Orientation Night

I intended to make a post regard the lecture two days ago, but could find properly time to do so. After the lecture we have to worry about finding project teammates already, and is not for 1 team is for 2 teams! The title “Orientation Night” was meant to refer to the lecture and the Show-and-Tell session on that night. To me it is like an orientation to CS3216.

Lecture: Introduction to CS3216 and Facebook

No wonder prof says his life span would be “shorten by 2 years” when he teaches this module. I can ‘t imagine how he managed to do so much work for this module so efficiently. Besides being the coordinator, he has to prepare for lectures, read every single word on our blogs, maintain his own blog, grade us and send emails etc. On top of that still have to leave time for his wife and kids. Most Profs prefer to make the curriculum simple so they have less stress, so he is different from others. I believe he do this out of good will to make us a stronger person. His passion and enthusiasm for his job really makes him a superman! I wonder he knows 分身术 (be in 2 places at one time)! Not trying to flatter him or anything, just speaking from my heart. I am a teacher myself also cos I teach private tuition and and is also the teaching assistant for an module (I am still teaching this sem). I will sometimes go the extra mile for my students and wonder if I am over doing my job. So that’s why these thoughts occurred to me.

I took down some notes that I think is important on the lecture that I would like to recap here.

In order to be really good in sth, you need 10,000 hrs!

If you divide it by 4 hrs per day, 365 days a year, you get approx 6.85 years. It is quite difficult to really sustain 4 hrs each day for 7 years learning a skill, so it ends up one need more than 7 years to proficient in a skill?


I translate this to "really good in something (A) => spend 10,000 hrs on it (B)"

A	B	A => B	In English
T	T	T	It is possible that you spend 10,000 hrs in sth and you become gd in it.
T	F	F	It is not possible that you don’t spend 10,000 hrs in sth and expect to be really gd in it.
F	T	T	It is possible that you spend 10,000 hrs in sth and you don’t become gd in it.
F	F	T	It is possible that you don’t spend 10,000 hrs in sth and you don’t become gd in it.

Just playing the sentence ard to get a fuller view of what to expect =P. I think the main essence of this is to work hard and work smart!

 1) Sales matters 2) People matters 3) Execution matters

I always believe in execution. Like the saying goes “Saying is easy, doing is difficult”.

In order to be success:  

1) Passion 2) Work 3) Good 4) Focus 5) Push 6)Serve 7) Ideas 8) Persist.

I remembered sth abt FOCUS that I would like to share, i.e. Follow One Course Until Successful!

Show-and-Tell

This is supposed to be a session for us to showcase our talents but it is really hard to tell who the right person for our team is. Because not every talent can be shown and not all talents can be related to the project we are doing.

Some people are single talented, he knows this and he only knows this, but he is very good in it.

Con: He may not “survive” if he is asked to take on an unfamiliar role. He is interested in nothing else but this field, he may have difficult in communicating with other group members.

Pro: If he is to take on a role that can push his talent to the max, he can be an asset to the group.

Some others are multi-talented, he seems to know everything.

Con: He may be only able to do the basics and not be able to learn or do the advanced.

Pro: He can monitor all group members’ progress, and is a good coordinator. It could be just take he hasn’t got the chance to get involved in advanced stuff previously, so picking up the advanced may not be an issue to him since he already knows the basics.

I believe everyone can serve a purpose to the group. It sometimes really depends on luck to find a “perfect” group where everyone complements each other.

But we are given only so little time to know each other… And it is difficult to get ppl’s name matched with face and the performance they did that night!