Week 1
If you read my blog post about my fall classes, you'll know that the first week of classes was overwhelming. It took me a good 15-20 hours to do just the Engineering Mechanics homework. Fortunately, I didn’t have math or physics homework that first week. Still, I felt that I needed to form a study group to survive the first semester, but I was feeling too shy to ask other students because I felt I had nothing to contribute. The most I felt I could offer was an opportunity for them to learn the content at a deeper level through teaching it to me.
Week 2
This week I had homework assignments in math, physics, and mechanics. On Tuesday, I started to feel like a fraud. I felt like, “I don’t belong here. Who am I kidding?” I started wondering why I left a stable job for this. I was feeling so low, I knew that I needed to reach out for support.
So, I got serious about building a community of learners among my peers. I started with the one other non-traditional student in my program. He was feeling as overwhelmed as I was. Despite being admitted to the program on the basis of our SAT scores (I scored in the top 3% nationally (US); he scored even higher), we felt that the background knowledge needed to be successful in this program was far beyond what was being tested on the SATs.
And it wasn’t just the gap in background knowledge. The “teaching” was also uninspiring. Being a teacher himself, this classmate noted that there was a difference between teaching and informing. I loved this distinction. He felt that the PPT lectures, which were the main teaching events that happened in our program, were simply informing us of the content we would have to go learn on our own.
This brings me to the structure of the courses. The mechanics and mathematics courses had 3 components: lectures, demonstrations, and exercise groups. The physics course had a lecture and exercise group, no demonstration. The “informing” happened during the lectures, which, in my opinion, were not meaningfully interactive nor fostering learning. The lecturer was just reviewing information you either already knew or didn’t. I didn’t know much of anything. The math course in particular was hard to process. I’m not speaking with hyperbole when I say that I feel I would have understood about the same amount of information if the instructor were speaking in Finnish. This is not because his English language skills were insufficient, it was because I couldn't follow his logic.
The demonstrations weren’t much different from the lectures, though they were meant to focus more on practice problems. It was still a teacher talking at the front of the room for 45 to 90 minutes. The lectures and demonstration groups were made up of 140+ students in-person or online, and very few people felt comfortable interrupting and asking a question. It didn't help that these classes were also being taught across two campuses. So, sometimes the professor was in front of the classroom and other times s/he was inside a small box on the side of projected PPT slides because they were at the other campus.
The exercise groups were smaller and meant to provide opportunities to ask questions about the homework assignments and course content. For mechanics, the exercise group involved the teacher going over the steps of how to solve each problem. This was how I managed to complete the homework for the first two weeks. Well, that and spending a lot of time self-studying, trying to figure out why I should solve the problem this way. The exercise group for the math class was where my math professor said “the learning would happen.” He said this when a student and I approached him the second week with some suggestions of how the lectures could better promote student learning. Before this meeting, I had already been to my exercise session. No learning happened. The only thing stated at the start of the exercise session was, “If you have any questions, please let me know.” I was then left to work on the homework assignment on my own. The problem here is that I can only ask questions if I have a sense of what is going on. I didn’t have a question. I had a request: “Please teach me what I was supposed to learn during the lectures because this is where I was told the learning happens.”
For the math class, I have 2 90-minute lectures, 1 90-minute demonstration, and 1 90-minute exercise group. That was a lot of hours where I wasn’t learning anything. And it was more than that. In speaking to a Chinese student about why he no longer attended the math lectures, he said, “Going to the class makes me feel less confident.” It helped me to put into words what I was feeling. Not only was I not learning anything, being in that classroom made me question whether I could learn math. And that to me was even more dangerous.
Week 3
Given this revelation, I stopped attending the math lectures and demonstrations, and I started self-study with Khan Academy. I’d also managed to form that study group with four of my peers, people who were both smart and compassionate. I didn’t contribute much that first week, but I did get to see that I wasn't the only one struggling. It's not that I want my peers to struggle, but knowing I wasn't alone at least helped me to see which of the issues I was facing were related to gaps in my background knowledge and what was just the context.
So, week 3 started off promising but quickly got emotional because the one other non-traditional student in my program, who was also part of my study group, started contemplating withdrawing.
I think there is something about intense intercultural experiences, where you’re from multiple nationalities but working toward the same goal, that connects you to people very quickly and deeply. So, when he mentioned he was thinking about leaving the program, I felt gutted. Beyond missing him and his contributions to the program, I again started wondering if I could make it through this program. Should I be considering other options too?
Ultimately, the other option—or question, really—I came to on Thursday morning was, “What if I took Engineering mechanics next year instead of this one?” I talked to the program head about it. It turns out that my extensive language study and work experience in my previous field will likely exempt from 10 credits of language study in this program. I write likely because the application to be excluded from these courses are still in progress, but I’ve already gotten the support of the program head and the teachers at the language center. It’s more a matter of time for these applications to be complete. So, while other students are studying academic English or learning Mandarin next year, for example, I’ll be taking mechanics 1 and 2, which happens to also add up to a total of 10 credits.
It seems that the only influence this will have on my overall study plan is that I will no longer have the option to choose mechanical engineering for my specialization. However, I was never considering this option, and I’m still not interested. So, for me, it’s not a loss. The other non-traditional student, however, did want to become a mechanical engineer, and he did ultimately decide to withdraw from the program.
Week 4
This meant that the start of Week 4 was bitter-sweet. Bitter because this classmate would be leaving soon, but sweet because I had one stressful course off my plate for the next academic year. It also felt good to have my prior learning and work experience acknowledged. The first three weeks had been a constant reminder of how much I didn’t know, and for a moment, what I could do was given relevance and used to my benefit. I also think that this study plan is superior to the original for me. Taking the mechanics class next year would be easier because I’ll have studied physics and mathematics this year, courses which are essential for mechanics.
For example, in the Week 3 mechanics lecture, the professor said that we’d need to know differentiation and integration to complete the assignment. However, we hadn’t yet covered integration in the math course. In fact, when I took calculus at Temple University over a decade ago, the course was entitled Differential and Integral Calculus. It was a semester-long course. However, I was expected to be able to apply all the knowledge from that class in Week 3 of the mechanics homework. Clearly, the Engineering Mathematics course, which was really just Calculus, should come before the mechanics class. I feel comfortable that every single one of my peers would agree with this sentiment. So, I am excited to take this class next year with the foundational knowledge I need to confidently learn the new information instead of just being reliant upon the exercise group teacher to walk me through the steps of how to solve the homework problems.
Right now, instead of going to the math and physics lectures, I study math and physics on Khan Academy. Khan Academy’s videos, articles, and practice problems are informative and give me a sense of confidence. I’m learning. I still attend the exercise groups to ask questions because I am now understanding enough to be able to ask a few. I’ve also started donating $5 a month to Khan Academy which is a non-profit reliant upon donations. I’d donate more if Bochuan and I weren’t unemployed. So, if you are looking for a place to put your money, consider Khan Academy. What they’re doing there is incredible. Did I mention Sal Khan is an electrical engineer? Makes me even more interested in the field.
Why Stay?
Now, you may be asking yourself why I’m choosing to stay in a program if my game plan is Khan Academy. There are a few reasons.
First, I didn’t come here for this program. I’m doing this program so I can be here. I came here for Alaya, and she’s doing well. I came here for work-life balance, and Bochuan is doing well. Despite the stress discussed above, I still love this city, our apartment, and the life we’re building here. We get more settled every day. I still feel joy when I walk out my door in the morning and head to the bus stop to go to school.
Second, having worked the last 7-years at a start-up university, I feel it for the teachers behind this program. The TES program is only 2 years old, and they’ve just added four new English-taught bachelors programs this year. These are double-degree programs in partnership with a university in China. Sound familiar?
Many of the foundational courses for these programs are the same, which is the reason for the large class sizes (140+ students). Two of the programs, however, are being taught on Lahti campus of the university, which is a 1.5-2 hour commute each way for the professors. Some students are still overseas thanks to the pandemic. This means that the professors are teaching in a hybrid format, travelling back and forth between campuses, managing 100+ students, designing new classes, and much more. Oh, right, and they are almost all doing this in their second language. I was shocked when my mechanics professor mentioned that he was teaching four classes this semester. It’s my hope that his other three are at least in Finnish and have smaller classes. All that to say, PPT presentations might be all these professors can manage right now.
So, if I really came here for the reputed work-life balance, then I need to have realistic expectations for what my professors can achieve under these circumstances. I was listening to a podcast (10% Happier) recently, and one of the guests on the show said, “We have to remember that we’re also making the culture we live in.” As a student, I also want to play my part in setting realistic expectations of what our professors, administration, and universities can achieve, especially in the short-term.
A third reason I’m staying is that things are only going about 5% worse than expected, if that much. I expected the adjustment to be hard. I expected the learning curve to be steep. I expected the program to be about this organized because of the newness of it. And I wanted a program that was new. If I was going to study a second bachelors, I wanted it to be something I couldn’t have studied the first time around. I wanted to be “on the cutting edge,” if you will. That said, it can be a dangerous place to be; it’s easy to slip and get hurt. Moving mechanics to year two is helping me balance on that edge.
Finally, I’m staying because I don’t have to be the best to be worthy of being present. While I was studying at one of the performing arts high schools in Philadelphia, I was surrounded by people who were more talented than me. I interpreted this to mean that I should find another way to make my living. I thought I had to be a prodigy to be worthy of touching the piano. I thought I needed to sing like Whitney Houston to be worthy of making a sound. I remember wondering why my private vocal coach during high school, who would occasionally perform small roles here and there kept pursuing a career in music. Didn’t she want to be something more than a part-time vocal coach doing part-time gigs? (I know, I know. I was a teenager. Forgive me.)
I was wrong. For all this time, I thought you needed to find what you excel at and do that for the rest of your life. I thought you needed to be one of the best in your field, or pursuing a career in that field was a waste of time. I thought I needed to become someone or something, which really implies I am nothing at all. When you don’t think you’re anything, you start to think you’re not worthy of taking up space, of making too much noise, or making mistakes. However, none of that is true, though I keep having to remind myself.
I don't have the background knowledge I need to excel in this program, at least not yet. I certainly don’t have some “natural talent” for math or physics. I may never invent or build anything that will make the world a better place or solve the climate crisis, or any other fantasy I’ll occasional find myself caught up in and striving towards. But it doesn’t mean I can’t study the topic, and it doesn’t mean I can’t one day work as an engineer.
I’m in this program now. I was accepted fair and square. And I will not convince myself that I don’t deserve to be here because of conscious and subconscious comparisons with my peers.
If I compare what I knew about mathematics, physics, and even mechanics a month ago to what I know now, I can see that I’m learning and pretty quickly too.
The second (middle of top row) and sixth photo (right-hand side of second row) were taken by one of Alaya's early childhood education teachers.
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