Professor Interview: Ricardo
A while back, I met up with Ricardo Torres Kompen for an interview. Ricardo teaches Internet and Multimedia, IT Software and two courses of mathematics at La Salle University, where he first began working around ten years ago.
Even though he is now a dedicated professor, this was not what he planned to do with his life. When he was 10 years old he was convinced he would study medicine. The first turning point came when his mom, a biology teacher, brought home some organs to show him. Luckily, as he says now, he became so disgusted when she cut opened the organs that he decided to change paths.
A few years later Ricardo told his parents that he would like to teach. Both of them were working as teachers, but they strongly suggested him not to go into teaching. They believed he could have become a good teacher but they knew it was hard work and badly paid, so they wanted something better for him.
When his parents told him he could study whatever he wanted, apart from becoming a teacher, he decided to use this as leverage to leave town. Ricardo grew up in a really small town in Venezuela, and he always wanted to leave.
He was happy he had found his escape route, but he “kind of forgot to decide” what he wanted to study. One day during his last year of high school he got to know that the following day was the last day to submit university applications.That evening Ricardo came home and told his parents that “by tonight I have to decide what I would like to study”. Ricardo sat down with his dad and a big book explaining the different degrees starting from the first page. After talking about the first few degrees, his father asked Ricardo what he really liked. Ricardo answered that he liked English, mathematics and history. He also said that he hated physics, but that he could deal with it. His father concluded that engineering could be a potential path and when Ricardo discovered the degree Chemical Engineering, he said, “let’s go”. The whole process was over in 20 minutes.
In Venezuela it is normal to take a gap-year before entering the University, but Ricardo was in a hurry to get out of town. As he also had skipped a few years during his time in school, he started his university studies at age 15. Ricardo was the tallest guy in the class, coming from a small town nobody had heard about, and he was by far the youngest of the group. He immediately became the weird one.
When graduating from high school, Ricardo had the highest grades in his class - “stupidly high,” according to himself. Despite this, his first semester at the University didn’t go as well as he had hoped, as he failed several subjects. He told me that he was too immature, combined with being overconfident due of his great results from high school. A subject Ricardo did a great job failing, by getting a 0, was ironically enough mathematics. However, he did not fail because he didn’t understand the subject, but because the class started at 07.00 AM. Ricardo just does not do 07.00 AM. By the end of the first semester, he understood that things had not worked out as he had planned. He got a wake-up call when his father told him that he either had to pull himself together or come back to the town. As he refused moving back to “the dullest town ever”, he got it together and earned a 9,5 in maths the following semester.
Ricardo was an active student, who normally stayed at the university campus until late in the evening. There was a wallboard at the university that he updated every week with information about life on campus and beyond. He was the student representative to the student body and he enjoyed creating a community feeling by organising parties and other events, which are things he now works to promote at La Salle. He also used to play a lot of ping-pong.
When I asked Ricardo how he stayed motivated during his time at the University, he told me that if it hadn't been for his study partner he would never have managed to get through. According to him, she was hitting him in the head every single day. As it always has been important for Ricardo to live in the moment, he constantly found excuses not to study. His study partner was the complete opposite, and they shared a locker at the university. She used to steal his ping-pong paddle and not give it back to him until he had completed a certain amount of work. When they finished studying, she would go home while Ricardo would stay at the university until late in the evening. He tried to convince her that there were all these cool things to do around campus, but she had a different approach. She went to the campus only to study, she did not want to take part in the life at the university.
At their university it was a tradition that the student with the best grades did the graduation speech. When they graduated Ricardo had the second best grades, the only one who beat him was his study partner. When they called her up to the stage at the graduation ceremony, she had a surprising announcement. She said that as she had never shared anything with anyone at the university she had decided that Ricardo should do the speech. He was completely caught off guard, but he managed to improvise something.
Ricardo’s programming love-story began at the university with a programming class that he took. He passed the exam to become a teaching assistant and was supposed to help the programming professor with some assignments and exercises. However, the professor was busy with other obligations and soon Ricardo taught the class instead of her. For him it was perfect, he got to do something he really enjoyed and was passionate about, and it was really well paid for a student job.
When finishing the degree, Ricardo went to work in oil processing at what was at the time the biggest oil refinery in the world. After working there for five years he realised that he still had a desire to teach. He decided to begin studying again, which basically was his excuse to try to get a job at the university.
In 2001 Ricardo decided to move to Barcelona. He used his Phd as an excuse to go to Europe, and his plan was to stay for a while to see if he liked it. It turned out he did, so he decided to stay. During this period he also got to know the former La Salle Director, who at that time was working at the European University. Through her, he was asked to teach a semester of photoshop. Ricardo was not familiar with the program but he saw it as a great opportunity to learn more so he found a book, learned the program, taught it, and had fun!
The year after, La Salle began the international bachelor degree in Business and Administration, and he was asked to teach E-business. He later began to teach mathematics and calculus as well, which got the ball rolling. Now, ten years later, he teaches several subjects at multiple universities in Barcelona.
Now Ricardo’s favourite subject to teach is mathematics. While admitting that many may disagree, he believes that everyone should know mathematics and that it is especially important to know for business students. It is also his opinion that the subject typically is taught the wrong way. Rather than making the students memorise, Ricardo follows another approach. He tries to convey the big picture, rather than explaining the students how to do this or that. By following this approach the students understand how to use mathematics in general, rather than just being able to solve specific and pre-defined problems, and just punch numbers on a calculator.
Ricardo told me that his favourite part about being a professor is to meet the students when they started the University and to follow their progression throughout the whole degree, to see how they turn into professionals. Or like Ricardo himself likes to phrase it: “Watching the young students turn into grown-ups.”
Ricardo really likes what he does. He enjoys teaching, but he also likes to lead groups and find what to improve. He told me that he knows he is projecting an image of being a bit grumpy and mean sometimes but that is a part of the whole package, like an integral part of his approach. When he teaches first year students, he emphasises that the university is different from high school and that it is necessary to be able to have conversations as adults. He also lets them know that as long as they prove that they do their best, he will treat them equally. He believes it is an important part of his job to teach them about discipline and responsibility, and he tries to illustrate this by practicing what he preaches.
Towards the end of the interview, I asked Ricardo what he finds most difficult about being a university professor. He told me that the most difficult part for him is to grade his students. He said he’s not sure what the best way to assign grades are, but he is confident that exams are not the optimal solution. He finds it very difficult to evaluate and assess someone’s performance based on something written on a piece of paper, but he believes that La Salle is moving in the right direction by doing projects, assignments and other activities.
I also believed it would be interesting to know what Ricardo does when he is not a professor. When I asked, he answered that he generally focuses on enjoying life and everything he is lucky to have. His philosophy is to live in the moment and to make the best of every situation.
Ricardo also really likes cooking. He used to prefer making savoury stuff, but lately he has gotten into making sweets, like brownies. Another thing he likes to do is to read, even though he does not read as much as he would like to. Ricardo is a “re-reader”, he has certain books he comes back to repeatedly, such as The Prophet and the Harry Potter books. Ricardo is also a big fan of television series. He doesn’t have any single criteria when it comes to TV shows, and whenever there is a new series he just watches the pilot and then decides if he likes it or not. He also really enjoys to watch movies, to have friends over, to drink wine and to travel. He travels anywhere he can and keeps a list with the places he has been. He also enjoys gardening and has two cats, Sofia and Sebastian.