Ray Seol

"Throughout my education, I have met multiple mentors who demonstrated their expertise both inside and outside of their classrooms. They were truly inspirational figures who altered my understanding of the relationship between the self and the world. One of the most important things I learned from them was how teachers lead students to cocreate knowledge and help them internalize and practice it in the real world. They were humble facilitators of learning who admitted that they were also learners. This experience has certainly formulated my teaching philosophy. I want students to learn how to cocreate knowledge and help one another practice it in real-world situations. I do not simply want to pass the information to them. I encourage them to find their own ways to learn, and I will be happy if they can find the true meaning of life throughout this academic journey."

"I am fascinated by the interdisciplinary approach to understanding phenomena. My extensive professional experiences across industries and interdisciplinary research background help me create right questions and answer them practically and philosophically. For example, I started playing the double bass at the age of 27, which was quite an old age to master an instrument. I started it by compiling all the relevant information from various disciplines, ranging from neuroscience to adult learning theory, to contextualize my learning processes, and then applied them to answer very specific questions about the mastery of the instrument. My music is also the best example of an interdisciplinary approach, as I use different foreign languages to disseminate musicians’ unique interpretations of stories. This interdisciplinary approach will automatically manifest itself in my teaching style, and I am very excited to create the best learning experience for students in my classes."