Visiting Alumni

Remembered this while posting a comment to Chad's blog celebrating the graduation of some of his students despite all the negative waves on the internet.

I had a great drop-in visit from an alumnus last week.

I'm wandering aimlessly in the halls when I see a familiar face, who has dropped by looking for me and Dr. Calc Three to tell us he had graduated with his degree in Computer Engineering from Wannabe Flagship U and has a job starting in August.

Now I already knew he had graduated (in good time, I might add) from my spies, but the job was excellent news. Cool job for starting out, and in a major city near his home turf. They are getting a good one.

You see, he was a kid who survived the inner city long enough to join the Marines. How he got to Ishkabibble CC, over 1000 miles from his home, is one of the mysteries of life. He came to us via Iraq, and became part of one of my strongest classes. The Marines-only study group he was in contributed a lot that year, because the only thing that works harder than a Marine is a group of several Marines. Combine that with his natural problem-solving skills, some good math classes, and learning all I could teach him, and he had a huge head start over the slacker HS kids who started at Wannabe Flagship.

The leadership and work ethic of vets is common around my CC, and I think it helps focus the minds of the others in my class as well. They are adults who know for sure that this is not Grade 13.