I thoroughly enjoyed Sam Beck, the Director of Urban Semester NYC, speaking to us last week. His style was wholly unorthodox, as instead of giving a lecture and then asking for questions, he merely gave a brief statement at the beginning. This was then followed by him engaging with every student in the room, asking what their own personal studies and ambitions were. He spent at least two or three minutes with every person in the room, and more than any of the other Rose Cafes (which were generally quite good), I think he completely enraptured the audience through his statements.

For me personally, I think this cafe helped resolve some of the concerns I had on a personal level about my own future. I told Dr. Beck that I was a government major, one who would probably be facing down unemployment in the near future, since I had not connected my career goals with my studies. He said this was ridiculous, and said that it was perfectly possible to connect government to my own personal wishes, such as law or public service.

What I liked most about Dr. Beck was his emphasis on what the student thinks. He pointed 0ut many professors often regurgitate a lecture, and then expect students to recite it back to them on an exam or a paper. He emphasized that his goal was to actually understand our hopes and desires, and our own intellectual ideas. And he definitely succeeded in doing that.