Most of my life, I feel like I’ve always seen teachers as just an authority figure that’s there to share information about whatever subject material they’re teaching. I was one of those kids that thought that teachers lived at school, because that was all they did. Recently, I feel like I’ve been able to connect with my professors on a more personal level and I’ve found that I can learn so much more from them than I had originally thought.
I’m taking a class about probability models and using them to predict random processes. These can include anything from modeling traffic flow to the stock market. The professor is a straight-up genius, not even just at statistics, but also at teaching. He’s actually able to engage the class in a way that some professors don’t do – by giving us personal “life lessons”. One day, he was telling us about models that are used on the stock market and how people become rich with them. He then asked how many people in the class want to become billionaires. A couple of people raised their hands. He then said, “Don’t do it. You’re going to die eventually and you can’t take it with you.”
While it seems like he could be encouraging us to slack off, I believe he actually is teaching us how to be wise with out goals. He’s trying to point us towards being successful, but not to only be driven by success. One of my other favorite quotes of his was that if he had to learn some sort of statistical model then he would practice over and over for hours until he threw up. And then he would practice ten more times. Every day when he starts the class, he will ask us who read the chapter before class and, when nobody raises their hand, he will say how disappointed in us he is. He also offered a special piece of advice to the women in the class, saying that they should only marry a man if he knows Bayes Theorem.
While he takes a more humoristic approach to teaching us these lessons, I actually have been able to take them to heart. I am glad that he has decided to share us his life wisdom, as that is arguably more important than whatever statistics we were going to be taught during that time period. I hope that he continues to teach us what he has learned from his life so far, as I am very interested in what else he has to tell us.
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