Apart from my favorite menadi (ahlan ya doctor) and the security guards (hamdilla 3asalama ya doctor) who gave me the confidence I so badly needed, I was on my own... without support...
I attended all the elementary Economics courses i.e. KG-1 and I looked ridiculous perched at the back of the class surrounded by fresh kids just out of thanaweya amma, GCE or American High... The painful part was when they thought I was the professor and started to call me doctor... And when I told them oh-so-casually that I'm here to "audit" the course to "refresh my memory" they stared back at me and walked away without saying another word... dropping me like an old habit... The things I had to endure on this path of knowledge...
One of the elementary courses was given by the one and only Dr. Galal Amin, that great Egyptian economist and inspiring writer... I go to his office and try to remind him of myself, he vaguely remembers me and graciously allows me to attend his class... Then I summon all my courage and pose the impossible question: Sir, I'm available, very available in fact, if you need an assistant... No thank you, comes the polite answer... So I sit at the back of the class and take notes like crazy... My childhood friend Daks (Dina D) teased me back in our AUC days that I used to write down every single word, even if the prof coughs I wrote it down! Well Daks, I'm back at it again! Only this time if he so much as waves a hand, I take note of it! Desperate times call for desperate measures! Anyways after a couple of weeks Dr. Amin tells the kids that they have an exam coming up and the students panic and circle him with their questions... That day I pass by him at the office and he says: "Can you help the students with their exam?" Without thinking I blurt out the answer: "Of course!" He smiles warmly: "Good, then you can be my assistant!"... With extreme self control I restrained myself from dancing on his desk and I went out of his office and closed the door... Only to be hit with another reality: how can I help the students if I can't remember anything myself?... I immediately run and buy the thick 700 page Samuelson book and start studying! I also start rewriting his notes (abayad-hom!) and prepare myself for the kids... I spend hours studying so that when the students ask me I know how to answer. They share my notes and photocopy them... this brings back sweet memories of my undergraduate years. I keep remembering all my dear friends who took the same courses with me Dino (Diane R), Vouty (Mervat D), Khambeez (Amira K)... Good old days... Anyways I spend hours with the students studying for the exam. Some of them got A's, some got B's and a few couldn't grasp the concepts and they just had to drop the course... I felt so bad for them, it was as if they were all my own kids and I relished in their success and felt pain in their failure. It was a beautiful but exhausting experience, but I guess it helped me greatly with my other courses because I started to remember the concepts bit by bit.
I also audited another course with Dr. Galal Amin which was reminded of the good old days: Bias in History of Economic Thought. That was really nice. It was a seminar with the Seniors (Year 4 students) and they were sooooo sharp and I think it was the best course that I attended in a long time. Half of the class was a lecture and the other half was a discussion of a certain reading (a chapter or two in a book) pertaining to a particular school of economic thought... Brilliant course, but again very challenging because some of the articles were v. difficult to read, let alone understand, and Dr. Amin, being a genius himself, was always way ahead of us... Real nice...
Unfortunately not all the courses were like that... Dr. Galal Amin was a disappearing phenomenon and relied more on critical thinking than on mathematics which was great for me... But the majority of the other younger generation were taught in the new mathematical method. I was enjoying the semester but I still couldn't handle the endless equations and graphs and I knew that I wouldn't stand a chance in the comprehensive exam, not unless I learnt all the material by heart, which was something I neither had the appetite nor the ability for... I started re-thinking the thesis road again... But I had to find a prof who would supervise me... If I don't then I was stuck with the comprehensive and I might as well pack and leave...
Meanwhile I started my single graduate course, the only course for which I had credit... But that is another story...
to be continued...
I attended all the elementary Economics courses i.e. KG-1 and I looked ridiculous perched at the back of the class surrounded by fresh kids just out of thanaweya amma, GCE or American High... The painful part was when they thought I was the professor and started to call me doctor... And when I told them oh-so-casually that I'm here to "audit" the course to "refresh my memory" they stared back at me and walked away without saying another word... dropping me like an old habit... The things I had to endure on this path of knowledge...
One of the elementary courses was given by the one and only Dr. Galal Amin, that great Egyptian economist and inspiring writer... I go to his office and try to remind him of myself, he vaguely remembers me and graciously allows me to attend his class... Then I summon all my courage and pose the impossible question: Sir, I'm available, very available in fact, if you need an assistant... No thank you, comes the polite answer... So I sit at the back of the class and take notes like crazy... My childhood friend Daks (Dina D) teased me back in our AUC days that I used to write down every single word, even if the prof coughs I wrote it down! Well Daks, I'm back at it again! Only this time if he so much as waves a hand, I take note of it! Desperate times call for desperate measures! Anyways after a couple of weeks Dr. Amin tells the kids that they have an exam coming up and the students panic and circle him with their questions... That day I pass by him at the office and he says: "Can you help the students with their exam?" Without thinking I blurt out the answer: "Of course!" He smiles warmly: "Good, then you can be my assistant!"... With extreme self control I restrained myself from dancing on his desk and I went out of his office and closed the door... Only to be hit with another reality: how can I help the students if I can't remember anything myself?... I immediately run and buy the thick 700 page Samuelson book and start studying! I also start rewriting his notes (abayad-hom!) and prepare myself for the kids... I spend hours studying so that when the students ask me I know how to answer. They share my notes and photocopy them... this brings back sweet memories of my undergraduate years. I keep remembering all my dear friends who took the same courses with me Dino (Diane R), Vouty (Mervat D), Khambeez (Amira K)... Good old days... Anyways I spend hours with the students studying for the exam. Some of them got A's, some got B's and a few couldn't grasp the concepts and they just had to drop the course... I felt so bad for them, it was as if they were all my own kids and I relished in their success and felt pain in their failure. It was a beautiful but exhausting experience, but I guess it helped me greatly with my other courses because I started to remember the concepts bit by bit.
I also audited another course with Dr. Galal Amin which was reminded of the good old days: Bias in History of Economic Thought. That was really nice. It was a seminar with the Seniors (Year 4 students) and they were sooooo sharp and I think it was the best course that I attended in a long time. Half of the class was a lecture and the other half was a discussion of a certain reading (a chapter or two in a book) pertaining to a particular school of economic thought... Brilliant course, but again very challenging because some of the articles were v. difficult to read, let alone understand, and Dr. Amin, being a genius himself, was always way ahead of us... Real nice...
Unfortunately not all the courses were like that... Dr. Galal Amin was a disappearing phenomenon and relied more on critical thinking than on mathematics which was great for me... But the majority of the other younger generation were taught in the new mathematical method. I was enjoying the semester but I still couldn't handle the endless equations and graphs and I knew that I wouldn't stand a chance in the comprehensive exam, not unless I learnt all the material by heart, which was something I neither had the appetite nor the ability for... I started re-thinking the thesis road again... But I had to find a prof who would supervise me... If I don't then I was stuck with the comprehensive and I might as well pack and leave...
Meanwhile I started my single graduate course, the only course for which I had credit... But that is another story...
to be continued...
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