I am one of those lucky few people who can honestly say that I love my
job. Not because it’s part time, – which definitely is a perk – but because I
get to work with students who actually want to be in the class. The students we
get to work with here at SciMathUS realise that they have been given a second
(and most probably – to be honest - a last) chance at a tertiary education. This
realisation, however, is not the only thing driving the students here. In order
to be considered for this programme, students must submit evidence that they
have been in some way disadvantaged, which in this case could be financially, educationally
through ill-equipped schools, or regarding their circumstances at home. These students
have firsthand experience of the extreme levels of poverty in this country, for
example. For most, getting a degree will be the first step to getting their
families out of their struggling circumstances.
During the selection process, my colleagues and I had to go through almost
six hundred applications of hopefuls from all over the country. Our (very
difficult) job was then to take all these requirements into consideration and
narrow down this number At the end of
the day, we could unfortunately only send word to 125 students that they have been accepted into the course.
We are now in our second term at SciMathUS and still very impressed with
our students. Class participation has been better than previous years and the
students are working hard and taking this responsibility seriously.
I continue to love my job. I am the facilitator in charge of language
skills and academic literacy in general. This is not why the students are here,
which can sometimes prove to be difficult. Since students believe they are here
to primarily improve their science and mathematics marks, the language
component is often overlooked and most definitely underestimated. My challenge
is to get students excited about language and to also emphasise the importance
of proper professional language skills. Even given the fact that language and
writing improvement isn’t the first thing on their priority list academically
speaking, I find that the students participate, learn and, more importantly
again, want to be here.
Every day my students inspire me. This sounds corny, but give me a
chance. I truly feel humbled and frankly a little bit embarrassed when I think
of myself at their age. When I was a first year, my priorities were probably
the opposite of that of my students. I feel guilty, ashamed even, when I look
at how hard they work, how much they put into their work and how proud they are
of their effort, in comparison to the way I handled academics – and life, for
that matter – when I was their age. I have luckily now matured and have come to
appreciate the more important things in life (even if it took a few years and I’m
still getting there). I am also continuing my studies at the moment, and
whenever I feel close to self-pity because of workload or circumstances, the
idea of my SciMathUS students inspire me to keep working, to keep on looking
forward, to keep on keeping on. What I’m trying to say is that I wish I could
be more like them.
Thank you, SciMathUS students. May you carry on inspiring more people.
JT.
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