I started my M.A. back in 1980 and I took all the courses and only had to complete my thesis to graduate, but then we left Egypt and so I couldn't pursue it further. After returning to Cairo I decided to complete that unfinished business... I approached my dear Prof Beshai who graciously and miraculously, approved my request to resume my M.A. after 25 years, on the condition that I take a couple of refresher courses in addition to my thesis. The following is an account of that journey which began in Sep 2005...
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It's dark.... pitch black... rust everywhere, loose circuits, sparks and smoke, it's a maze... and I'm lost...
I just described my brain... That miracle of memory, thought and intellect, that Allah sob7anaho wa ta3alla gave us and which I subjected for the last 3 and a half months to a drilling exercise of extreme torture, and challenged it to the limit... I'm talking about my first semester at AUC...
I started in September 2005, and I had a mixed feeling of uncertainty, challenge and elation. The last economics course I attended was back in 1982, and although I did have the occasional sparks of memory, everything was very mixed up inside... buried and long forgotten after so many years away from academia... Within one week all feelings of challenge and elation were gone, and I was only left with uncertainty...
After one week into the semester I decide: Ok let's finish this thing, I'm ready to start my thesis pronto and whiz through the program in 2 weeks max... The coordinator asks me: Did you decide on a thesis? No... Did you write a proposal for a thesis? No... Do you know what your thesis will be about? No... Did you decide on ANY topic? (now louder, impatient and border-line exasperated) No... Do you have ANY idea what you want to do? No... Do you have a professor to supervise your thesis? No... At this she writes me off and shows me the door: See if you can find a professor who agrees to supervise you... And then she adds: Try one of the younger ones, maybe they'll agree... What? Moi? Morsi el Zanati et-shattam ya mens... karamti et-ba3-tarit fil ard... Of course I'll find someone to supervise me, and not a young one, but one of the older generation... Piece of cake I thought... But no... There's no one available! Either they're fully booked or don't have time... Some turned me down politely, others simply dismissed me with a royal hand wave... I panic... Some wise kid suggests: Why the thesis? Go for a comprehensive exam, take a couple of extra courses and sit for the comprehensive and you're done... Smart... I remember that Vouty and Basel were once my zomol in the M.A. program back in 1980... Vouty's out of reach in Amreeeeka, so I urgently sms good old Basel... Did you do a thesis or sit for a comprehensive? Answer: Comprehensive... How? With Dr. Handoussa, and it was not that hard: a paper of some sort and an exam... Sounds pretty good and do-able... Out with the thesis & ahlan bil comprehensive... No problemo... But I'm in for a MAJOR shock...
Economics has become soooooo MATHEMATICAL... It's as if I was in class of calculus not economics... What happened in the last 25 years? I sat in class in utter disbelief as the professor whizzed through to the board as if he was "7ad messalatoh 3aleena" and frenzily writing equations and drawing 3-dimensional graphs... (Don't you need special 3-D glasses for those?)... what's happening? I swear some of the equations didn't fit the whole line! Pages and pages of equations that make absolutely no sense... And ALL the profs always looked in my direction with that: "of-course-you-already-know-all this look"! And I nod right back at them as if I understand every word... And to camouflage my ignorance I say with a knowledgable air: "You mentioned this before" or, "it's in the book..." or I volunteer an answer which luckily happens to be right... But I'm still struggling with the equations... And what's with the greek letters alpha and beta anyway? And whoever phoned gamma, sigma and theta and told them to show up in the first place? Then there's this symbol which looks like an inverted Y called, called, called.... Actually I didn't know if it's called lamda or landa (actually if you're a kahro-ba2i qad el donia (a.k.a. osta el electrician) they're one and the same: lamp=lamba=lamda=landa)... Anyways sometimes I hear it landa, others I hear it lamda... And I don't know which is which...Then landa starts haunting me in my sleep... I get nightmares of a huge lamp chasing me and hitting me on the head: takh teekh tookh, if-hami ba2a... So one day after class, after all the kids are gone, I summon my courage and ask the teacher: Prof, (I say in a casual tone, with a casual smile, with a casual attitude, as if I already know the answer, but just checking if he does too...) is it landa or lamda? "It's landa with an 'n'..." comes the insulting reply... I sink deeper into my depression... or is it my depressing despair?... whatever...
The graphs are no consolation... In one case there was this graph which had 4 different graphs, on 4 different planes, attached to each other on the same Y axis, but with 4 different X axes... (yes I know it doesn't make any sense!) This same graph and its analysis got the Economist who came up with it a Nobel prize... Good for him, but nobody's answering my question: where's the economics ya shabab? Where's the analysis?... This was supposed to be an easy ride: a quick hit a la Monash-style, no blood, no pain... 2 courses and a thesis and I'm outta here in a jiffy... This is more complicated than I thought... I sink even further...
N O T H I N G made any sense... NOTH...ING... to re-study all these logarithms for a comprehensive would be impossible... (That's why I told you nafadt ya Basel)...My gut instinct was to run out the door... Just leave... This is tooooo humiliating... But I thought, I can't go back & face my kids... What kind of an example would I be setting, running away like that... So I decide to give myself more time... Who knows? First classes are always tough... So what do I do? I audit 5 courses... (i.e. sit in class without taking exam or credit hours)... Yes five...
5 times as much more Economic terms start flying over my head and still I couldn't remember ANYTHING... The thing that really killed me were the names and the abbreviations that were taken for granted as given: mpc this, mps that, marginal this, Malthus that, Keynes, Adam Smith, physiocrats (meen dool, I knew the names but couldn't remember who these people were, or what they did!). Actually the ONLY one I remembered AND knew was Marx (does this mean my subconscious has a particular political/economic preference?)... And I was too embarassed to ask questions... I neither remembered nor understood anything... I looked around class, and in my despair I imagined that like me, all the students (in their 20's and who were just barely older than my own kids!) also don't understand the material... so I secretly started plotting a coup d'etat in the Economics department... This "new science" has got to change... I want the old Economics back, the anlaysis, the intellectual debates, the graphs and equations that made sense... I sat quietly in class, biding my time, waiting for the right moment to lead a Spartacus-style revolution... I visualized myself leading the students to Midan El Tahrir & burning mock puppets of teachers and graphs and equations, demanding that the old Economics be returned, and being surrounded by Amn Markazi (who BTW don't beat up AUC students, so I was safe)... I started throwing remarks at the kids... "you know, this is NOT how it was taught in my time...", "I can't believe what you guys are being subjected to...", "It was sooo much more interesting 25 years ago", "as an AUCian you have the RIGHT to complain to the department", "who does he think he is?" and "what kind of an exam is that?" And I was getting a positive feedback... seeds of unrest were beginning to appear in class... I decided that the time was ripe to start enlisting the kids... But just as I was regaining hope maqaseef el ra2aba told me: You know what? It's really not too bad. we're used to this, Economics did change since YOUR time, but WE don't mind, you just have to learn it by heart, that's all...
Learn it by heart? Dee akhret-ha?... I was on my own... out in the cold... No one was going with me to Midan El Tahrir... The only support I got was from the car attendants (el menadi) who parked my car near the AUC library, and the security staff at the entrance, who always greeted me with: "Ahlan ya doctor" (yes they thought I was a professor!)... and let me in without searching my handbag... My confidence was back... I could do this... maybe...
to be continued...
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It's dark.... pitch black... rust everywhere, loose circuits, sparks and smoke, it's a maze... and I'm lost...
I just described my brain... That miracle of memory, thought and intellect, that Allah sob7anaho wa ta3alla gave us and which I subjected for the last 3 and a half months to a drilling exercise of extreme torture, and challenged it to the limit... I'm talking about my first semester at AUC...
I started in September 2005, and I had a mixed feeling of uncertainty, challenge and elation. The last economics course I attended was back in 1982, and although I did have the occasional sparks of memory, everything was very mixed up inside... buried and long forgotten after so many years away from academia... Within one week all feelings of challenge and elation were gone, and I was only left with uncertainty...
After one week into the semester I decide: Ok let's finish this thing, I'm ready to start my thesis pronto and whiz through the program in 2 weeks max... The coordinator asks me: Did you decide on a thesis? No... Did you write a proposal for a thesis? No... Do you know what your thesis will be about? No... Did you decide on ANY topic? (now louder, impatient and border-line exasperated) No... Do you have ANY idea what you want to do? No... Do you have a professor to supervise your thesis? No... At this she writes me off and shows me the door: See if you can find a professor who agrees to supervise you... And then she adds: Try one of the younger ones, maybe they'll agree... What? Moi? Morsi el Zanati et-shattam ya mens... karamti et-ba3-tarit fil ard... Of course I'll find someone to supervise me, and not a young one, but one of the older generation... Piece of cake I thought... But no... There's no one available! Either they're fully booked or don't have time... Some turned me down politely, others simply dismissed me with a royal hand wave... I panic... Some wise kid suggests: Why the thesis? Go for a comprehensive exam, take a couple of extra courses and sit for the comprehensive and you're done... Smart... I remember that Vouty and Basel were once my zomol in the M.A. program back in 1980... Vouty's out of reach in Amreeeeka, so I urgently sms good old Basel... Did you do a thesis or sit for a comprehensive? Answer: Comprehensive... How? With Dr. Handoussa, and it was not that hard: a paper of some sort and an exam... Sounds pretty good and do-able... Out with the thesis & ahlan bil comprehensive... No problemo... But I'm in for a MAJOR shock...
Economics has become soooooo MATHEMATICAL... It's as if I was in class of calculus not economics... What happened in the last 25 years? I sat in class in utter disbelief as the professor whizzed through to the board as if he was "7ad messalatoh 3aleena" and frenzily writing equations and drawing 3-dimensional graphs... (Don't you need special 3-D glasses for those?)... what's happening? I swear some of the equations didn't fit the whole line! Pages and pages of equations that make absolutely no sense... And ALL the profs always looked in my direction with that: "of-course-you-already-know-all this look"! And I nod right back at them as if I understand every word... And to camouflage my ignorance I say with a knowledgable air: "You mentioned this before" or, "it's in the book..." or I volunteer an answer which luckily happens to be right... But I'm still struggling with the equations... And what's with the greek letters alpha and beta anyway? And whoever phoned gamma, sigma and theta and told them to show up in the first place? Then there's this symbol which looks like an inverted Y called, called, called.... Actually I didn't know if it's called lamda or landa (actually if you're a kahro-ba2i qad el donia (a.k.a. osta el electrician) they're one and the same: lamp=lamba=lamda=landa)... Anyways sometimes I hear it landa, others I hear it lamda... And I don't know which is which...Then landa starts haunting me in my sleep... I get nightmares of a huge lamp chasing me and hitting me on the head: takh teekh tookh, if-hami ba2a... So one day after class, after all the kids are gone, I summon my courage and ask the teacher: Prof, (I say in a casual tone, with a casual smile, with a casual attitude, as if I already know the answer, but just checking if he does too...) is it landa or lamda? "It's landa with an 'n'..." comes the insulting reply... I sink deeper into my depression... or is it my depressing despair?... whatever...
The graphs are no consolation... In one case there was this graph which had 4 different graphs, on 4 different planes, attached to each other on the same Y axis, but with 4 different X axes... (yes I know it doesn't make any sense!) This same graph and its analysis got the Economist who came up with it a Nobel prize... Good for him, but nobody's answering my question: where's the economics ya shabab? Where's the analysis?... This was supposed to be an easy ride: a quick hit a la Monash-style, no blood, no pain... 2 courses and a thesis and I'm outta here in a jiffy... This is more complicated than I thought... I sink even further...
N O T H I N G made any sense... NOTH...ING... to re-study all these logarithms for a comprehensive would be impossible... (That's why I told you nafadt ya Basel)...My gut instinct was to run out the door... Just leave... This is tooooo humiliating... But I thought, I can't go back & face my kids... What kind of an example would I be setting, running away like that... So I decide to give myself more time... Who knows? First classes are always tough... So what do I do? I audit 5 courses... (i.e. sit in class without taking exam or credit hours)... Yes five...
5 times as much more Economic terms start flying over my head and still I couldn't remember ANYTHING... The thing that really killed me were the names and the abbreviations that were taken for granted as given: mpc this, mps that, marginal this, Malthus that, Keynes, Adam Smith, physiocrats (meen dool, I knew the names but couldn't remember who these people were, or what they did!). Actually the ONLY one I remembered AND knew was Marx (does this mean my subconscious has a particular political/economic preference?)... And I was too embarassed to ask questions... I neither remembered nor understood anything... I looked around class, and in my despair I imagined that like me, all the students (in their 20's and who were just barely older than my own kids!) also don't understand the material... so I secretly started plotting a coup d'etat in the Economics department... This "new science" has got to change... I want the old Economics back, the anlaysis, the intellectual debates, the graphs and equations that made sense... I sat quietly in class, biding my time, waiting for the right moment to lead a Spartacus-style revolution... I visualized myself leading the students to Midan El Tahrir & burning mock puppets of teachers and graphs and equations, demanding that the old Economics be returned, and being surrounded by Amn Markazi (who BTW don't beat up AUC students, so I was safe)... I started throwing remarks at the kids... "you know, this is NOT how it was taught in my time...", "I can't believe what you guys are being subjected to...", "It was sooo much more interesting 25 years ago", "as an AUCian you have the RIGHT to complain to the department", "who does he think he is?" and "what kind of an exam is that?" And I was getting a positive feedback... seeds of unrest were beginning to appear in class... I decided that the time was ripe to start enlisting the kids... But just as I was regaining hope maqaseef el ra2aba told me: You know what? It's really not too bad. we're used to this, Economics did change since YOUR time, but WE don't mind, you just have to learn it by heart, that's all...
Learn it by heart? Dee akhret-ha?... I was on my own... out in the cold... No one was going with me to Midan El Tahrir... The only support I got was from the car attendants (el menadi) who parked my car near the AUC library, and the security staff at the entrance, who always greeted me with: "Ahlan ya doctor" (yes they thought I was a professor!)... and let me in without searching my handbag... My confidence was back... I could do this... maybe...
to be continued...
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