I'm a University Professor

I received an e-mail from a student from Vietnam today. Glancing quickly at the heading of the e-mail, I thought it was strange to receive a "Happy Teachers' Day" greeting at this time of the year. Apparently, Nov 20 is Teachers' Day in Vietnam.

"Boy, am I glad that I’m a university professor!"

- Randy Pausch

Below is a shorter video clip of an interview with Randy

[ remember to stop/pause the IMEEM music in the background ]

Below are some inspiration I noted from watching Randy's Last Lecture.

A mentor once told him, “it’s such a shame that people perceive you as so arrogant, because it’s going to limit what you’re going to accomplish.” Randy's comment, "what a hell of a good way to say, 'you’re being a jerk'."

The same mentor told him, "You’re such a good salesman, … you might as well be selling something worthwhile, like education."

The reason you all should be professors:

Enabling the childhood dreams of others!

That’s the best gift an educator can give – to get somebody to become self reflective.

The best way to teach somebody something is to have them think they are learning something else. His goal was to develop a program whereby million of kids learning something hard whilst having fun!

Most of what we learn, we learn indirectly... We can learn from our students.

Give the kids the chance to have some kind of excitement putting on a show for people who will then become excited about it. That’s one of the best thing you give somebody – the chance to show then what it feels like to make others people excited or happy.

photo: Retail Seminar at Suntec City (2005)

One final quote from the desk-top calendar, "We can't help but get the best from our students when each day we're giving them the very best of ourselves."