A mechanical engineering graduate in his native India, Arvind Iyengar decided to follow his passion for language and linguistics, and enrolled in the MAAL at UNE.
When he graduated with his master’s degree he elected to continue his studies with a PhD, and so travelled to Australia in 2014.
“Meeting my lecturers face-to-face for the first time was a bit surreal, I have to say,” he recalled.
“It’s almost like you know these people, but you’ve never actually spoken to them let alone seen and met them. But I still felt familiar with them because they’d been in my life for three years or so before arriving in Australia.
“I remember walking up the ramp into the E11 building and (Linguistics lecturer) Cindy (Schneider) was walking towards me, and I kind of thought it was Cindy, and I looked at her, and she looked at me and said ‘Arvind!’ and I said ‘Cindy!’ It was like ‘I know you but I’ve never met you’ – it was strange.
“Then she took me around met everyone in the Linguistics Department, which was great.”
Having had that experience Arvind fully understands the thrill his students get when he meets them at their graduation ceremonies.
“I’ve had students find me at grad and come up and chat with me, and you can see it’s a lovely rounding off experience for them,” he said. “It’s kind of like the icing on the cake.”
“And having been in their shoes really helps you empathise with their situation and realise the value of face-to-face contact when the opportunity arises.
“Just the occasion of grad adds to the satisfaction they get when they meet you.”
Arvind was last week one of 6 awardees of the inaugural Faculty of HASSE C.A.R.E.S. awards, for “Creating a fair, equitable and inclusive learning experience for all students”.
UNE's 2019 Summer Round of graduation ceremonies are coming up in mid-December. Dates for each of our faculties are as follows:
Thursday 12th Dec - Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and EducationFriday 13th Dec - Faculty of Medicine and Health Saturday 14th Dec - Faculty of Science, Agriculture, Business and Law
