The Philippines: A Perfect Fit
Around the time I launched the instructional odyssey back in the summer of 2016, I received a persuasive invitation from De La Salle University in Manila. I wasn’t able to fit the Philippines into my Asia schedule at the time, but I’m glad I finally got there. It turned out to be a perfect fit:
- International visitors and short-course opportunities are relatively rare, so there was great anticipation and enthusiasm. It’s the first time I’ve been asked for autographs!
- The country is developed enough that facilities were excellent (except for the internet; more on that in a moment).
- Thanks to three hard-working women faculty, and despite the outsized turnout, organization was superb — absolutely smooth-running from advertising and registration to food service and group photographs.
- The participants were prepared, on time, and fluent in English.
As is typical, I offered a Big Data short-course lasting four full days, a one-day Design Thinking workshop, and an informal roundtable for women.
The Big Data short-course had a sold out crowd of 420 participants from 21 different institutions in the Philippines, including high school, undergraduate, and graduate students, faculty, and working professionals. The participants were capable and engaged, effusive but polite. They whooped and cheered for their favorite parts of the course (Tableau data visualization is always a winner, but they appreciated some of the less flashy tools as well); they paid attention to my stories and laughed at my jokes; they raced to the front with their completed assignments to claim prizes but weren’t upset when they were too far back in line or got the answers wrong. There was table seating for everyone, reliable projection, and working microphones. The one failure, and it failed big, was the internet. Apparently internet stability is considered a national problem. For our group the organizers quickly took a multi-pronged approach, from wheeling in large auxiliary base stations to disabling social networking sites. By Day 3 it was finally smooth sailing for all participants.
I taught a typical 9:00–5:00 schedule, but somehow it felt more intense than other places, and we covered significantly more material. Eventually I realized the difference: We started on time, coffee breaks were 15–20 minutes long with students in their seats ready to go even before the time was up (instead of stretching to 30–45 minutes and beyond as in many other places), and lunch was similarly efficient. The only interruption, aside from internet fixes, was a safety officer coming by to go over earthquake procedures; apparently there had been a series of small tremors and they were worried about a big one. It never arrived, but a major volcanic eruption 350 kilometers away was on the front page of the newspaper each morning.
On top of the busy days I discovered that being away during the academic year in my new Dean role means a large pile-up of time-sensitive email to contend with each evening. One night I even called in to an important Stanford meeting from 2–4 AM my time. I usually insist on keeping evenings free during my teaching days; it was especially critical on this trip. On the other hand, I never missed my morning jog — despite being in the middle of Manila, there was an excellent running park adjacent to my hotel. (Manila itself was a mixed bag, with high rises and shopping centers popping up but an alarming number of people living on the street.)
I’ve taught the Big Data material so many times that I don’t always review it beforehand, which can lead to surprises. Last summer, in front of 350 Nigerian students, I stumbled upon a bug in Google Spreadsheets (in the polynomial regression curve-fitting, for those who care). I have friends in high places at Google, so at the time I contacted the Vice President of Engineering who, after two rounds of trying, claimed to have gotten the bug fixed. In the Philippines I used slightly different data and, surprise!, the bug was still there. The next morning when I showed the students my subsequent email exchange with the VP (who was duly embarrassed) they ate it up: Google is a legendary and mysterious place to them, and they loved the little drama.
The Design Thinking workshop proceeded as usual, but the Women-in-Tech roundtable discussion was unlike any I’ve conducted before: It lasted almost three hours over a multi-course dinner, and several attendees were prominent women, including the Undersecretary for Research and Development, and one of the Philippines’ 24 senators — Risa Hontiveros. Topics varied from career arcs to middle school girls to the inevitable discussion these days of how Artificial Intelligence will impact society.
It feels a bit like playing hooky as I prolong my instructional odyssey well beyond my sabbatical year, but it’s such an invigorating change for me that I’m confident it’s a net positive. (Plus the Stanford development office took advantage of the location to send me off to Hong Kong for a few days of schmoozing with alums and donors. Quite a contrast from my time in the Philippines, but fun in its own way.) I expect to do another week of teaching in the summer, location TBD.
