it's nice to be wanted

I finished my Seoul National University gig today. Yesterday and today, I sat one-on-one with nine students to help them with their presentation skills. The students varied from great to terrible; the worst was a girl who had crammed her PowerPoint slides with too much information and was reading from a script while looking very, very uptight. The best was an animated, energetic guy who knew his material inside and out, and who advanced through his presentation with confidence and infectious charm.

Several of the students asked whether I'd be around for further teaching, which is always a flattering question. I told them all that, sadly, SNU had asked me to come for only four days, and now those four days were up. One enterprising student wanted to know whether she could have a business card; my current employer hasn't seen fit to make one for me, and I no longer had any Dongguk University cards in my wallet. I did remind her, though, that my contact info was on the paperwork I had handed out during our résumé workshop back in July. So I might get an email or two; we'll see. Young people can be fickle about these things.

Overall, the students were great to work with; most of them seemed open to the advice I gave; one even switched on her phone's voice recorder to capture what I was telling her. I wish all these young folks good luck later this month, when they do their presentations in front of a visiting panel from the United Nations.