Prof. Oh and Mr. NerneyThe long await moment has finally come and the curtain of my AY09/10 Sem 2 has officially falls. Frankly, it was by far the most interesting semester for me because of Quantum Mechanics 2 (QM2) as well as Expository writing: Model of Press Freedom (MPF).
I found QM2 interesting because, frankly again, of Prof. Oh Choo Hiap. Prof. Oh was such a great lecturer. To him, the content of QM2 is just like at his fingertips. He managed to teach the module "fluently", in the sense that, I believe, most of the student understood the reasons behind all the mathematical structures that described the physical phenomenons about the hydrogen atom, boson, fermion, etc. Thus the students also understood the importance of the mathematical structures and started to appreciate the work that our good-old physicists like Prof. Dirac and Prof. Pauli, put in. Also, Prof. Oh's explanations is by far much better that reading the text book. I think I can safely say that the lectures is much more rigorous than the text book, too. Basically, by purely understanding the lectures will help to understand the text book but not vice versa. As I was doing my final revision for the exam, I found that the outline of the lectures are so "smooth and elegant" that I can answer myself that "because of this (previous theorem, "classical law" or the 7 postulates for QM), we have to do this (new mathematical structures like "hermition" the new "operator" ) and thus it enable us to solve the hydrogen atom problem and allow us to understand it. I think this way of learning by questioning and answering is very rigorous and fascinating and I really enjoyed the module. It is really "intelligently delicious"! Also, Prof. Oh is very passionate about teaching, too. If I were to ask the class what is Prof. Oh's "favorite quote", I believe most of the students would answer: "Do you have any question?" Prof. Oh is such a lovely lecturer that he would like to walk around the theater before the lesson starts or during the break and asked student this question:" Do you have any question?" I was moved by his passion of teaching-even when I just pop up and knock his office's door for consultation, he always smile and welcome me when he sees me. If I were to teach one day, Prof. Oh would definitely be my role model and he will be remembered when I think of hydrogen atom, boson, fermion, etc.
If I were to tell you that Mr. Paul Nerney was my first Caucasian-no offensive meaning- teacher/lecturer, you would see my point as why MPF was such an interesting module for me. Yes, I have a very difficult time during the first few seminar with Mr. Nerney and my head was "spinning around" after the seminar ended. As you may aware that my English is really bad, I have a lot of difficulties of catching what Mr. Nerney said during the seminar and I hardly come out with a good question or answer in order to keep the seminar engaging. As the seminar consisted of only 8 students, interacting with Mr. Nerney seems to be cannot be avoided but unfortunately I have to keep quite and "act interested" most of the time. However, I did learnt a lot from Mr. Nerney, especially the way he looks at the issues regarding press freedom and the way of writing persuasive articles. It helps me broaden my horizon as well as the way that I used to think about certain issues. In fact, before the seminar, I thought that I am able to think critically and fundamentally but, after few seminars, actually I am not- not even close to that! I remember my first lesson was defining "model of press freedom" and I spent more than 2 hours to look for the answer after class, despite the fact that the definition of "model", "press" and "freedom" were provided from a dictionary. These questions pull me down to the ground and forces me to think about the fundamental meaning of "model of press freedom", which I took for granted. By knowing the truth that I am actually lacking the skill of thinking critically and my mistake of "take thing for granted", this module makes me more interested into it and I would like to thank Mr. Nerney for his patient as well as his helpful suggestions/explanations.
Well, the 3-months-summer holidays has started and I really hope that I would have an even better and fruitful semester for AY10/11 Sem 1 (I can't wait!) and I would also like to wish Prof. Oh and Mr. Nerney all the best and good health.
Happy holidays!
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