There is no work-life balance

About ten years ago, I was the lead guitar player in a successful metal band called Meadows End. Playing on that level, including international tours, was something I had dreamt about since I was a little kid. A couple of thousand hours of hard work later I finally achieved my goal. The joy was unfortunately cut short. After only two albums, my life hit a fork in the road. I was writing my PhD thesis at the same time and had been under heavy stress for a long time. After many long conversations with my wife, and mental gymnastics on how to make it work even though it meant placing three suitcases (career, family and the band) in a baggage compartment that had room for two, I finally realized that I had to let go of one of them. That was the hardest decision of my life.

Engineering, Diary, Acoustics, ParentingRikard ÖqvistJanuary 24, 2023family, career, goals, teaching, music, bim, civil engineeringComment

Work as hard as you can on one thing and see what happens

Yesterday me and my wife listened to Dr Jordan Peterson’s lecture in Stockholm, with the same topic as the title of this blog post. As a person who is extremely high in openness, I find this especially interesting. People with this personality trait, creative people, can often have a problem that they keep shifting from one thing to the next without ever finishing anything. I can recognize myself in this to a certain degree. But I also know that I am not too extreme in this regard either. Raphael, a friend of mine might very well be the most creative person I have met. And he told me something that is probably only is visible to someone in the 99,9th percentile in creativity (i.e. way higher than me, even if I should be in the 99th percentile…). “Rikard, you are an artist, but you are also very practical.”

Education, Acoustics, EngineeringRikard ÖqvistJune 6, 2022teaching, focus, career, art, music, universityComment

The unintentional podcaster

Your past self is one of, or perhaps the most important friend you’ll ever have. I have recently started my annual course in Building physics which consists of Acoustics and Moisture transport. By now, I have enough experience to simply “wing” the acoustics part and get away with it, but Moisture theory is something completely different. Being a teacher in a topic you do not fully master is one of the scariest things I can think of. And now I have four lectures is Moisture transport approaching fast. Here, my past self has got my back covered, because last year when I did the lectures for the first time, I recorded all of it. It turned out extremely useful for rehearsal purposes.

EducationRikard ÖqvistMay 9, 2022building physics, education, podcasts, recording, teachingComment

Never stop learning

Throughout May, I have been teaching Building Physics in the course at Umeå University with the same name. The three topics included in the course are acoustics, heat transfer and moisture transfer. I know acoustics by heart and can teach it on autopilot by now. Heat transfer and Moisture transfer on the other hand, is a completely different story. I did not know anything about those topics before this course. And here I am now, teaching the topics that were as new to me as to the students. Can this actually work? Teaching and lecturing in a topic that you are not familiar with is about as scary as it gets.

Education, EngineeringRikard ÖqvistMay 24, 2021building physics, teaching, education, growth, studyComment

Live streaming university lectures on Youtube

When I do my university courses, I usually reserve the last five minutes of the final lecture for course evaluation. I have found that the most valuable method is to keep it simple. I ask the class to write down on a small anonymous paper note one (1) thing that was good about the course, and one (1) thing that they wish I do next year. This is a powerful method, because when you are forced to give just one answer, you tend to choose the one at the top of your mind. The most important. On one of the notes I read “I wish that you would record the lectures, so we can go back and repeat them”. When I read those words, it felt like a bolt of lightning had struck my head. Of course! Why hadn’t I thought of that? I am doing the lectures anyway, so why not add a camera and a lapel microphone and start recording them? If you are reading this post, old student who wrote that note, I salute you. That little note back in 2017, planted the seed of a powerful idea and you have helped hundreds of people by now with their studies in acoustics, and the number is growing. I cannot thank you enough.

Education, Acoustics, HabitsRikard ÖqvistSeptember 12, 2020elearning, distance learning, educationforall, transformingeducation, learning, livestreaming, teachingComment

When you know why, how is irrelevant

Yesterday, I livestreamed and published the final lecture in my introductory course in building acoustics. When the dust had settled, I realized that I have never ever felt such a sense of meaning, in anything I have done in my professional career. There has been a lot of friction along the way, especially with technology. Yesterday’s lecture was a personal record in IT problems. First, I did not click the right button when the stream started, so I accidentally presented the first ten minutes of the lecture to an audience that could not see or hear me, and thus had to start from the beginning again. And then my computer crashed in the middle of the lecture and required a reboot. These are major setbacks, but I am amazed by how fast I could just snap back into it and continue the livestream with a genuine smile on my face. As Nietzsche said, “he who has a why, can bear almost any how”. My livestreaming lecture endeavour was a clear example that he was correct.

What might work, might work better

The other day, I read a book by Michael Pollan, which described how the approach to solving a problem differs between children and adults. A child is more likely to use a novel and unorthodox approach whereas an adult is more inclined to choose a method based on previous experience, that likely works. Therefore, the child is better equipped to solve certain problems that require an unlikely solution. It seems to me that children are higher in openness than their adult selves because they have not developed their fear of failure yet. It is only when you embrace failure that success can truly be achieved. How many times did you fall when you were learning to ride a bicycle? Or who did not sink at first when they were learning to swim?

Education, HabitsRikard ÖqvistMay 16, 2020transformingeducation, elearning, teaching, education, educationforallComment

Big change comes one step at a time

A significant part of my teaching consists of lectures. They often take on the character of a monologue and are therefore the perfect place to start transforming your education to the cloud. Back in 2017 when I was just starting out with online education however, I still felt overwhelmed. There were so many new factors to consider. I wanted to record my lectures with great visual video quality with multiple cameras, crystal clear audio and a screen capture of my slides and preferably live stream it. I have always been interested in technology and find great pleasure in figuring out how things work. But to realize full blown video production in real-time while you are simultaneously giving your lecture was indeed overwhelming. Three years later and that is precisely what I’m doing.

Education is the ultimate investment

Using your money to improve and educate yourself is the safest investment you can ever make. Because the knowledge within you, can never be taken away from you. It is eternal. No collapsing economy, stock market crash or housing bubble can touch it. No corrupt government or criminals can steal it. Not even you yourself can lose it even if you try! And the more you share it with others, the more of it you will have and the more valuable it becomes.

Education, HabitsRikard ÖqvistMay 2, 2020education, teaching, knowledge, value, investment, money, goldComment