‘Scar’ from The Lion King is probably not a model to be emulated.

When I started my Masters in Development Economics and Policy my limited ability in mathematics made itself immediately apparent and an issue that would make the entire course something of a nightmare. The introductory maths course, an ungraded preamble to the course proper was there to orient us to what we needed to know to cope on the course and was described as a ‘refresher’. I was learning the majority of it for the first time. 

I sat in one of the older parts of the library at the University of Manchester. I must have purposely found myself the space with cramped, low ceilings and crowds of old leather books on unsteady shelves. I had committed to something well beyond my reach. I was trapped. I cried.

I soon found I wasn’t alone, many on my course felt similarly. Though it didn’t affect how I felt, it was good to know it was how we felt. But soon we would all come face to face with a new challenge. One that would make us all feel like idiots. By design.

The class was called ‘Introduction to Econometrics’. Our teacher, let’s call her ‘E’, did not want to talk to us. I got the distinct impression that teaching was a burden to carry a few times a week to give her the freedom to return to her office and do what really mattered, research. We were a pill to swallow. We knew this because whenever someone would answer a question incorrectly, which was frequently, she would roll her eyes – and often her head – and utter a hearty “urghghhhhh!”

At the end of the lesson we could ask questions via a website. One of the first questions she read aloud struck me as being excellent and completely in line with what I had not understood from the class. E’s response was to say;
“What is this? What does this even mean? I am a PhD econometrician and I cannot even understand what you are asking. If you want an answer you must formulate your question properly”.
I opted not to ask questions in class, no thank you.

There was no denying it, the woman was a genius. I knew I couldn’t ask questions in class because the potential public ridicule might tip the course from a difficulty to an impossibility. Any embarrassment would need to be private. I would formulate a good question and ask her one-on-one. 

A few weeks into the course, I had one question that I felt confident I could ask in a clear way and had enough surrounding understanding to be able to get something of value from her. I also wanted to be brave – let me get face to face with this woman. I emailed her. 
“Can I come to your office sometime this week to run through a question?”
No response for three days.
Three days later.
“I am in my office until 2pm. Please come now.”

I had all but forgotten my question. I found my notes and tried desperately to get my brain into gear to receive the answer she would give me. My classmates said goodbye to me sombrely. Some primal part of us must have thought it might be the last time we would see each other.

I arrived at her office and she called me in. She had a noticeboard on the left hand wall of the office with 4 photos of owls printed on A4 paper pinned up. Nice deco. She was young, maybe 31, mid-length dark brown hair. She invited me to sit at the small round table in centre of the room. 

I can’t remember my question, but it was good. I asked it clearly and felt confident that if she didn’t go too fast that I could follow the answer she would give. I think I’d actually picked a question I believed I already knew the answer to. That confidence was short-lived. She took out a piece of A4 paper. By the second line of calculations I was entirely lost. I was willing myself to follow what she was saying but I was gone, 1,000 miles away. I stuck with it.
Concentrate.
Concentrate.
Concentrate!

She concluded her answer at the end of the second page. I was more in the dark than when I’d walked in the room and I had wasted 5 minutes of her life, something I doubted she would be happy about. She asked me if I understood. I confessed.
“No.”
“Where did I lose you?”
I turned the page over. Back to where she had started.
She gave her trademarked eye roll.
I pointed to the second line she had written.
“Urghghhhhh!”

We went through it again, slower this time. I made progress. I had lived. I thanked her for her time and went to pack up my things. I thought she would be happy to get back to her research. Instead I hear.
“That’s it? There is a test next week. You know everything else, huh? You get 100%?”
I tell her I don’t have another well formulated question.
She tells me she has another half hour. I opt to dive in and essentially head to the start of the course content and say;
“Matrix algebra…”
Eye roll.
Head roll.
“Urghghhhhh!”

We take the next half hour covering matrix algebra and not much more. Did I get anything out of it that helped my econometrics skills? Absolutely not. What I did learn was that there is no room where someone’s intellect is so great that I should exclude myself from it. I’m not built to sit in a cramped room with low ceilings crying about things I have opted to undertake. No, I’ll take myself to the room with a genius and ask both good questions and poorly formulated questions and get all I can from the experience. Even if all I get from it is confidence to not remove myself from a room because I perceive myself to have nothing to contribute.

The entire time we spent together in her office hours, she sat with a cup of tea. The graphic on the mug was of ‘Scar’ from the Lion King and the hyenas behind him. Scar is rolling his eyes while the three hyenas are laughing in the background. Printed across the mug is written;
“SURROUNDED BY IDIOTS”.

I have an MSc in Development Economics and Policy from the University of Manchester.
I graduated with distinction.

This post was supposed to just be a funny story but it ended up being quite cathartic. God bless you E.