Enginerds

My office is in the Geotechnical Engineering Department, not for much reason in particular. My work is not specifically for the GED or Engineering, but everyone there has been very welcoming and insisted that I am now part of the Geotechnical Engineering "family." So when they asked if I would teach a 2 hour English class once a week, I was happy to oblige. After 2 sessions, it's apparent that these students, 10 PhDs and faculty members of the department, are much different than my undergrads.

I started things off with a get to know you game, and each student had to tell us about him/herself by writing words on the board that were important to them ("dog" because you like dogs, etc), and we all had to guess the meaning behind it. I explained that I like to keep class casual so people are comfortable and willing to speak up, and when I told them about myself, most of my facts were fun and silly. One student stood up, and wrote "2550" on the board.

Is this your lucky or favorite number?
No...
Is this your telephone number?
No...
Is this your apartment or office number?
No! These are the last 4 digits to my student ID number!

Then 4 other students did the same. An interesting statement on what the students value as important and how they identify themselves. Also an interesting statement on Engineers.

Sidebar: When I first arrived here, my group was given a tour of some of the campuses. At the Software Engineering Campus, a very sweet quiet Chinese student led our tour. She was rattling off facts about the college, and it wasn't our first stop of the day, so I wasn't listening too intently. At one point my ears perked up. "In our college, we have over 100 nerds and..." Wait, what? I must have misheard her. But then she said it again!, "Here we have over 80 nerds who..." We stole glances at each other. "Did you hear what I heard?" "Yeah, that's a lot of nerds!"

I did have one student, who's particularly... zealous, write "pop" on the board because he likes pop music. His fellow students then insisted he sing for us. He bashfully turned down the offer, but after a little more coaxing, gave in... and opened his notebook, where he had written down the lyrics to a Madonna song, and sang the entire thing for us. I appreciate the creativity, that's much better than good ol' 2550, but the whole scene is just awkward.

I was using my computer with the overhead, and had left it idle as I walked around the room, listening in as my students paired up and interviewed each other, forgot to turn off my screen saver, which is set to show random photos. 20 minutes in, the interview questions disappear from the screen and up pops a photo of a friend of mine from a vacation last summer. Harmless, but I still spazzed and ran across the room, squealing "Weeeeedon'tneedtoseethat!" and turned off the screen saver. The class was silent.
"Handsome," said one of my students, "He is very handsome"
I paused, considering how to react.
"Um, thank you..."
The class erupted into laughter. If nothing else, at least I'm entertaining.