Who Are the Best Professors?

Here is a piece of advice for students that is becoming very popular:

Find out who the best 5 teachers are in the university (I give them my suggestions but I also tell them to ask others around campus). Take whatever courses they teach, in whatever subjects. That’s the best the university has to offer. Every other course you take while you’re here is just gravy.

This sounds good on principle but the problem with this suggestion is that the evaluation of teaching is highly subjective. One person’s favorite teacher and profound inspiration for the rest of his or her life is another person’s boring, soul-crushing drudge. This is why teaching methodologies are not transferable and departments of education suck worse than pretty much anything on campus (unless you are offering a degree in Community Building).

To give an example, m sister and I enjoy a greater closeness than most twins, let alone regular siblings. We speak a language of our own and share everything. So when she decided to do the same Major as I had, I was thrilled. I recommended that she start with a course taught by the professor who had awakened my interest in literary criticism and whose classes were so intensely fascinating that I always felt traumatized whenever a class would end. I could listen to this prof speak about Spanish literature forever. For my sister, however, taking a course with this professor put an end to her interest in Hispanic studies.

“I cannot believe you want to waste your life on something so stooooopid!” she announced. “What a total waste of time!” (She was a teenager. Today, she would be a lot more forceful and assertive in expressing her opinion.) So she transferred to a program in Marketing.

Choosing professors who have people fighting to get into their courses is not a guarantee of teaching excellence either. At Yale we had this ultra-famous professor of English literature who conducted interviews with people interested in taking his courses and only chose the ones he happened to like. He was also known for making extremely obnoxious and offensive comments on students’ work. Given that he was notorious for being constantly accused of sexual harassment, I never considered going to his screening interviews. Besides, his most important contribution to literary criticism is the profound idea that “Shakespeare is the best writer in the world.” The reason why students slaughter each other to get into his classes is simply that he provides an opportunity to name drop. All of his books are featured prominently in Barnes & Noble bookstores, and it impresses people to know you’ve studied with him.

So my alternative advice to new students would be: don’t follow the herd. In what concerns choosing a professor as well as in everything else, figure out what makes you happy and do that. You are not in high school any more, so not standing out and being like everybody else has lost all value. The success of the rest of your life will depend on how soon you learn to discard everybody’s opinions on what should constitute happiness and begin to assert your right to be happy on your own terms.