My final week at Polytechnika

Now as I am on the back end of my journey, I realize these 10 months have flown by. 

As with any Professor, the first and last week of school are the busiest. No exception here. 

Starting with last Saturday, the 12th- I did my second lecture to the group of medical professionals (physicians, nurses, dentists, etc)- whom most do not speak any English. So as with last time a translator was brought in. I blogged about my first experience lecturing while using an translator a few weeks ago. As with last time, the translator did a great job- but frankly the class dynamic changes quite a bit when everything is filtered through a third party. That said, this was a great group who have an interesting health care road ahead of them. Frankly, I wish we could really spend some time together, as I would like to learn their views of how their health system will evolve. Interestingly however, we in the US have a capitalistic system but we are talking about more government involvement. Here, they have all government involvement- but see a great need for more capitalism in health care. No one has the answer.

Besides these side lectures I have been doing; I had five classes this semester with about 110 total students. That is almost twice my normal teaching load at home (Rockhurst). But I like teaching (most days) and enjoyed the variety. My five classes were spread over many of the school’s different business programs. So I had undergrads, graduate students, part-time students, and executive students. With these 110 students- they are not just Poles. They are kids from three different continents and multiple countries. 

So the week was full of giving final exams and then grading them. The same with final cases. Basically every night this week was dedicated to grading. I admittedly changed some of my final test formats to make them a little easier to grade (yes, professors do that); as I had to get so many done in a short time frame. I also started to give some exams last week.

During all of this semester ending stuff were two other activities. First, we are getting the house ready to move out. Figuring what to bring home and what to toss. Making sure we minimized the bags we would have to check (and thus have to pay extra- a change made by the airlines since we came over). Secondly, our school hosted an international conference on entrepreneurship; of which I have been involved.

By Wednesday afternoon, I had all exams done and calculated final grades for all the classes. 

This next process is a cultural difference. In Poland (and elsewhere in Europe) the students come to your office to receive their final grade in person (recall I have 110 students). So starting Wednesday, I began holding court for the students. 

They bring with them a journal called an Indek. This is a book where all their grades are kept for all their classes during their entire schooling tenure. So, it is basically a book of grades. I have to sign my page in their book (they keep the book). Then they give me a piece of paper that is generated by the school’s office for me to record their grade. They take the signed piece of paper back to the school's office. 

Their grades are numeric. 2 though a 5. 2 is a failing grade and a 5 is top. They also add pluses to the numbers. So you can get a 4+ (meaning better than a 4, but not quite a 5). When you think about it however, it is really not much different than our letter and plus system. B, B+, A, etc. 

Some students were visibly shaken that they passed (which I understand). Some were visibly shaken because they failed. This always surprises me, that a student is “surprised” that they failed. You should always know you are going to fail. 

Of course then comes the pleading and some sad story from the students who received a failing or low grade (universal in all cultures). Now they see me as the old-wise professor- they don’t realize I was once a student and did the same pleading and told the same sad stories- so I rarely buy them. 

Some students plead that if they only had a few more points, they could move up a from one grade to another. Sometimes I give-in on these- particularly good kids who only missed the next grade level by a 1/10 of a point. 

I only had one extreme indecent- a student got so agitated with me when I did not pass him, he came back the next day to debate again. I really did review his case to make sure I did not make an error. After I determined he was not even close to passing, he got so agitated and began accusing me of all kinds of things. I finally had to physically escort him out of my office. Given the horrible things that now happen at schools all over the world- it always worries Lisa when I get a student really agitated. 

Now, after I meet and sign the paperwork for all the students- the grade process is only half over. Then the school’s office gives me a list of all my classes and all my students. I have to write in all 110 grades on these sheets (using a pen) and sign each one. Then, to add a little technology- they give me a USB pen drive which has a database version of these lists, that I just did by hand. I have to type in the 110 grades into the database, hit save, and give everything back to the office. 

So, I have recorded each grade 4 times for each student, in 4 different places- what is done with all of these I have no idea. 

This was basically a 4 day process of meeting with students, and signing everything. I even went in on Saturday- as we have a weekend group of students who needed to meet with me. (But they are all good kids and I really enjoy them, so no complaints other than the paperwork). 

Now back to the conference. As I mentioned, our school hosts a bi-annual conference on Entrepreneurship. It is a small 2 day conference bringing in people mostly form central and east Europe. But we had some from as far as South Africa and South Korea. It was held Thursday and Friday.

I had worked reviewing some of the submissions prior to the conference. Then I chaired two of the sessions (meaning I introduced each speaker and kept track of time, and otherwise sit there on stage and look pretty). I had planned to present a paper myself- but just got lazy and never wrote one (that has been a bad habit lately that I need to fix). 

As with all conferences- the best part are the coffee breaks, lunches and dinners where you get to meet and talk to people. You always make your best contacts at these. I met several nice people.

In fact, on Friday night, after the conference was over, I had dinner with our Vice Dean and two others from the conference at her home. One was from Germany and one was from France. A very nice multinational dinner. 

After I met with students on Saturday, this was to be my last time on campus for this trip. So I cleaned out my desk, collected my belongings and said “so long” to my work home for the last year. I will miss the people and the place. It has been a great adventure.