This time last year, I received word from a college friend that one of my professors had passed away. Hugh Young had a great sense of humor and a remarkable way of relating to young people. Young told us he’d do anything to help us students stay awake during his physics lectures. “I’d stand on my head for you guys if I could,” he insisted.
A bad teacher can really waste your time or kill any interest you might have in a subject, but a good teacher is a guide for life. Like my schoolteachers, some of my college professors said a lot between the lines that has stayed with me. Here are some of their gems to start this academic year.
ON THEIR AREA OF EXPERTISE
“[The earth] is like one of those candies that have a soft center … but it also has this, like a cashew, in the middle, or like a peppercorn. So you’re chewing along and all of a sudden you break your jaw on this hard thing. That’s pretty bad. So stay out of the center of the earth. It’s a bad place.”
— Raymond E. White, astronomy professor
The lesson? If you make a vivid analogy, people will always remember it.
“If Nietzsche isn’t roasting in the hottest part of hell, he’s probably laughing at us.”
— Richard C. Helt, German professor
Translation: philosophers can write whatever they want, but who knows if they’re right?
“Can you imagine? All of our psychological data now depend on people who have been programmed by MTV!”
— Mylan Engel, philosophy TA
Don’t worry. People in academic circles know what they’re dealing with.
ON PROBLEM-SOLVING
“Problem 9 is not a hard problem, but if you work at it long enough, you can make it very involved.”
— Hugh D. Young, physics professor
Overthinking things can make life difficult. Half of the class got this problem wrong because they couldn’t believe it was as simple as it appeared.
“I mean, this is the sort of thing computers like to do.”
— Roy Emrick, physics professor
Some tasks, such as repetitive statistical calculations, are better delegated.
“If you throw that out, you’re throwing out the baby and the bathwater and the tub and the soap and the window, and you’ll have to start all over with a new pregnancy — just to extend the analogy.”
— Raymond E. White
Be careful what you assume. Something that a student assumed to be unimportant turned out to be very important after all.
ON LIFE
“The wise person never throws anything away.”
— Roy Emrick
Always have a backup. Things get lost, like the little book in which Dr. Emrick had recorded our homework grades.
Some of my professors’ statements stood on their own.
“Being ignorant is nothing to be ashamed of as long as you do something about it.”
— Hugh D. Young
“If you live only on rational principles, you may violate common sense.”
— Roland Richter, German professor
“Technique is everything. In romance and in mathematics, technique is everything.”
— Raymond E. White
THE LAST WORD
One September day, a student who had missed a German class wanted to know what he needed to catch up on.
Steve Austin asked: “Did I miss a lot on Tuesday?”
Max Dufner, the professor, replied: “Well, I hope so, or else I’m not doing my job.”
RIP Hugh Young, Ray White, Max Dufner.
See my earlier column: What my teachers really taught me
