Knowledge Day 2005
My second first of September, and the year I stopped being the person who did not understand what was happening.
Happy Knowledge Day.
The second one is different from the first. I knew where the building was. I knew which corridor. I could follow a lecture without translating every third word in my head, and I had stopped being the foreigner people spoke slowly to and become simply a student who was somewhat slower than the others in one particular respect.
Engineering education here was demanding in a way I had not expected. Mathematics taught with a seriousness that assumed you would need it. Professors who had built things. A great deal of drawing.
To every student starting a second year today: this is the one where it starts to make sense. And to the first-years arriving from somewhere else entirely, understanding one word in fifteen — I was you, and it passes faster than you think.
Share this analysis
Comments