For the past ten years, living in France, the United States and China, I have been very fortunate to have interacted with people from many different backgrounds. At the age of twelve, I moved to the United States and spent five years in an international school in Maryland, with students from more than 50 different countries. That experience opened up a new world to me, broadened my views of the world and taught me the cultural sensibility that one needs in today's global world. I also had the opportunity to study for one year in an American middle school, where I experienced the cultural and linguistic difficulties faced by any foreigner. That year taught me a lot on how to overcome those barriers and open up to people of different backgrounds.

When I came back to France for my Bachelor's degree, I put my experience to good use. I helped many foreign students adapt to life in France. In engineering school, I was involved in many clubs. Acting as treasurer of one club, I learned the minimal management skills needed to make a team work. I was also involved in a “Junior Enterprise“ (a student-run company) for a whole year, where I was in direct contact with companies. I learned fundamental interpersonal skills: how to work in a team, how to trust a work partner, how to voice one's own opinion and how to respect different points of view.

I have no doubt that my past experience has a lot to do with why I went to China studying for my Master's degree. I not only feel very fortunate to have had such opportunities, I am hoping that I will continue to have many more wonderful and humbling experiences.

I have been a teacher for many years, both as an instructor and a private tutor in different areas (Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics and English). One of my lifetime goals is to improve my teaching skills and to obtain greater success rates for my students. Assessing my skills and limitations as a teacher, I have set out to increase my pedagogical aptitude.

First, I have begun to analyze my past experiences. I have noted that before, I would not ask for student feedback enough. I have completely changed that recently: after each private lesson, I ask my student to rate my teaching and to tell me the points that I taught well and those that were unclear. At the end of my university teaching, I have handed out a survey asking undergraduate students to evaluate my performance and make recommendations on how I could improve it.

All the feedback that I have collected has been instrumental in making me aware of my strengths and weaknesses as a teacher. That has allowed me to adapt my teaching to the students' needs and to gauge the efficiency of my methodology. I have also become more open to criticism. I believe that this has made me a better teacher. Not only have my students' grades picked up considerably this year, I  feel that my teaching skills have improved significantly. That does not mean there is no room for improvement; it just motivates me to continue on the same path of constructive and honest self-criticism. I will no doubt continue to use student feedback to refine my teaching in the future.