enough of it to figure it out for the exam). And, still another friend taught me latex for fun (can you tell that they’re all geeks?).

Some may say that good teachers are few and far between in university, but I must admit that I really enjoyed many of my upper year courses, so much so that I made all 8:30 classes, and skipping almost no classes (a stark contrast to first year). My current role in improving the user experience of web sites/applications has indirectly been a result of an information design course (or two?) I took with Professor Harris. Identifying split infinitives and ambigious referents was a perfect continuation from that class in high school with Mr. Shiu, in the two applied grammar courses with the current East Asian Studies director, J. Jewinski. And while I didn’t do as well in my computer science courses, I do recall J.P’s visual illustrations using Pez and a ferris wheel to illustrate FIFO, LIFO (and circular linked list) concepts. But, I never did get his name right or remember his favourite movie, for bonus marks.

My Korean professor makes this list of memorable classes and names. The first term I was only starting to get into the groove, but by the end of this term, he knew my name as I wasn’t afraid to ask questions (unlike me). Professor Kim clearly enjoys teaching. He has opportunities teach at UT but he drives from Scarborough once every week to teach at Renison, stays overnight at the residences and teachers another class before driving back. The day that WLU cancelled because of the snow storm? Well, it took him 4 hours to get to class. If he can make it, the students really have no reason not to show up. While we struggle to figure out what to study for the exams, his tangents are often philosophical in nature: “we make money to do what? to eat. we eat to make money.”

or as seen from my facebook status posts:

• “so turns out, korean guys laugh different than girls according to my prof! guys: 하하 (haha, first learned from @jameswyoon) and girls: 호호(hoho). then, there’s holding a laugh too?! 크크”
• “love 101 in Korean 102: “I like the person” then respect then love then need…then marry
• “haha Korean prof recommended Song Cook’s too! (And a Soriwon?? 2 blocks north of there)”
• ”新年快樂, 새해 복 많이 받으세요!”
• “woohoo, prof let us vote on the midterm date!”
• ”Korean class = lessons in philosophy”
• “하하: the first two korean syllables i learned from james yoon. now, in korea101r, i’ve advanced to 안녕하세요…yay~ :p”

He even covered the basic etiquette of Korean dining: never pick up your bowl (unlike the Japanese and Chinese he says), and if you are served soup at the beginnig, you don’t drink it all right away; the host will only fill it up again if you do, as it is supposed to carry you through the meal. Anyway, at the end of this term, he arranged a special deal with a local Korean-Japanese restaurant where we would pay $15 for a customized buffet. Unfortunately, a few students didn’t show, and he had to cover for them himself! I’m crazy for even considering taking 201 next.