Finance is... fun?

Teaching at a university isn't as glamorous as it sounds. As much as I would like you to imagine me as a tweed-wearing, white-haired, venerable professor, that would be a bit misleading. Those kinds of people have PhDs and tenure; I am a lowly adjunct (someone recently commented, "is there any other kind?"). My contract changes semester to semester, and it never comes with benefits. Clearly it isn't a long-term career path. Nevertheless, I have been enjoying it. I teach for a program that is meant to serve as a stepping-stone for international students who will be attending Northeastern the following year. Most of the classes are supposed to incorporate ESL with more practical college skills. For example, I have taught College Writing and Research Writing, which are actually courses that I could have used as a freshman. Of course, these classes contain much more grammar and critical thinking skills than similarly titled American classes would. Last week, in a paper on euthanasia, the student was writing about someone who has been left severely mentally disabled and wrote: "being a vegetarian for so many years was very painful for her family." I also have to spend quite a bit of time explaining what is appropriate in a college essay and what is not. Last semester I had a student that insisted on using a reference to a newly revived 80s cartoon franchise in his personal essay: "By doing like this, I believe that I will cultivate some features that native English people have,just like the transformers acquire energy stone." It isn't like this was an extended metaphor that had explained to the reader earlier in the essay, that was the only place in the essay that the reference came up. Yes, teaching international students has its own series of challenges and benefits.

At the start of this semester, I was offered a couple of classes that did not sound at all like courses that I should be able to teach: Intro to Science and Technology, and Intro to Business Studies. Now, both these classes are heavily ESL based, meant to familiarize students who are interested in pursuing these fields with the jargon of the laboratory or the board room. I was not particularly worried about the first class; after all, I have always enjoyed science and it was only my weakness with mathematics that kept me from pursuing science as a career. The class has proved to be really easy, something between a normal ESL class and a 7th grade science class that provides many excuses for my Chinese students to talk about robots (I swear they are obsessed with them). However, the business class has been much more challenging.

I have always been a little moronic when it comes to the economy. Much of this comes from the fact that it involves money and money involves numbers. I have always been intimidated by it and so I have stayed away from it. Not only that, but I grew up hearing different kinds of financial terms spoken about in different languages and I never bothered trying to sort them all out. All of a sudden, I find myself having to research economic and financial concepts before teaching them in class. It doesn't help that our textbook is for students with an established business know-how. My students are fresh out of high school, and don't really know how the market works yet. So I am supposed to explain all the stuff that their book assumes they know. Stuff that I have never learned myself. That being said, I am proud to say that I have only really been at a loss once or twice. Explaining (heck, understanding) Derivatives was not easy, and it was the least helpful chapter in the book. Thank God for the internet. It amuses me to find myself in front of a class of future masters of international trade, explaining the differences between stocks and bonds, a bear market and a bull one. Who would have thought that Ryan Jacob would have one day stood in front of a class and explained the credit crunch and subprime crisis? And you know what? I've found that I enjoy finance, at least the theory side of it. I could never be an accountant, but I think I could have studied finance and done alright in it. Seeing as how the education market is terrible right now, I can't help but wonder if I should have tried my hand at the stock market instead.