Prof. Schwartz was an incredibly engaging speaker. Although none of the people in the audience were freshmen, he spoke on a wide range of college-related topics that applied to all of us in some way: financial aid, study abroad, Greek life, and much more.

One of the most interesting things that Prof. Schwartz mentioned was taking classes for the professor, not the topic. Unfortunately, many of us won’t be able to do much about that until junior or senior year (when we get out of core/major/prerequisite classes). Even so, many of the classes in my major are huge, and people fight for spots during pre-enroll and add/drop. As a result, it is difficult to get to know the professors on a personal level because they are so busy tending to a massive number of other students. I feel like Prof. Schwartz’s advice would be more applicable to humanities students; their classes tend to be smaller/more intimate, which translates to more opportunities to get to know the professors.

Nevertheless, I’ve never really thought about the “taking teachers” approach before – now that I think about it, I definitely would much rather hear a great professor talk about something mildly interesting than take a fascinating class with an absolutely horrible professor.