On Saturday, despite suffering from a pretty bad cold, I held the latest one-day Tech class. This class was held in Room 1200 of the EECS Building on the University of Michigan’s North Campus, the second time I had the pleasure of teaching there. The classroom was one of the auditorium-style classrooms, which makes it a lot easier to keep everyone engaged.
Below, you’ll find a crummy photo I took of the class as they came back from the lunch break. I apologize for the poor quality of the photo. The students were certainly top notch.
There were 40 students in this class. This was kind of disappointing, as I had 60 sign up for the class. One-third of them failed to show! My wife attributes this to the spring-like weather (50-degree temps and sunny) we had that day.
What wasn’t disappointing was the result. 37 of the 40 students passed the test, and one of the students that failed promises me that he’ll continue to study and get his license.
As always, thanks to all the VEs that showed up. There were at least eight of them. Six, working in teams of three did the test checking, while the other two kept everyone in line. I’m lucky to have such a great VE team here in Ann Arbor. I certainly couldn’t do this without them.
Finally, here are some comments from the students who e-mailed me after the class:
Just a quick note to thank you for the Tech Class yesterday – much appreciated since I know you had a cold and was not feeling particularly well. Very useful as it helped me cleared up a few questions I had from studying for the class and in fact helped me with a couple of questions for the test.
I would like to thank you for a very informative and entertaining class today. The lengths you’ve gone to help others is extremely admirable, I now realize that “promoting international goodwill” is something radio operators truly take to heart and something I will sincerely uphold as well. Your study guide and class allowed me to pass the Technician test with ease and more importantly acted as a catalyst into a new hobby for me. Hopefully we can make contact on the air soon.
I really enjoyed the class, and it really helped me understand the hobby. I took over 11 pages of notes! Again, your class helped me a lot and I am looking forward to passing on the hobby.
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