Every couple of years, the University of Surrey honours me by inviting me back to talk to students for an hour about what I do for a living. I’m made to feel so welcome that I barely know where to put myself, and I will be presenting my fourth such talk on Tuesday afternoon.
As I get older, and my career changes, my ability to connect where I am today to where I started slackens, as does any connection between the undergraduate course I was taught and what today’s students must learn. Many of this year’s undergraduates were born the same year that I first strolled onto campus.
Although it doesn’t feel like it, I’m conscious of the fact that I’m now of a different generation, and my talk plan is becoming more reflective and somewhat generalised.
In case they help, here are echoes from previous talks I’ve given, that I wrote for Focusrite’s blog.
Finally, because he’s the only acoustics lecturer I’ve ever heard of who was also a self-made billionaire, I feel obliged to post the late Dr. Amar Bose here. In the last six minutes (from 54:10), he sums up everything I would want to tell a University student about starting their career.