NMOC

So, you want to hear about my first week as a professor, eh? Well, you've come to the right corner of the Internet.

(The title, if you'd like to know, is an acronym for "New Man On Campus.")

I was somewhat inured to surprise by the time I actually started working at Sejong University. I'd visited the place three or four times already—for interviews, orientation, and the spring staff meeting. I'd familiarized myself with my textbooks. My students resembled taller, more courteous versions of the middle-school students I'd been teaching previously. (They wore nicer clothes, too.) The thing that's been hardest to adjust to, I think, has been how many foreign coworkers I have. At my first academy job down in Geoje Island, I had two. In Bucheon, I had six, plus the folks from the hagwon a couple floors up who sometimes wandered in. Here in eastern Seoul I have forty-plus, and that's just the English department.

The scale is greater at a university. Everything is larger: the buildings, the classrooms, the offices, the dining establishments. The cafeteria on the sixth floor of my building is like a gymnasium. The student union has a Popeye's Chicken, a Steffdog, and a Paris Baguette. The Gwanggaeto Building, where I teach a third of my classes, is 15 stories tall and boasts hotel rooms, dormitories, conference halls, a full-service restaurant and six elevators. (This is most apropos; Gwanggaeto was a revered king who expanded Korea's territory across Manchuria and into Mongolia and Russia.) The campus museum houses millennia-old relics from Korea's storied past. Even the big tower in the center of campus is not what it seems: thanks to a circular elevator system, it doubles as a car park.

It's been a challenge to adjust to university instruction. This is not because university teaching is impossibly difficult—it isn't. So far it's been straightforward: icebreakers, assessments, and introductory lessons. But I'm trying to get the hang of a new borough of Seoul at the same time—and unpack my material possessions from their cardboard sarcophagi. Every night, it seems, Miss H and I have had to go to E-Mart (Korea's Wal-Mart) for extra supplies. We ride Line 5 across the river to Cheonho, the next station down, and pick up snacks or shelves or clothes hangers. Navigating Gwangjang-dong, sussing out likely restaurants near our apartment, and finding enough space for our mountain of stuff (while adjusting to new work environments) has been a challenge. But a welcome one. I would much rather be here, stuffed into a tiny brick villa on a narrow street in eastern Seoul (and working as a professor) than in our big old officetel in sunny Bucheon, butting heads with recalcitrant eighth-graders.

I have two freshman-level speaking classes and many sophomore-level composition classes. The textbooks are marvelous: clear-cut and useful, and have boatloads of online supplements and ancillaries to go along with them. Like I said, we haven't really hit the books hard yet. This week was the first regular week after the add/drop period, so we've just done housekeeping: reviewing the syllabi and discussing classroom rules and grading policies. I'm still nervous, but I'm focused on the task at hand: finding my feet as a professor. I'm feeling my way as I go, and it's worked pretty well so far. There've been no major disasters yet, anyway. I haven't been late to any classes, and I can operate a projector like nobody's business.

At the end of this week there are standardized assessments, so we'll have to put a momentary hold on the work we've just started. Despite my newness and nerves, I'm looking forward to burrowing into the material with my students, taking away their uncertainties and doubts, conditioning them to speak and speak well, watching the comprehension steal over their faces like the morning sun on a field of sleepy flowers. I can see the blossoms beginning to turn toward the light.

In addition to my regular courses, I have several free-talking periods with four or five students per class. The purpose of these sessions is to prepare the students, verbally and otherwise, for job searching and hiring. We practice interviews, review tough questions, research industries, and discuss networking, cover letters, résumés, and so forth. It's quite a kick, though there are some challenges. Some of my underclassmen lack confidence and are quite shy about speaking, particularly in such a personal setting. It's difficult to get these shy birds to even speak, let alone hype their experience and qualifications. But little by little we're laying the groundwork for success, and that's the best feeling in the world. I'm glad the university has given us the opportunity to do something like this.

I guess that's the heart of the matter, right there...the main difference between university teaching and after-school academies. Here at Sejong I can feel that I'm helping students. The importance, the significance, the value of what we professors are doing for our students is plain to see. I felt frustrated and undervalued at my hagwon jobs, and I grew disillusioned. My energy and enthusiasm fell away from me like sweat from a tired athlete's brow. This university position was a bottle of Gatorade. I take my job more seriously than ever before. I want to do right by my students. I want to put the tools for success in their hands. I want them to understand what I'm telling them—and remember it. I want to give them the best education I can, and grow as an educator along the way.

That feeling is, to say the least, downright spiffy.

Working here in eastern Seoul is, to put it mildly, splendiferous.

I can't help but think back to the place I was, mentally and physically, just a month or so ago. Those were some dark times. I thought I was at a dead end. I was up the creek without a paddle. No job, no prospects, no hope. And now look...just look. Jules came to me with a scrap of newspaper in his hand, and everything changed. I owe him more than I can express in words. How the wheel turns! A few weeks ago I figured I was washed up. Time was running out. Miss H and I were down to the wire. It was either go home to a devastated, barren America, or stay in Korea and continue to numb our minds and hands with thankless drudgery. (Miss H is still numbing her mind and hands with thankless drudgery, but with any luck, she won't have to keep up her heroic efforts much longer.)

So here we are. A new horizon. A new leaf turned over. A new chapter in the book of our lives. More capital to add to the bank of experience.

Maybe they're right, the proverb-makers. They say the road never ends. Paths never disappear. Maybe the road narrows, and maybe the path is winding, but there's always a way forward.

I can't wait to see what's around the next bend.




Now, click the play button on this song and go stare at the picture at the top of this post. It's worth your while. I guarantee it.