9 23 Meeting Prof Keren

 

My final learning agreement goes like this

ISE module	Data Analysis	Mon
	Information System	Tue
	User-Oriented Design	Thu
	Decision Making	Fri
UEM	Introduction to Psychology	Tue
	Development Study	Thu
	International Negotiation	Unknown yet

 

After I confirmed my final version of the learning agreement with considerations of timetable and exam dates, I sent every professor whom would teach me an email to explain that due to visa problem, I would miss 3 weeks of lesson when I arrived in TU//e.

 

All of them replied me within 3 days, with one sent me a course guideline and one said he wanted to see me upon my arrival. That person is Prof Keren.

 

So on Friday afternoon, after my first lecture in decision making, I met Prof Keren in his office. Before I came to NL, I have this impression that professors here are very busy with things other than teaching, so they don’t really care about the students. But Prof Keren totally changed this idea.

 

He appeared more worried than me about my lagging behind the other students. He asked how many courses I am doing in total and after knowing I took two of his courses, he said humorously “so you like me even before we got to know each other.”

 

Then he started picking up a few sets of notes from his desk and passed to me. “These are the lecture notes for decision making. I am more worried with the Data Analysis course. Would you be able to wait for a while till my teaching assistant come? Then we discuss about it.” I can see he is definitely worried.

“Of course Professor.”

 

It was Friday afternoon and all the students have left the academic building. Most teaching staff has left too.

 

At around 4 o’clock, the teaching assistant and Prof Keren appeared in the office again.

 

“Well, I am afraid I have to warn you that there were only 60% of the students passed the course last semester. And given you have missed almost two complete chapters. I would be very sad to fail you because of that reason. So I suggest you take a look at other student’s notes and then see if you can do this course.” Prof Keren said.

 

“I know I have left behind quite a lot, but I have taken statistical courses before and I would also like to work hard in these two weeks to make up the loss in the beginning. You know it is not very easy for me to find suitable courses to do here, so I really need to credits to fulfill my university’s requirement.”

 

“Erm…... what courses have you done?”

 

“Many distributions e.g. normal, binomial, Poisson…. And also queuing theory, you know calculating waiting time and the also system capacity….” I suddenly forgot the term used for my last statistical module.

 

“Markov chain?” the teaching assistant answered.

 

“Yeah, that is the one.” I answered excitedly.

 

“Well, in that case, I think your level is above the course we are doing now. Well, I will give you these notes and ….On Monday I will give you another reference book and you just read these few chapters. If you already understand, then you will be fine.” He scribbled some chapter numbers on a small piece of paper.

 

“Are you sure you don’t want to give me the textbook as well?” I asked him in a joking tone. “I could read it during the weekend.” After he stressed the difficulty level, I am really a bit scared I might fail the course and then lose face for NUS and Chinese students in general.

 

He exchanged a look with the teaching assistant, seemingly greatly impressed and pleased. “Well, of course I can give you now. But I will need it by next week, so would you return me on Monday after the lecture?”

 

So that is how I ended my meeting with Prof Keren – a really friendly and caring professor. I really hope all my other professors will be like him, then my missed lessons will not be a great problem anymore.

17188|university

回复：【Exchange 2005 / 去荷兰交流的日子】9 23 Mee

ha, you take 6 modules...
Almost the same as in NUS. Wish you can catch up as soon as possible. Good luck.

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