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My first two weeks of teaching at HIT have been busy! In addition to teaching, I was asked to review paper submissions for an upcoming research symposium as well as to evaluate PhD proposals. I also volunteered to judge a science fair! But before I talk about these extracurriculars, I have to talk about final exams.

Final Exams

If it seems strange to you that I am writing about final exams when classes only just started, well it was a surprise to me as well when I was informed that I had to have my final exams prepared by the end of the first week of classes!

At HIT, and presumably all universities in Zimbabwe, final exams are sent to an external reviewer for approval. This is handled by an “office of exams” (not sure of the official title) at the university. Thankfully, I had been informed of this when I first met with members of the Math Department on my first day at HIT, so I had ample time to prepare my questions for the Applied Statistics course I am sharing. It also helped that I did not have to prepare the entire exam, just half. The content I am teaching for Applied Statistics is also material I have taught nearly every year I have been at Saint Mary’s.

However, for the course that I picked up the week before classes started and that I am solely responsible for, Statistical Models for Finance, was a crunch! The week before classes started, I was focused on prepping to teach the course, a course that I haven’t taught for a number of years. While it is another statistics course, it is a different audience – financial engineers – so I had to familiarize myself with exactly what content will be covered throughout the semester and at what level before I could begin working on the final exam. Thus, writing the final exam was not a trivial task. This combined with the other activities that I was pulled into during the first week of classes, meant that I did not get the Statistical Models for Finance exam done on time. But nobody seemed concerned.

The Math Department met on Friday of the first week of classes to discuss the final exam papers and other things. This was the first time I met with the entire department, which consists of just four gentlemen. It was also the first time I truly felt comfortable at HIT. I had finally found my people: math nerds! We spent the first half of the meeting reading over the final exams for all classes being taught by the department. Comments and suggested edits were made for each. I also learned that in addition to the exam, we also needed to prepare “model answers” to be sent to the external reviewer along with the exam itself. Guess how I spent a big part of my weekend?

The rest of the meeting was spent first selecting an external reviewer (we had two to choose from based on their CVs) and then reviewing applicants for teaching assistant positions (something that really should have been done before the semester started, but there was some mismanagement of the process by administration).

At the end of the meeting, the Chair asked if I had any comments or feedback for them based on what I had observed during my time at HIT. I took the opportunity to comment on their final exam process, it is so much more time intensive than our process at Saint Mary’s. We talked about the pros and cons of each approach, which was a wonderful conversation. I also commented on the fact that their department does not offer any degree programs and wondered if they had a desire to offer any (secretly thinking that they may want to develop a data science program at the bachelor’s level in collaboration with other departments). I was excited to hear that they had actually put a proposal together a few years ago to develop an applied mathematics degree. The proposal died due to some political reason that I did not fully understand. However, they all seemed interested in reviving it and I am hopeful that it is something I can assist with while I am here.

Since I am officially part of the Computer Science Department and not the Math Department, I also attended their exam review meeting. I didn’t need to attend since the Applied Statistics course was already reviewed in Math, but I wanted to be a good department member and it was interesting to see how final exams in CS were being administered without allowing the students access to a computer while taking the exam (an obstacle I had to contend with while preparing my stats exams).

Developing a PhD Program at HIT

If you go back and read my post “Settling in Nicely” from January 28, you’ll recall that on my first day at HIT I met with the PVC for Research who talked at length about all the things he wanted me to do while at HIT. Well in the three weeks after than meeting, there was no follow-up done and no further information provided to me about what exactly he had in mind. So I was quite surprised when I received the following letter via WhatsApp on Wednesday, February 14:

If you look closely, you will see that I was asked to attend the presentations of PhD proposals taking place the next day. I didn’t know anything about the PhD program and was given less than a day’s notice about the presentations!

When I showed up at the presentations, there was at least an evaluation form provided. However, when I asked for more information about the PhD program from the Dean of my school, who was also an evaluator, she shared that even she has not seen any information about the PhD program. It has been worked on solely by the PVC. In fact, the name and area of the PhD program has still not been settled on! It may be in data engineering, or AI, or whatever.

It was also apparent, that the prospective students were not provided much notice or support in preparing their proposals. More importantly, the prospective students did not yet have PhD supervisors! As such, the presentations were a bit rough. Following the presentation, for which the student were only allotted 7-10 minutes, the evaluators asked questions. In almost every case, there were numerous questions lasting about 45 minutes to an hour. As such, we did not have time to hear all the presentations, and so a second day was needed (which took place the following Friday).

I felt for the prospective students. But I was also impressed by their courage and desire to earn a PhD. Many of the presentations were actually given by HIT faculty in my school (as a side note, none of the faculty in the School of Information Sciences and Technology have a PhD – one has just submitted his dissertation and another is about to). I was in awe of their ability to pull together a presentation in the midst of classes starting and everything else expected of them. However, in my opinion, a student needs to identify a PhD advisor before they can propose a project. First of all, the student needs to know there is someone to actually advise them, and secondly, the advisor can help develop a feasible project at the level of a PhD. I am hopeful that there will be another meeting scheduled for the evaluators to discuss the presentations as well as the development of the program overall.

Data Science Zimbabwe Chapter at HIT

On Saturday, February 17, I was invited to speak at the inaugural meeting of the newly formed Data Science Zimbabwe chapter at HIT. While this meant I was not able to go hiking, I was happy to support the effort (I also had to work on my final exams, so no time for hiking anyway!). DSZ is an organization working to promote professional development in data science in Zim. They have a mentorship program and organize conferences. The students at HIT decided they needed a way to support their own interest and development in the field, and so created the chapter.

I took the opportunity to speak to the chapter about my journey to data science, making sure to highlight my challenges as well as successes along the way, and emphasized the importance of having a good mentor (or more). I also shared information about the data science programs I have been involved in at Saint Mary’s and gave examples of some of the projects students in those programs have worked on. I believe my presentation was well-received and was asked by a few of the students if I would mentor them. I also got the classic question: python or R!

Zimbabwe Science Fair

Finally, I had the opportunity to serve as a judge for the 10th annual Zimbabwe Science Fair. The fair was hosted at Westridge High School, which is located just across the street from HIT. At the fair, students from 48 schools across the entire country participated. These included students at primary level up to high school level. The event began with an opening ceremony that included “shout-outs” from all schools present and an interview with a former winner, Memory Bvungo. It was a treat to see the interview with Memory, as she is a bit of a celebrity. She is featured in the recent docuseries Science Fair: The Series by NatGeo about ISEF, an international science fair that Memory actually took 3rd place at. Here is a link to the trailer in case you are interested in watching it.

I wish I had a recording of Memory’s interview because she had so much wonderful advice for aspiring young scientists, especially women. But my favorite quote from her is “Science is communication!” She encouraged the students in the auditorium to “amplify your story, be proud of your story”. Her advice to the young girls in Zim interested in STEM was to “just start!” Start talking about your ideas and projects. Start reading about the problems you are interested in solving and also possible solutions. She also interestingly said that the students “cannot use lack of resources as a stumbling block, instead look at your community as your makeshift laboratory and open your mind!” All very sage advice for an inspiring scientist anywhere!

My participation in this event has definitely been a highlight of my time here in Zim so far!