Every college student has an especially memorable class or two; for Rylan Schaeffer, they may be the ones he taught as an undergrad.
Schaeffer, a fifth-year computer science and engineering and statistics double major, has taught three courses to other undergraduates under 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis鈥 student-facilitated courses program. At TEDx新澳门六合彩内幕信息Davis this Sunday (May 1), he will talk about his experience as a teacher and what he learned along the way about challenging assumptions and rules.
The program for this year鈥檚 conference, 鈥淚gniting X,鈥 has nine speakers and two performances by student groups. This conference is the sixth major, student-organized TEDx held on campus.
Schaeffer said he hopes to inspire those who attend to push boundaries. 鈥淚f a requirement or restriction applied to you doesn鈥檛 make sense, you can go to them (the people in charge) and say 鈥榥o,鈥欌 Schaeffer said.
Schaeffer was introduced to student-led courses his freshman year, when he took a class from then-student Rajiv Narayan aimed at helping University Honors Program students strategize for their college careers. Schaeffer and another student, Patrick Sheehan 鈥14, didn鈥檛 want the materials Narayan compiled to be lost, and took over the course and taught it after he graduated in 2012.
Schaeffer eventually created his own courses, one on the history of computer science and one on cryptocurrency technologies 鈥 which draws its roots from cryptography, a field he鈥檚 considering pursuing after graduation. Undergraduates have taught at 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis before, but Schaeffer and his co-teacher successfully petitioned the Academic Senate to create a formal policy to regulate the courses for the first time. Under the policy, a faculty member must oversee the teachers, and their courses must be graded as pass/no pass.
TEDx新澳门六合彩内幕信息Davis: Igniting X
When: 1 p.m. Sunday, May 1
Where: Jackson Hall,
Creating courses isn鈥檛 the only unconventional way Schaeffer has approached his education. He recalled being so frustrated with one of his computer science courses that instead of completing the final as assigned, he wrote a paper criticizing the course for being too theoretical, which represented everything he felt was wrong with the academia. He said he received a C in the class, then petitioned to have his grade lowered so he could retake the course.
鈥淚t鈥檚 now my favorite class,鈥 he said, noting that he now really enjoys the theoretical.
Student learns big value of small gifts
You don鈥檛 have to be rich to help someone in need 鈥 that鈥檚 the lesson fourth-year communication major Ellen Davis learned when she saw how far $5 or $20 donations go with We Are Aggie Pride, the students-helping-students emergency aid group where she serves as co- director.
鈥淚 feel like no one should be barred from education, especially if it鈥檚 for financial reasons,鈥 she said, noting that many of the students the group has helped may have dropped out without the assistance.
She recalled one student who had to choose between buying a mattress and buying textbooks; the organization helped buy a bed for that student.
Davis will also speak at the TEDx新澳门六合彩内幕信息Davis conference, and hopes to encourage others to get involved with philanthropy. She said despite helping her parents with fundraisers in her hometown of Atascadero from childhood and organizing a 5K run that raised $2,700 for the local library when she was in high school, she didn鈥檛 realize it was possible to have a career in giving until she met some of the university鈥檚 development officers.
She hopes her talk will inspire giving, no matter the scale. 鈥淵ou can give $5 or $500 鈥 either way, it makes an impact on somebody who doesn鈥檛 have that.鈥
More TEDx新澳门六合彩内幕信息Davis Speakers
- Mindy Romero, founder and director of the at the 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis Center for Regional Change, will talk about the power of the youth vote.
- , an adviser at the Cross Cultural Center, will perform a spoken word piece and discuss what activism means to him.
- Math lecturer William Tavernetti will speak about making connections with math.
- Ralph Washington Jr., a graduate student in entomology and nematology, will discuss curiosity.
- Student groups and will perform.
.
Media Resources
Cody Kitaura/Dateline, Dateline, 530-752-1932, kitaura@ucdavis.edu