Professor Psychology 101

Waking up to go to 8:30am class is probably the worst possible class time ever! ... or is it?
Seeing that I'm not a natural mathathlete I decided that if I want to try and get back into 'math-shape', I should double up on my Calculus for engineering lectures - now I know you all think I'm a nerd at this point but to be honest I will take it if it will get me through this class haha. But anyways, as you can imagine I was not the most energetic this morning when I slid into my chair with a tea in hand ready to try and push through my third day of 8:30 math class. Not really putting two and two together, I totally forgot that this class section would have a different professor. Well ... this older gentleman walks into the lecture theater with shirt, tie, and pocket protector full of pens .... even in my sleeply stare at the wall I gathered this must be the professor. So I automatically assume this is going to be a long hour of boring talk - you know the teacher that sounds like the one from peanuts no matter how hard you try and focus?
Well was I ever wrong , I have never seen someone so passionate about math! He was yelling and screaming about how he love vectors, points, and planes and how he just wanted us to understand it all! Now here is a guy who loves his job. Needless to say the hour flew by and so did the rest of my four lectures for the day.
Why can't all professors love their job as much as this one and actually make classes entertaining and a positive experience? Ever wonder why school teachers have to have an education degree to teach and university professors never have to take courses on how to teach? .. just some ranting for thought ...
Well, with all this said, the whole point of this post was to explain the fact that over my past four years of university I have come to learn that understanding how the prof thinks and works is just as important as knowing the actual information in the course. And I'm not going to lie I tend to sit in class some days and analyze the professor and wonder what they are like outside of school - kind of like 'people watching' but seeing them weekly increases the crazy assumptions you can make about them! haha
Finally keeping with the theme of professors and loving what you are doing, thought I would share with you one of my favorite books to date - "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch. Its a great quick read whenever you need to be motivated or put back on track. You can also watch the lecture he based it on on youtube - I won't post the video because it's an hour long but if you want to watch it just search the title information and it will come right up.

"Love what your doing or stop doing it!" -#14
Mich