I’d guess – across the board – chatting with former students is one of the best parts of being a professor. It definitely is for me. One of the great things about our department is that recent grads will come back, hang out, and say hi all the time.

Of course this is a good thing slash bad thing, because in any given day I usually only have X minutes available and plans for X + Y minutes. And then BAM! Here is this person who you have developed this strong bond with for over four years right in front of you. You hug them! Chat them up! Suddenly your day doesn’t seem so busy – of course until the meeting is over and you realize that chat turned into one of those hour long discussions about the meaning of career, life, and whatever the existential topic of the day (Good thing) but you now have X – 60 minutes to get stuff done.

Over the years, while running my first year physics discussion class, I have had a student or two just pop in on a Friday afternoon. I put them to work, taking advantage of the opportunity. I would have them lead an impromptu tell all for our first year students. I might even have left the room for a while if the alum wanted to share the “good stuff”. A special thank you to everyone who has helped out with this over the years, especially Aditya Samaroo and Kelly Hiersche.

Well today, in my online Zoom class, all the way from Israel, Micheal Robbins (class of 2019) showed up randomly! In my Zoom class of all places. And he wanted to hang out! It was wonderful! (Don’t worry he respected the classroom boundaries)

It was helpful in a strange way. I was having some difficulty conveying how I wanted the students to write up the reports on a project they are working on. I am under the weather and only 90%. So while I was thinking it over. Micheal asked if he could show his old report. I gave him the screen share and he showed how he wrote up the various reports in class and made the reports available for the students to use as guides. How awesome is that!?!?! It was super helpful. That was some peer instruction!

Adelphi physics is really about community!