Introducing My Youtube Channel

It’s interesting that nowadays people can publish themselves in various creative ways online: showing their videos on Youtube, publishing articles on blogs, just to name a few.

After being encouraged by people, I have joined the millions that enjoy a Youtube account. I have uploaded the first part of my interview on my Youtube channel (http://www.youtube.com/profhuang). The video is named “A day with Professor Huang – Part 1.” The other two parts will be uploaded soon after some editing.

The interview was a student project for the students enrolled in the English Technical Writing course in spring 2008. I chaired the Research and Scholarship Committee and thought this could be a very educational and interesting project for the students. So I talked to the instructor to see if she could incorporate the faculty interview project into the course curriculum as part of the student assignments. She kindly integrated that in her class. The students utilized the equipment in Digital Commons to videotape and edit the interviews with the technical assistance from the instructional services specialist in Digital Commons. Altogether, there were eight faculty members participating in this project. There is a credit page at the end of the interview, so those who were involved in the project get proper credit for their efforts.

My interview was filmed in February. I hadn’t had enough time to shake off the extra pounds I gained from my trip to Taiwan. The cover photo was taken in chilly weather, so I looked a bit funny in that photo. All in all, it was fun to be interviewed and filmed by the students. I had thought I would feel uneasy in front of the camera, but it turned out to be good. I felt rather relaxed and comfortable with it and the interviewers, probably because two of them were my students. So no pressure there!

Here is the second part of the interview by students.

Part 1 was done by Chris Lai, part 2 by Chris Albright, and the last parts by Martin Hekmati.



Here are the third and the last part of the interview.

The Secret To My Time Management

Nowadays it seems everybody has a lot on his plate. It is not just adults that are super busy and forget things. In recent years I have noticed that an increasing number of students have become quite forgetful about deadlines, assignments, or appointments. Are people really really that busy that they tend to forget about things? I too have a lot on my plate, but so far I have been able to finish things ahead of time most of the time. So the core of their problem for failing to beat the deadlines is probably that they need an efficient method to keep a record and keep track of their tasks. I think it is a matter of time management and the matter of know-how.

When I first became a faculty member, life was hectic. I had meetings to go to, papers or meeting abstracts to submit before deadlines, student appointments, and etc. It was very difficult to remember each and every one of the things. The 3M post-it notes were good, but they were scattered everywhere on my desk or computer screen. I didn’t like it. I bought a pocket-size two-year monthly planner, and I found it very useful. I wrote deadlines or appointments in my planner. But that was not enough, because the planner was small that I could not write every single task in it. So in addition to a planner, I started writing down a to-do list on a personalized notepad, one page at a time. Ever since then, I managed to keep track of things.

The size of the notepad is 5.5’’x8.5’’. I write down the things I need to do on the page when I still remember them, and I cross them out when I finish the tasks. Normally I would run out of the space on both sides every two or three weeks. This is simple and efficient, but to my surprise, most of the people do not do that. The planner and the to-do list have helped me keep track of everything and enabled me to finish things ahead of time. It has been working very well for me, and that’s more it gives me a sense of accomplishments when I see the items crossed out on my to-do list. It is a successful time management mechanism for me.