On the other side of the table

I'm teaching a course this year called "Applied Business Skills and the Environment of Business" or BA499 as Ohio State calls it. Every business major has to go through it and some students refer to it as "Public Speaking 101." The course focuses on three key areas: 1. team building skills, 2. communication/presentation skills, and 3. ethics/corporate social responsibility. So far it's gone well, but it has really made me appreciate my professors a lot more.

To start with, it's a LOT of work. For every hour that I teach, I probably spend four outside of the classroom preparing, grading, meeting, or emailing. And everything takes a long time with forty students. The first class was a little intimidating with forty students just sitting there waiting for you to make a move. I'm just glad that the course material is interesting and that I have a lot of experience/interest in team building and public speaking. I guess I could be teaching accounting. Or worse yet, statistics.

I did have an "I'm getting old" moment though when one of my students emailed me last night. I subsequently told them all today to call me "Mike," instead of "Mr. Hrostoski," which got a little chuckle from the group. It's funny how much better it feels up there when they're laughing.

So far it's going pretty well, but we'll see how happy they are when they get back their first grades on Wednesday.

Mike ^_^