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First Impressions of St Annes - A Personal View
I came to St Annes to teach Computer Science in September 1999 after
teaching for 10 years at Royal Holloway, University of London. My reason
for making the move was that I wanted to be involved in more small group
teaching with students who were excited about Mathematics and Computer
Science, able to understand the hard parts, and fun to teach. I'm glad
to say that's what I've found in the last 12 months. |
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But what about the other staff here? It was good to find that I was
welcomed into a team of people involved in teaching mathematical
subjects, and I was struck by the fact that they all seem to enjoy it.
The team varies in age, sex, and fashion sense, but works together very
well. As you can see if you look around the web site, their interests
range from fluids to financial derivatives, and from free algebras to
phylogeny! This makes for interesting conversations over lunch, and I
think it means that we cater for a wide range of student interests.
Socially, I've found that St Annes lives up to its promise to be
"unstuffy". The Maths Team come from various types of schools,
and various parts of the world, and so do the students. Of course
Mathematicians and Computer Scientists have a tendency to be shy and
retiring, but that wasn't very evident at the post-Finals party at Dr
Priestley's house...
The hardest part of my first year was interviewing the potential new
students before Christmas. It was very difficult trying to put people at
ease, and probe their ability and enthusiasm at the same time
(especially as I'm sure I was just as nervous as they were!). I always
hated being interviewed, and I don't much like inflicting it on others,
but I was certainly impressed by the amount of effort everybody put in
to being fair and giving people lots of opportunities to show what they
could do.
Overall, I've had a great year here and I'm looking forward to the
next one. |
