Knowing your profs, in and out of class

You will spend no less than 10,338 hours listening to your professors talk during your undergraduate career. And that's a bare estimate based solely on class time—not including the special courses that you take just for fun, in excess of the graduation requirements. Keeping in mind this massive chunk of time devoted solely to sitting in class and being shown the wealth of a Yale education, one would think that every student would make a mad dash for the door as soon as the hour is up. Students might crowd doorways and trample fellow fugitives as they try to reclaim the rotting corpse of their social lives, free from the taint of the academy. But that's far from what really happens.

KATHERINE NEWBEGIN/RIVERHEAD BOOKS Professor Harold Bloom, famous scholar and tough grader.

Instead, overly enthusiastic proto-scholars trail and stalk their professors as they leave class, eager to continue a discussion cut short by the lives of normal people. You and your fellow students will line up outside of professors' offices during elusive and endangered "office hours." You'll wrack your brains with your senior adviser, trying to find some interesting perspective for your senior thesis. You'll try to get the latest dish from your faculty advisers on what courses to take, and you'll pester them for shop-talk on where the department of your major is headed.

You might even get to go to their houses for end-of-the-year cocktail parties. There, you'll be confronted with the difficult task of speaking interestingly of music and art while manhandling a pig-in-a-blanket. Talking with your professors will turn out to be a favorite pastime.

The undergraduate experience at Yale is the Yale experience. The much-touted undergraduate focus at Yale really does hold some truth. Professors and undergraduates are encouraged to interact and converse in and out of the classroom. The very job of a mighty Sterling Professor (Yale's highest professorial rank) is to teach, and teaching at Yale is centered on its lowly undergraduates. "Yale College is not Harvard College" is an old but still accurate expression that some professors recall to emphasize just how unique a stress is given to undergraduate teaching at Yale. As your Bulldog propaganda surely claims, Yale College is the jewel in the University's crown. This is surely evinced by the physical plan of the campus: academic hubs are mixed in with residential colleges, and Old Campus, Yale's most distinctive quadrangle, is still the center of undergraduate living. Professors are there not just to do research and cavort with graduate students—they're there to teach and cavort with the likes of you, too!

Yale's professors, from endowed chairs to freshly-minted Ph.D.'s, might seem like daunting figures in their own right, but they are all very approachable. Rather, they really want to be approached. Surely nothing stifles the spirit like sitting in an office, waiting for a knock on the door that never comes—but it really is left up to the student to take advantage of the great conversation, learning, and experience that professors have to offer. You should make use of the office hours, the time each professors dedicate to answering any academic concerns a student might have. And don't be afraid to mention outside of class any tangential and interesting points that struck you. Professors have founded their entire careers on commentary—scholarly conferences, journals, and lecture series are their bread and butter. So don't be afraid to toss them a bone every once in a while and let them run their mouth off. What has sparked your interest might spark theirs. If anything, it'll show that you read un-assigned works—that you think outside of the box.

Professors at Yale all share a great enthusiasm and expertise in their particular fields, but some are of course known far and wide as public intellectuals, controversial critics or brilliant innovators. Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of Humanities, is the keeper of all things literary and, perhaps with his recent book Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, all things human, too. The Sterling Professor of Mathematical Sciences, Benoit Mandelbrot, is the father of chaos and fractal systems, and biologist Sidney Altman is a Nobel laureate—but we have all heard of these fellows. The most interesting experiences you'll have with your professors will not be book signings or press releases, but far more normal interactions. The things you'll remember are both the scholarly brilliance and the quirky eccentricity of these academics.

David Bromwich, Housum Professor of English, can lead a discussion section into the closest "close reading" of a historical text and show you what words really mean for a political and literary mind. And he can do it with a hypnotizing, reptilian voice and eyes that manage to never stray from the left-hand corner of the room's ceiling. When he actually does look you in the eye, you should be worried—either you have said something brutally obtuse or startlingly refined. I still haven't been able to figure out to which he reacts. Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering Peter Schultheiss flutters his fingers as he reaches the last line of a proof he is rattling off. The fluttering digits somehow eventually reach his nose, which, without fail, leaves each class covered in chalk.

On the other hand, Luce Professor of Social Thought and Ethics Shelly Kagan dissects philosophical propositions in a painfully loud and precise voice, reacting to hazardous articulations by covering his forehead and eyes with his hand, shielding his thoughts from the deceptive world around him. Directed Studies Literature Assistant Professor Christopher Miller listens to students' crackpot insights on lyric poetry but is able by an osmosis-like process to turn what drivel has just been unearthed into some gem of literary criticism. He leaves you feeling good about yourself and the world you live in, even though you've had sonnet forms wrong all along.

Interactions with professors are contradictory. You'll converse with your professors directly about topics that interest you, but you'll also converse with your friends about your professors behind their backs. You'll ask professors for advice, as well as for paper extensions. You'll embarass yourself by falling asleep in classes, but you'll be even more embarassed walking past them on your way to lunch, unsure of whether to stop and say hello. All this will be yours, and what happens next depends on what you decide to do. If you're genuinely interested in learning from your professors, you'll find a wealth of knowledge waiting for you.

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