MIT student Ruth Shiferaw in our English class

Ruth Shiferaw is a sophomore studying Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston. In January she visited the OGT for three weeks and taught us, the 12th class, in English. Since one of the themes for the A-levels in English is “Science and Technology”, Ruth’s knowledge was very useful for us.

Becoming acquainted with Ruth was – all in all - helpful and interesting. She showed us how a scientific paper is written. In addition, she showed us one of her current projects, making prosthetic legs quieter. This direct reference to actual scientific research made class feel more “alive”.
Ruth also told us about the different classes she takes. One of them I remember particularly, it was a class where Ruth and her fellow students had to develop a toy. So, she informed us on how to develop a product, also covering questions like “What makes a product successful?”.
For her last lesson with us Ruth had (with Mrs. Nürnberg’s support) prepared some background information and assignments (group work) for the topic “How science fiction inspired innovation”.
Overall, it was nice having a native speaker in our English class and Ruth was really sympathetic.

To conclude, here is an interesting fact Ruth told us about the MIT. At MIT the students do not say the name of the subject they study, but the numbers of the course.

Mia Derber, Q2c