Last night, I had a delightful experience. This weekend is Parents’ Weekend, when tons of parents come to visit their students at USC. One of the events of the weekend is the awarding of the Steven B. Sample Teaching and Mentoring Award, an award given to a faculty member who has been nominated by parents and selected by a committee.
Dr. Meshkati taught my ISE 370 (Human Factors and Work Design) and I had told my parents to nominate him for this award last year. He is truly an amazing professor. He really takes interest in his students and even met with all of us individually multiple times during the semester. He even remembers our professional interests and reaches out to us with opportunities from his personal contacts! Last night, there was a dinner and presentation honoring the nominees and naming the recipients. Not to my surprise, Dr. Meshkati was one of 3 recipients! One of the other recipients was Dr. Redekopp, another Viterbi faculty member.
Here’s a picture of Dr. Meshkati and I after he received his award:
It was really a pleasure to see Dr. Meshkati being recognized for all of his hard work. But all of the nominees were outstanding- not only as professors, but just as people. The longer I spend here and the more professors I meet, the more I realize that USC- and Viterbi specifically- has unparalleled faculty members. All of my professors here have been so willing to help me, not only with their classes, but in my professional journey through our university.
I love Prof. Meshkati! Worked in his research group freshman year, and he still remembers me to this day and always asks me how rugby is going!