Clever Turtles

So there I was, doing my midnight browsing on the internets. I knew I needed sleep, I knew I was tired. But as we all know, you’re never too tired to read a few more headlines or browse through a few more of your friend’s pictures on Facebook.

And then something caught my eye, a name. Facebook in its omniscient magic suggested I add Jon Huer as a friend. Jon Huer, Jon Huer, I thought. Why does that name seem so familiar? It was time for a bit of techno-savvy investigation. It was time to google Jon Huer, and boy was I surprised about the results.

Given the results of the search, one thing was apparent. Jon was not well liked by the Korean expatriate blogging community. Incase you do not want to retrieve the results for yourself, here’s a few headlines from the first ten:

Jon Huer Is Strange | The Marmot's Hole
ESL Daily: Korea: Just Who The Hell Is Jon Huer?
Brian in Jeollanam-do: Jon Huer strikes again.
Jon Huer Still Completely Bonkers | Asian Correspondent
Jon Huer On Why He Dislikes the US | ROK Drop
Roboseyo: Why's Everybody Hatin' on Jon Huer? The Gauntlet.

Now aside from the fact that he apparently is in Korea, I still had no idea what my connection to him was until I saw the letters UMUC. At once, it all came flooding back to me as if I’d opened my final chi gate.

UMUC, University of Maryland University College, is a public university that offers courses on U.S. military bases around the world. UMUC gave me the opportunity to continue my education while being stationed in Korea. And Dr. Huer was my first REAL professor. When I use the word “professor,” I do not refer to the academic seating in a department, but instead an enlightened/knowledgeable teacher.

In all honesty, these hate blogs about Dr. Huer are, for the most part, accurate. One thing I distinctly remember is his arrogant, sometimes pompous attitude. His thoughts were always a bit quirky and sometimes offensive. He would talk about how he enjoyed teaching on military bases, because they reminded him of little communistic utopias. There, everyone was employed.

Although his Ph.D. is in sociology, the course I attended was philosophy. Philosophy, being a passion of his, was a subject he knew very well and it showed. Although the course relied on its history and important figures for quantifiable reasons, he was always more interested in teaching us to be enlightened students. He’d lecture about the importance of being a learned person, asking questions, and completing your degree. The one thing I will never forget is his view on asking questions in class. He claimed that he could gauge the intelligence and upbringing of a student by the questions they ask in class. Good parents inspire an inquisitive mind, while bad parents deter it.

His statement made a lasting effect on me. It even hurt my pride a bit now that my intelligence was being questioned. The truth was, at that point in my life, I was a terrible student. I would avoid interaction with any teacher like the plague. And actually asking questions in class was even more out of the question. Dr. Huer’s statement made me realize what I was doing wrong. I dropped out of high school easily because I had no connection with my teachers. If anything, I actually tried to disassociate myself with them. But no longer would that be the case. From then on, I made an effort to participate more and more in the classroom. From then on, I wanted the teacher to know who I was and that I was curious… about the topic. I wanted to be enlightened, to become the learned person and scholar Dr. Huer spoke of. Dr. Huer’s class would become the first “A” I received in a core curriculum class.

Three years later, it was time to look for a university. I wanted desperately to get back into academia and finish my degree. So I did what any eager soldier would do, Aim High? (Air Force) I went for the Ivy League. My application was not the brightest in the bunch, a college GPA of 3.7, a high school GPA of 0.9 before I dropped out, and good but not great SAT scores. But what I did have was the power of inquisition. I attended an Information Session for Columbia in Miami. I came well prepared and armed to the teeth with meaningful questions. During the entire hour long session about eight questions were asked, the majority of those questions being from myself. The admissions manager talked about the criteria they use to evaluate the applications, everything from grades to questions asked in the information session. I knew I had made an impression when during the latter statement she nodded towards me. And I was right, the next semester I was granted admission, and finally I’m in the Ivy League. It’s all thanks to that class, the turning point in my academic career. It was where I learned to ask questions and was shown the path to scholarship. This fall, I’ll be attending Columbia University, and I owe it to Jon Huer.