Last Gasp for the Summer — a Shortened Short-Course in Monterrey, Mexico
I had originally planned to visit Monterrey, Mexico in summer 2021. With several destinations needing to be rescheduled, having spent two weeks already this summer teaching in Ecuador and Colombia, and with relatively short flights to Monterrey, I decided to squeeze Mexico into the end of the summer with a compact three days focusing exclusively on data science.
Monterrey is known as an education hub, and it has a great university — Tecnológico de Monterrey, where my late colleague Hector Garcia-Molina was an undergraduate and his father was university president. My goal is to visit places that don’t get a steady stream of outside visitors, so I was hesitant. But Monterrey is a large and diverse city, and my hosts from Universidad Regiomontana (generally known as U-ERRE) assured me they could round up participants for whom the data science short-course would be an exceptional opportunity. I was surprised to learn on arrival that they had decided to invite predominantly high school students.
Normally I might have a few exceptional high school students joining a group that’s largely college students, some college faculty, and occasionally a handful of working professionals, so there were adjustments needed in both material and approach. But on-the-spot adjustment is an expected part of the “instructional odyssey,” and I do my best to go with the flow. I’d guess roughly half of the 140 students were prepared enough to access a good fraction of the material, another quarter or so still got something out of it, and the rest were just enjoying the time off from school. The range of engagement was notably wider than usual, from a few dozen students in the front eagerly taking in every morsel of material (many coming from the Alfa Fundacion high school, which works hard to identify low-income high-potential students across the city), to a pair of lovebirds literally making out in the back. When the course finished it was a true party atmosphere, with happy-birthday songs and dancing to go along with the more typical extended photo session.
My helpers were an interesting counterbalance to the students. I always ask to have a couple of designated course assistants on hand for participants who are having difficulties with system set-up, materials, or English understanding. Usually the assistants are participants who are more advanced and have strong English skills. In this case they were middle-aged faculty and staff — certainly a different dynamic, but it worked.
Aside from discovering a class full of high school students, my other major surprise on arrival was that Monterrey was experiencing highly unusual torrential rain (following months of severe drought to the point the city was worried about running out of water). Due to massive road flooding, classes were cancelled across the state the day I was supposed to start teaching — my harrowing trip from the airport to the hotel certainly suggested the road drainage system leaves much to be desired. But the rain let up and flooding subsided, so we were able to start in the afternoon of the first day. I hadn’t realized just how much my rhythm of material and classwork depends on a morning start, but once again, on-the-spot adjustments are part of the challenge.
U-ERRE (pronounced “ooh-air”), is part of Talisis, a privately-owned consortium of schools and universities across Mexico whose premise is that widespread quality education is the means to lifting up the country. U-ERRE itself takes an approach to higher education that reminded me of the African Leadership University in Mauritius, which I visited in 2017: few actual offices, faculty are referred to as “coaches” rather than teachers, classrooms are “learning spaces,” and the university is run by a CEO (although to be fair U-ERRE also has a president, and a mascot).
Perhaps because of U-ERRE’s somewhat corporate approach, the production values and ancillary amenities for my short-course were impressive: Three large screens (I thought the two screens in Colombia were a treat), video and audio hookups custom-prepared for my laptop, choice of microphone type, three AV guys at the ready (although that number dwindled over time, including none at all the one time we had a real problem), a professional photographer, pump-up music during the breaks, gift bags for the participants, custom backdrops, and 4–5 billboards around the city.
The exclusive focus on Latin America this summer was a coincidence, but it’s certainly a fun part of the world, and it’s been so nice in general to be back teaching across the globe. I’ll be turning to remote locales in Asia next, with Bhutan scheduled for March and Mongolia next summer.
