Hi! It’s Mei here. First of all, I would like to say thank you to you for being such a great tutor!=) Honest speaking, I did learn a lot of from you, not just stuffs about architecture but also some LESSONS IN LIFE.
Coming from a different family and cultural background, I find that Westerners are less hesitated in showing their disagreement or dissatisfactory compared to Asians. For Asians, or maybe just for me only, confrontation seems to be impolite especially when it is done towards someone elder than me. Throughout this semester, I can see how my group members directly throwing their frustration out when you are criticising their projects. If I were being put into your situation, I might be afraid of giving too much negative comments on their projects and ideas anymore, hoping that they would hate me less. However, this is not what you had done. You continued to give us valuable comments and help us to refine our projects from various aspects. This is great! And I think this is the right thing that one should do too if one really concerns about the others. I salute you for not being afraid to tell the TRUTH! Your comments and feedbacks are all for our own good. I can see that! You had done a good job! Thank you!
The second thing that I had learnt from you is don’t let our pride stops us from saying sorry even to people younger than us. Remember at the early of this sem, due to your disappointment to our progress and quality in work, you sent us an email with discouraging words saying that we will most probably fail for our final presentation. Frankly speaking, that email was a bit demotivating but it really surprised me to hear you apologize for that email on the following week. I never expect a tutor will apologize to his fellow students. Besides apologizing, you, together with Joseph, even brought us go around university to show us real life examples on how to create sense of arrival for a building. I was touched by your effort in helping us to learn. I was even touched by words that you had said on that day which sounds like this : “ Joseph and I are here to HELP you guys. I apologize for last week email. I admit that it’s a bit harsh and I’m sorry about that...”. Thank you for being such a good tutor.
Another thing that I had learnt from you is responsibility. Throughout the semester, I can really see that you are taking up your job as a tutor and lecturer seriously and sincerely. Starting from the very first week of semester, you sent us to-do-list every week summarising work that we have to accomplish for next week. Together with the to-do-list, there’re links to useful websites which help us to learn a lot. In order to help us learn more effectively, you show us how to make full use of the library to get the information that we want. Even for the Technology lecturer, it’s great effort from you to re-teach us about type of forces and bending moment just to make sure that we are clear about them. Arriving at lecture hall earlier to make your final preparation for lectures that you are about to give also shows to me that you are a responsible lecturer. Thanks for your effort! ^^
Finally, the one last thing that I had learnt from you throughout the semester is self-reflection and willingness to accept criticism and make changes. Starting with each of us presenting in front of everyone and listen to your feedback on everyone’s project, you change to have the timer system after having many of us shouting “time’s up” while you were giving useful feedbacks and ways for improvement for us. Starting with you being very insisting on having us following the idea that you have provided us, you gradually change to make more allowance for us to have our own idea that you don’t really like being used in our projects. You are constantly making changes to improve the way things work. This is something that can hardly be done by a lot of people but you had done it. Great!
I guess this is pretty much what I had learnt from you. THANKS again for being a marvellous tutor and lecturer. THANKS even more for being a good role model to me. I feel lucky to have you as my tutor. You are indeed a great educator who has not only educated me about architecture, but also about life. Thank you. Keep up with your good work and don’t lose your strong character. We need this kind of educator. Last but not least, I’m sure you will be a good father! [You will now have more time to spend with your daughter =)] Happy fatherhood and all the best to you!
Yours sincerely,
Mei
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