SLIIT COMPUTING & SLIIT LECTURERS
“To be a guest lecturer” was always my dreams, since I had the privilege of listening to the very first guest lecture for a module I hardly remember back in my university days.
Yes, you read it right. While most people had “Bungee Jumping” to “Riding the Mechanical Bull” in their bucket list, I always had “Doing a Guest Lecture” at “SLIIT” as one of my top ten in my bucket list.
It happened instantaneously as much as most incidents in my life. At first I hated when everything good or bad happens instantly, but then I started to love the adrenaline rush!
How did it come to my bucket list?
Honestly, I don’t remember the exact date or place, the module or the guest lecturer, but I do remember what he was speaking about. This was in my second year at SLIIT, Malabe & as a Grade A student (people who knew me back then will find this a bit sarcastic) I sat in the back seats. While I was enjoying my not-so-comfortable steel seat, a gentleman wearing a full suit, with a slight movement like James Bond entered the class room. Well, don’t you find it fascinating when someone you admire (it wasn’t James Bond, Daniel Craig) walk in to a class room and start talking about him & his experiences? I realized back then that this is something I also want to experience. So what did I do? I added it to my BUCKET-LIST!
How did it happen?
On one of these fine afternoons, a few days back, I got in touch with a lecturer for a work related requirement. She was being very helpful & she asked me if I could do a guest lecture for a module that’s related to my work experience. How can I refuse such a request. It’s a prominent thing-to-do in my bucket-list. Better yet, in the TOP 10! So after a few spins and twirls, I said YES!
The astonishing thing about this was that the lecturer requested me on a Tuesday, and my lecture was scheduled on the same week Saturday! I was so excited I honestly didn’t sleep on Tuesday! Irrespective of my office 9-9 workload, after knowing that I have a guest lecture this Saturday, my insomnia mode kicked in!
Creating a masterpiece slide!
Constant research and flashing back to what I did in my career + ‘Oh I could have added that to the slide’ while I was about to fall asleep, was how I ended up with 64 slides! (Shhh… I don’t want to spill my secret!)
Well, I don’t want to lie, a few Redbulls helped too!
The moment of truth!
I was more worried that I will spill any company secrets of multinationals that I worked with, than students been bored of my lecture. So I was very careful when I spoke irrespective of my lame “Digital Marketing” jokes! I started by thanking the lecturer for inviting me to pour out my industry knowledge!
When I was dreaming about this experience years back, I wanted to do a physical class rather than an online one. But I told myself, “hey, at least this is something!”
So here we go! I opened up with a joke, “So back when I was a student & the lecturer opened Ms.Powerpoint, I always looked at the number of slides, I know you guys are the same, but dont worry, 64 slides will go fast!” (not sure if my level of sarcasm match theirs). There were 73 students and to make sure they were listening to my last word, I had to be creative! So I gave them an incentive.
Ticking one off the list
The lecturer was happy and she asked me if I can do another guest lecture in the next semester. And I was over the moon as well, when a few students commented saying they enjoyed the lecture in one of my socials.
So, there you have it! I ticked one off my bucket list!
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