<p>Maybe I'm getting senile, but I actually remember very few classes and or discussions. </p>
<p>All school was 20 years or more ago. I was a bit of a professional student as I bumbled around to a career after getting bored with engineering. State schools were so cheap you could sort of do them as a hobby.</p>
<p>Let me summarize my colleges. A couple of top 50 state schools, for at least a semester full time, but not for a degree. Lived in two states with good publics. A couple of top 100 roughly privates for an engineering degree. (probably second or third tier for engineering). A tier three MBA program (not completed) and law school. A year of graduate psychology school with a teaching assistantship at a top 100 or so private.</p>
<p>Lots of large classes. Lots of small classes, particularly at the grad level.</p>
<p>I don't remember much of anything from class. I do remember the professors I socialized with or did projects with after class. I do remember hanging out the student center and talking to PhD students in philosophy or whomever, going to demonstrations and outside lectures etc. </p>
<p>The professors I remember may have been in gigantic lectures if I went to their office to talk to them. Once I learned to do that it didn't make much difference if the classes were that large. I also found that often the most interesting things to talk about in a field are not covered in class. I actually got to prefer bigger classes as nothing is less fun than personal interaction with professors you don't want to interact with and you can then pick those you want to associate with.</p>
<p>Anybody have similar or different recollections of college?</p>
<p>I remember my TA in statistics my 2nd year at Big State U (out of state) because I married him! Hey-the class was very hard and I HAD to do something! The other main thing I remember about undergrad is that I could not understand the TA in geography- heavy Middle East accent. Law school- I remember a lot of those classes because the profs were famous and sometimes terrifying! My peers were brilliant and strange.</p>
<p>I remeber my peers in law school, my last school, but not the lectures that much. I did try to go back and take a couple of grad course in political science, but ended my inglorious academic career with an F as I found out suddenly I could not ruin another beautiful afternoon doing a paper I didn't care about and never bothered to complete my extension. The prof who was right out of grad school, did not find it amusing.</p>
<p>I believe I've already posted that I was in a coma the first semester of college so it is unlikely any of those "memories" actually happened (but I do still have occasional nightmares of something or someone chasing me across campus) BUT starting immediately thereafter my college and professional school memories are clearest of my friends, then my personal interactions with my professors, and lagging far behind - the lectures and material.</p>
<p>I remember most of my profs out of the 32 classes I took (I took multiple classes with 5 profs.) Three profs were ho-hum (one TA, two asistant profs; all classes taken based on the title of the course, rather than the prof.) I don't remember a great deal of the "factual" information, but I do remember more conceptual information. </p>
<p>I had very memorable profs from both Lecture & Seminar (<20 kids) classes. </p>
<p>Vividly remember the prof in a Lit course called "The Nature of Tragedy" (Sears Jayne) and how in one lecture he left the whole audience in tears after relating that, for him, the most tragic part of life was having to burst the bubble of innocence of his children and reveal to them that the world was not always beautiful and it had bad & dangerous people in it... This teacher taught one lecture class per semester & taught all his own sections (like 10 of them.) He had 9-5 office hours every day except when in class. My mother had had him at UCB where he was let go for not enough publishing. He was legendary and excellent; would be applauded after every lecture.</p>
<p>Vividly remember two other lecture profs (Patricia Caldwell, Edward Beiser) who would call on people in their lectures (name out of roster, or just pointing at someone at random) teaching with the socratic method-- if you were not prepared for their classes, you sat outside in the hall so as to be able to take notes but not be called on.</p>
<p>I remember one prof (shall remain nameless!) who must have been narcoleptic or something because she nodded off a few times in her own <em>seminar</em>! However, she was a fantastic teacher.</p>
<p>I remember the last semester of my senior year, taking a class with Michael Harper who kept refering to scholarly works during the class (works which, it was obvious, none of us had read) and shaking his head in disbelief-- clearly, in order to consider ourselves marginally well-educated, we would have to be familiar with work X or work Y... I left class every day with two or three "must reads" scribbled into my notebook... Very healthy to end college on a note of realizing the immense scope of what I had not yet learned!</p>
<p>Wow! Someone else who remembers Edward Beiser (I had him when he was younger - what a scary and wonderful person!)</p>
<p>I still have a relationship with two of my undergrad profs, both of whom are now in their 90s! (actually, that's one more than the number of relationships I have with my classmates from the same period.)</p>
<p>I remember virtually no classes from college, but lots of good times. From law school (in very politically UNcorrect times) I remember "ladies days" when the profs would call on and torture the (few) women in the class that day. Wow, my kids couldn't relate to that in a million years. I guess that tells you how old I am or that perhaps my alma mater was among the last to see the light.</p>
<ol>
<li> first year of college overseas (1yr)</li>
<li> big state university (1yr)</li>
<li> different big state university (2yrs, graduated)</li>
<li> one grad course at night while working (hey, I can't do this!)</li>
<li> 2 yr MBA program</li>
</ol>
<p>ok, 5 schools, and only one truly memorable class!! Took a psych class in behavior modification taught by a protege of BF Skinner. That summer I got a golden retriever puppy and that was the best trained dog you have ever seen! I could ride my bicycle down the street and she would run on the sidewalk and wait at the corner for my "ok" command to cross the street. Never put a leash on that dog.</p>
<p>I remember my freshman humanities course quite vividly. Not every word of lectures or readings, but a huge amount of it. It made such an impression on me and shaped my later learning and thinking. At the same time, it was overwhelming -- 500 pages of reading a week, and i was a slowish reader -- and lots of papers to write. But the content, the ideas hit me between the eyes.</p>
<p>That was in a small school (Reed), not big state U. I also recall a few discussions and readings from several later courses.</p>
<p>The same is true of several of my graduate courses, at a big state U (Wisconsin). Then again, I went into the business of college teaching, and so what I was learning was not only preprofessional training but also foundation literature for my field of teaching and research. If I didn't remember that stuff, I'd be out of the business by now.</p>
<p>4 years private engineering school
1 year private engineering masters
2 year business masters (about 10 years later)</p>
<p>I mostly remember friendships, many specific fun events, and amazing classmates and amazing experiences. The professors and classmates I remember the best tend to be from smaller classes (the case for LACs?) ... however there are a few very specific academic moments I remember like they were yesterday.
* I remember the class and problem that ultimately picked my major and livelyhood for me ... proving that following a very analytical driven poker strategy both maximized the odds of winning hands and also appeared to the other players as a lot of bluffing ... this led to my major and my advisor.
* I remember my prof and class from my first pure liberal arts class .... that B is the proudest I am of any grade I ever received and opened my eyes to huge range of courses I should explore.
* I remember a computer science course and assignment because a HUGE cheating scandal broke out and my roommate was dragged into the quagmire.
* I remember 2-3 classes from B-school when I was introduced to thought processes that changed the way I look at business problems and possible solutions.</p>
<p>I have fond memories of classes during my undergrad days at OSU. In the CivilEng department many stand out. Soils Eng prof Tien Wu who made us appreciate that the design of soils structures was a heavy dose of science and a smidge of art and challenged, tongue in cheek, that designers should be required to live downstream of their earth fill dam designs. Prof Ricca and his endless homework assignments, programming challenge and the wonderful full scale hydraulics lab that we were able to "play" in. Steel structures prof CB Smith who regaled us with stories of his years with Chicago Bridge. Surveying prof Purtz who rolled his eyes on heariing that I tossed our teams transit plumbob into Mirror Lake and whipped the students butts on the basketball court. Sanitary eng prof George Hanna who took us step by step through the design of an activated sludge treatment plant and then took us to the Westerly treatment plant in Columbus to show us our design in action. Prof Bishara who taught us both flexible pavement design and the fine art of cleaning a bitumen viscosity meter. And picnics with them all on football Saturdays with the stadium within earshot.</p>
<p>a fabulous Italian Literature and Film class where I was the only one reading the books in English; getting 'it' in real analysis after being in a complete haze; Reading Chaucer in Middle English; a lecture by Gregory Bateson on cybernetics; a class in Urban Studies that was primarily field trips to San Francisco; Working with two other women on FL/1 (feminist language one) in our compiler writing class.</p>
<p>I have very vivid memories, but only of bits and pieces -- not a coherent memory of everything. However, one thing I realized years ago is that my most clear memories -- both of the classes and of information gleaned from the classes -- are generally of courses that I took just for fun or to fill out my schedule; I had a habit of trying one "fun" or "light" course each quarter. So I remember my film and drama classes, far more than most of classes that were the core of my major. In the UC system, there are classes with the number 10 which are always introductory classes geared for nonmajors -- so for example, I took Computer Programming 10 -- and remember quite a bit from that class. Of course the joke is that I now do a lot of computer scripting with my work, but absolutely nothing I learned back with my introductory class in 1973 has any relevance to what I do now. What I remember is using punch cards and feeding them into a huge computer the size of several filing cabinets that took up half the room -- and then waiting for several minutes until the results of my program were printed out on a continuous feed sheet from an equally oversized printer on the other side of the room. (Of course I keep my kids entertained with these tales of the stone age).</p>
<p>I remember using punch cards and feeding them into a huge computer the size of several filing cabinets that took up half the room -- and then waiting for several minutes until the results of my program were printed out on a continuous feed sheet</p>
<hr>
<p>Ha Ha I remember when you had to go the next day (if you were lucky) and get the error print out after you submitted the punch cards. No wonder I hated programming. It was worse than typing without a word processor.</p>
<p>ahh, yes... term papers and a senior thesis, on a typewriter.... with whiteout. I used to try to type it all with a single draft -- the last thing I wanted was to have to retype the whole paper....</p>
<p>
[quote]
remember using punch cards and feeding them into a huge computer the size of several filing cabinets that took up half the room -- and then waiting for several minutes until the results of my program were printed out on a continuous feed sheet
[/quote]
I remember an ex-boyfriend dropped his box of punch cards, then had to try to get them back in order..... ouch!</p>
<p>Wellesley - remember v little content, but do remember the ability to have v strong relationship w profs (and remember one of the v best teachers not getting tenure due to publish or perish)
UCB grad school - remember the major culture schock, coming right out of East Coast undergrad. These folks were only going to take classes where they could coast! Only 4 students took the class from the best prof I had because it had a reading list AND an exam AND a paper. Don't imagine that characterizes the whole place, but that was my experience.
Stanford B-school - the content of only 3 courses stay with me and they have made a huge difference in almost every aspect of my life (Negotation, "Touchy-Feely"(interpersonal dynamics) and Creativity in Business - really creativity in life). Not what most people think B-school curriculum is all about</p>
<p>My most memorable first day of class was in a course called Music of the 20th Century in the auditorium of Stillman Hall. The room was totally dark with the exception of the dim EXIT signs. We stumbled over one another getting to our seats, wondering if the sign on the door which said "Enter-Music of the 20th Century-be careful taking your seat" was a joke. I suppose it was a few minutes after the class was to have started when the room was suddenly filled with Stravinsky's Rite of Spring-Danse de la Terre played at a shatteringly loud volume. That section of du Printemps only lasts a few minutes but it was a few minutes which altered my appreciation of classical music forever. I still listen to the likes of Schoenburg, Weber, Martinu, Xenakis and Penderecki.</p>