My Experience As An International Student And Staff Member In The UK!

Elena Maria Rodríguez-Falcón, Mexico

In 1998 I came to the UK to do an MBA in Industrial Management. Having finished a similar type of degree in my home country Mexico, I thought that it would be interesting to try to do something similar but in a second language. My English skills were somewhat limited and doing the MBA proved to be really challenging. However, English was the least of my problems very soon I discovered. Learning to adapt to a culture fundamentally different to mine was extremely difficult. People seemed to me rather quiet and `dark´. The clothes they wore were not nearly as colourful as what I was used to. Walking in the streets felt to me like I was walking in a ghost town. Having lived my whole life in Mexico, the quietness of this country was overwhelming.

And this wasn´t all. In the classroom, the lectures were completely different to what I had experienced back home. It was then that I discovered that people learn differently in different countries. I had classmates from China who tended to memorize everything, my English friends were much more `academic´ and were much more independent in their learning, and we in Mexico I realised were much more practical in terms of linking the knowledge to industry as opposed to literature. This I discovered was a disadvantage in this country. I was used to thinking in terms of applications and here my tutors expected me to think in terms of what other authors had written! And I thought… What does this matter? Isn´t it more important to make the most of the knowledge where it really is being applied? Who cares what someone else has written about it?

It took me a long time to understand the value of doing literature reviews. Avoiding reinventing the wheel….!

After I finished my MBA I spent sometime learning languages and finally I decided that perhaps it would be a good idea to venture myself into the world of employment in this country. I never thought I would find a job here though. However, I wanted to gain experience in the whole of the recruitment process in the UK, so I applied for a job in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Sheffield six years ago.

The job description read somewhat like this "the successful candidate will design, develop and implement mechanical engineering degrees with an element of enterprise"…and I though easy! I was a mechanical engineer with two MBAs and industrial experience which included working for a start up in Mexico.

I applied for the job, got an interview, which in itself was really interesting. A panel of people interviewed me! I was used to being interviewed by individuals at different stages of the recruitment process, not all at the same time! But I guess my style was interesting for them too. I came to my interview prepared with a full plan for the job and an example of the type of degree I would design. They seemed very impressed, they asked questions about the syllabus I had put together and although my English was still very shaky I managed to answer the questions the best way I could.

In the interview I was asked if I would mind standing in front of an audience. I remember thinking, well I never did in Spanish and I answered of course I wouldn´t mind, not knowing what was coming next. The Professor who would later become my boss said, "oh good, so you can teach"!

And that was how all started. I got the job and became the Enterprise Project officer of this department. I started teaching in 2001 and through the years teaching became my passion.

However, once again, this was as challenging as or perhaps more than being a student in a foreign country. But as a former student in the UK, I had insight knowledge. I had learnt that people learnt differently and furthermore, people had different revision techniques according to their backgrounds.

This was quite helpful. I designed my courses in such a way that most students would feel comfortable. I couldn´t, however, abandon my own learning practices and my courses became windows to the real world, where students had the opportunity to apply their engineering knowledge to real life projects!

I have been really fortunate to discover that my instincts were right. This has been proved by the excellent feedback from students and several teaching awards received in the past few years.

Working in a UK University has been really a pleasure. I have enjoyed my time here enormously and I have learnt more than I ever did. A multicultural environment where my colleagues and students try to find a common ground to communicate has proved to be such a rich experience.

I still find myself fighting my own past habits and learning experiences, so I have stopped doing that. Now, I take the new learning experiences and mix them with my own and I have found that this is much better.

Sheffield as a city is an amazing place to live, people I discovered, are not as sombre as I once thought, and in fact in the UK; I would say this place is the noisiest you will ever encounter.

The University is a truly international place, there are still some things we can improve but as a foreign student and then a foreign member of staff I would not change my experience here.

I am a Mexican who fell in love with this place and this University.

Elena Maria Rodríguez-Falcón, Mexico