I'm enjoying teaching this new class - most of the student are in their third year or beyond, so they tend to be more organized and far more motivated than the freshmen that I've been teaching so far. The workload for the course is pretty heavy though - once you put together a syllabus, the prep work is done, which usually is the most stressful part of the course, but I'm finding that the amount of feedback the students need regarding their papers is also a lot more intensive than in the freshmen classes since they are each working on a different project. I'm not looking forward to reading their twenty page drafts - that will be an intensive couple of days when I'm not going to get any work of my own done!

They're all business students and the course is a project-based course in that they pick a topic, research it, and present a series of recommendations to the person they've identified who could effect the changes they are recommending. Most of the students write about a problem they observed during one of their co-op terms (since every undergrad at NEU does a co-op program) and address the project to their former supervisor, or, if they worked for the government or an NGO, to the appropriate member of government. Most of them have chosen good topics, but there are a few who are having problems at this point and I'm trying to help them get back on track.

It's really quite amusing - I have one student who is particularly disorganized and whose topic has changed a few times in the last couple of weeks. But he's also a bit of a problem - last day, he came 20 minutes late and then publicly complained that he didn't get anything out of the class! And I think it was the second or third class, he said he didn't think I would be able to understand what his paper was about because he was going to be discussing gaming and chaos theory in relation to securities. I'd been told that this frequently happens and was prepared for it, but before I could even respond to him, one of the other students at the other side of the room spoke up saying "She's a PhD student for goodness sake - she'll understand". God bless him! I continued on, reassuring the student that I am familiar with the world outside of literature, I did pass my calculus classes for my science degree, and what I was here for was to evaluate the calibre of his writing, which I'm more than capable of doing. But it was really great to have a defence come from another student as well - seems more valid that way.

I'm also enjoying the fact that I have a lot of international students in the class - probably a third of the class are exchange students and four of them are from Ireland, so I feel a certain kinship with them - and they don't laugh at my pronounciation of 'project'! (and the student who defended my intelligence was one of them) A couple of them are writing reports aimed at the Minister of Education or the Minister of Health, and are using Royal Commission reports and such to support their research. Now that all makes sense to me! I'm still fuzzy about parts of the American government bureaucracy - but I don't feel bad, since there seem to be a great number of Americans who are confused about it as well! It certainly makes for an interesting class.