My personal low came in Real Analysis a few semesters later. I could not follow the professor in part of a proof he was doing at the board. As I sat formulating my question, the guy in front of me asked the question I wished to ask. Professor X turned, paused, and witheringly suggested, “If you don’t understand that, perhaps you should be in life sciences.” I closed my notebook, took a mental inventory of drink specials at various campus bars, and never returned to the class again.

Tied for first - Murray McGibbon - Acting 2. Learned more in that class about life than any other class period.

Grad School - Jeff Rush - Scene Analysis. Always chaotic, but always enjoyable. I can now carefully dissect structure in story and understand how a story really works.

“First, the professor was absolutely enthusiastic about the material; they weren’t just punching a clock, they were truly into it. Second, a very delicate balance was struck, in which the material was ultimately understandable (and interesting, it goes without saying), but also extremely challenging.”

Only half the class was in the leas tbit intimately familiar with the material to start with, but through implementing peer review throughout the year we all learned so much - no one was left behind.

It was absolutely bonkers, and I’m surprised they let us do it. But everyone finished, and everyone loved the course!

Remedial Writing, given as a summer course at Ithaca College by Prof. Barb Adams. I was a 17-year old kid so eager to get into college that I jumped in four days after graduating from high school and took what classes I could find in the summer offering (which meant finding ones which had no prerequisits). This one was a real gem. Four students and a braless, feminist professor who raised goats (this was early 1970’s) to make goat cheese, knew her stuff, and cared about teaching. She was also willing to hang out after class and talk about most anything. I learned more useful things about writing (and reading) in that single condensed 6-week class than in anything before or since.

Why was it effective? No pressure from the teacher, just help. All of us students were there because we really wanted to learn. Lot’s of in-class practice — write for 5 or 15 minutes, read out loud, listen to constructive feedback from the others — not much lecutre, lots of good reading assignments. The 4:1 ratio was a huge plus. I remember much laughter and some real tear-jerking moments.

Heck, that was more than 30 years ago and comes to mind like yesterday.

A close second was UChicago’s Honors Analysis sequence, which was taught by Rhagavan Narasimhan when I took it. Narasimhan covered analysis on metric spaces, basic operator algebra, complex analysis, and differential forms and elementary differential topology in the space of a year. Every class I’ve taken since has been easy by comparison.

But the most important, influential, and really really fun class I’ve ever had was a Physics/Philosophy cross-listed undergrad course on the QM measurement problem, taught by David Albert at Columbia. I took it as a German Lit major and it drove me right back into science, where I happily live today.