♾️ Difficult Diffy Q
I don’t have particularly strong feelings about my time in college, but an amusing memory surfaced as I was driving to Baltimore.
It was a new semester, and as I entered the Differential Equations class, I felt a palpable anxiety in the small classroom. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, given that we had supposedly passed the gauntlet of weed-out calculus classes. The class, mostly future engineers, had experienced a freshman year with disgustingly high attrition rates, which isn’t unusual at most colleges. Gotta make those class sizes more manageable.
Professor S, strolled into the room looking a bit harried and the class instantly fell silent. For the next half hour, he tried gauging the classes' collective aptitude and described how the course would progress. Mostly standard stuff. For homework that night, he allowed us to choose either 10 or 15 integrals - I don’t recall which number - to solve and to bring to class.
It turned out that he was an exceptionally stringent grader! While I correctly arrived at the answer for each problem from that first assignment, I lost significant points for omitting a differential here and there and for solving some problems less rigorously than was expected. The lectures were also beginning to become more indecipherable and a couple students dropped out.
The initial apprehension of the class on day one now made perfect sense. In the chaos of signing up for courses, I neglected to look at the lecturer’s “Rate My professor” rating, the all important metric that most college students use to select coursework. Just a cursory glance at the page may have altered my decision to sign up for the course.
The attrition continued relentlessly until the class dwindled to just two pupils: myself and another student. I don’t recall his name, but he had recently finished his military service and was using his G.I. Bill to earn a degree. What I do recollect is that he was smart, disciplined and almost equally as exacting as the professor.
I have pondered why I chose to continue the course, and the prime motivation for me to persevere was that I had almost exclusive access to a world class mathematician for multiple hours a week. While Professor S may not have been a great lecturer, he was fiercely intelligent and in the small group setting that I was now in, he was in his pedagogical element. He would generate beautiful graphs and reproduce proofs designed to provoke us into considering the underlying constructs of the systems we were studying. There was always a lively running exchange as Professor S postured, pointed and challenged! My mathematical maturity grew exponentially in just a few short months, and while I hadn’t yet decided to major in math, I still understood the value of the circumstances that fate had placed me in.
It’s also true that I didn’t quit because I just couldn’t see myself retreating from a formidable challenge. I figured that with enough planning and studying, I’d triumph with a decent grade. It was inevitable that I viewed future coursework through the lens of experiencing this crucible and I was fortunate to complete the hardest course I had taken in college as an underclassmen. My remaining college coursework was by no means easy, but I felt prepared and confident to tackle upper level math courses.
I also admire professor S for choosing to continue teaching the course despite the dwindling number of students. If I recall correctly, the administration seriously considered ending the course for the semester, but with assurance from the remaining students that we were committed, the course was allowed to continue.
When I submitted my final project he asked me an atypical question: “What grade do you think you deserve?” My mumbled response betrayed my surprise and he just smiled and wished me good luck for the future.
I think this memory was triggered when I took the exit to New York while leaving Connecticut on my way to permanently relocate outside Baltimore. You see, part of the final project for the course was completed during our family’s monthly excursion to New York, where my parents would stock up on essential Pakistani groceries scarce in Connecticut. As I’ve grown older, I’ve noticed more memories resurfacing, and I hope they continue to find me in spare moments.
I hope Professor S and my classmate are doing well, wherever they may be.