That was interesting

[Genghis the Engineer]

A few days ago I had the new and novel experience of lecturing to a large group of aerospace engineering undergraduates.

They turned up on time, came in quietly, took notes throughout the lecture. More unusually, they didn't heckle, interrupt, mutter that I was talking rubbish and the questions at the end were very few and presented as if they were almost ashamed to be asking questions.

Then without ceremony, they quietly filed out at the end. Not one of them turned the lecture notes into a paper aeroplane.


I'm sure in 6 years the successful ones will have turned into Engineers - but they're far too quiet and retiring at the moment I blame the modern school system.

G

[FlyFreeWbe]

You're putting yourself down man! They must've thought you were the best speaker they'd had in a long while! Be proud! Can I ask where you went? We had a visit a while ago, about the legal side to aero engineering. Scary stuff





What he don't know wont hurt him...thank god for bluetooth

[Genghis the Engineer]

Sheffield University, teaching aircraft certification to the aerospace engineering undergrads.

It is possible that they just appreciated the fact that in 2 hours I didn't use a single equation, although that may not extend to the next couple I'm giving them.

If you need some light relief at Cambridge, my rates are extremely reasonable, and I never use maths unless absolutely necessary .

G

[Raynet]

Hate to say Mr K but it sounds like you were in the wrong lecture!

[H721]

The more interesting may be:

your next lecture at the same school, same LARGE group of students, another well-behave 2-hour, no paper glider....

That will tell how interesting your lecturing is.

[FlyFreeWbe]

hehe

I'm not actually @ Cambridge. About one hour to the south west @ Herts in Hatfield. I'll gladly make a suggestion and see if we can get you down here sometime next semester if you can make it! PM me. Aircraft certification sounds interesting, but late afternoon lectures are pretty touch'n'go with the Aero's here

[Dr Illitout]

I always thought that the purpose of a lecture was to pass information from the lecturers notes to the studants notes, without passing through the minds of either of them!!!!!
Seriously though you must a good lecturer to hold them in rapt attention for that long. Normaly I drift off after abZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZ ..............

[Krystal n chips]

Plaudits all round then ! How about some variables however,
(a ) was the lecture first thing Monday morning when they had all been on the p$$$ for the weekend ?
( b) as above but for every other night of the week?
(c) just before lunch / just after lunch ?---rationale being-- not delayed for the former--and fairly content for the latter
(d) last lecture of the day ?
(e) Class agreement that, if we ask questions, we will be here for eternity--so let the old f$$t get on with it---we ( as a class )applied this principle to an Accountancy lecturer we had--and it worked a treat !
(f) you emulated the yoing lady who appeared in front of us one day dressed in rather tiight jodhpurs and riding boots--to give a lecture on Marketing Strategy no less---and got the undivided and rapt attention of the male members of the class throughout !
So when is the book to be published then ?

There is always the possibility of course that the lecture was, er quite interesting ?

[Genghis the Engineer]

H271 said:

The more interesting may be:

Never a truer word said, I'll let you know



The book will be published when I have any time, I'm thinking maybe about 20 years at the current workload! Actually the one I wrote for Pooleys a couple of years ago that didn't get published is still there, I am talking to somebody else but need to get off my backside and be a bit more active about it.

G

[noisy]

How come they get to learn about interesting stuff like certification? The only time this real world stuff was mentioned on my degree was a passing reference to FARs during a stability & control lecture.

Bah humbug!

[Genghis the Engineer]

Well I've done another one - I wasn't counting but suspect that I had a few less attendees, which may if nothing else be down to them realising that they didn't actually have to pass anything related to it! I think I may have lost one or two to slumberland in the early part of the lecture (I was explaining how to derive flying limitations - let's be honest, I'd probably have dropped off in part of that too, it's not the most thrilling subject in aviation). However, I followed up with some reasonably sexy examples - recertifying a pre-WW2 biplane, and approving a canon on a new fighter - that definitely woke them all up.

I think that I've learned a lesson there - I can't avoid covering some theory, since without it the rest just doesn't make sense - but the sexy examples are definitely what get the students' attention. So, I think that I need to shift the emphasis slightly from theory to war-stories, and try and use examples (even, I suspect if I have to make them up a bit) with good pictures / video clips / etc. to hang the theory onto as far as I possibly can.

At the end, this time I got more questions (mostly related to the examples) and they didn't seem in such a hurry to escape as before, plus still no paper aeroplanes made out of the lecture notes

Anyhow, they've verbally asked me to come and do the same again next year - so they can't have been too dissapointed.

Not only that, but they gave me the privilege of christening their new full motion sim - that was fun

G

[H721]

well done G.

a full motion sim in an university, suprise suprise.