After a transforming year, it was time for “Exit Interviews” with my AY2013/4 honours students Iris Ng (distribution and activity pattern of the slender squirrel Sundasciurus tenuis in Singapore forests) and Germaine Leng (diet of the mangrove horseshoe crab Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda in Mandai Kechil mangrove and mudflat.
I took a break from marking to oversee their data dump (easier these days with Dropbox and Copy.com) and to chat with them about the significant learning points they experienced during honours.
To firm it up, they’ll send me a note they’ll which will identify learning points so they will actively surmount weaknesses and enhance strengths. Of course I learnt from them too and have begun implementing some of the lessons! They have’ll have an unknown influence on their juniors, just like their seniors did before them.
Later on this year, they will communicate their science through presentations, blog post and articles in future and participate in some other conservation activity. For these field warriors, the Exit Interviewsinterview is not the end, just a significant moment for all of us.
I like how it happens over an NUS wooden table which has persisted for more than quarter a century, and in a corridor of block S2 where I too had an extraordinary and transforming time during my honours year.
Otterman speaks... 