Most professors that I've had at UCLA are okay, some are better than others and some not so good at all; and then....there are the most special ones. The ones that'll change your life. These kind of professors are hard to come by and I'm lucky I've had two such professors.
David Kan
I took his PIC 10B (intermediate programming course) the spring quarter of my freshman year (Spring 2000). The first time he came to lecture, I thought he was the TA. He wore a blue plaid shirt and worn jeans, and it was like he was still a kid at heart. One of the nicest guys ever, he really cared about teaching and taught well. He tell us stories about his life and that made lecture extra special. Back then, I rarely did office hours, I still don't. But I went to his office hours, I think that was the very first office hour I ever went to for any professor. He was cool. He asked me what my name was and he introduced himself as David. haha! That first office hour made a difference. I got really interested in the class and even went to both lectures that he taught: 2-3pm and then 3-4pm Yup, I sat through and thoroughly enjoyed both hours. He not only made programming fun and interesting, he indirectly set me on my journey to becoming an applied math major. Because I was so interested in him, I found out his true love was numerical analysis. Teaching PIC classes were just a temporary stepping stone in his career. I got interested in math, I started reading books on cryptography (The Code Book, Simon Singh), number theory, fermat's theorem, etc. It was pretty exciting stuff.
Back when I took his class, I had only taken one lower division math course. It was on stats and probability, Math 3c, since that was the last quarter of the series, I was really disappointed that the only calculus I knew when I graduated from UCLA was the stuff I learned in high school. That made no sense to me. So the following fall, I started taking math again (math dept considered it a illegal repeat and deducted units from me). Now presently, I'm proud that I've taken so many math courses since then.
(total: Math 3C, 32A, 32B, 33A,33B,115A,131AH,170A,171, 142, 151A,151B,157, Stats 100B)
Professor Kan is no longer a professor. He taught only two or three more PIC courses before he left UCLA to become a sales manager for a mathematical software company. He is still in Westwood, actually working really really close to where my apartment is. The last time I ever saw him was last year on the street and he didn't recognize me. That's okay. When I graduate with my math degree, I'll send him an email or something to let him know what a difference he has made in my life.
And my favorite professor of all time,
Nicolas Christou
Professor Christou taught my Stats 100B course last winter (Winter 2002). The first time I ever heard about him was from a guy who used to be my next door neighbor in the dorms freshman year. I had talked to him when he was taking Prof. Christou's Stats 13 course and he told me he was a great professor. I was sort of interested but knew that I would not be taking Stats 13 ever, but I did look him up on uclaprofessors.com and saw the wonderful reviews. At that time, that was that.
After I taken Math 170A (probability) Fall 2001 with Holroyd, also good prof. I signed up for Math 170B also taught by Holroyd. I had no idea that the Cybernetics major was weird in that they let me pick either Math 170A or Stats 100A to fulfill reqs. but required me to take Stats 100B instead of Math 170B. I was sad to drop Holroyd's class, but seeing Christou's name in the schedule of classes made me happy again. I'd remembered what my friend had said before. So I looked forward to taking the class.
Professor Christou is from Cyprus, he's Greek and has a slight accent, but totally understandable. He taught the course extremely well. I loved his handouts and homework, they were always so organized and helpful. He is an extremely nice guy, but it was so funny when he reprimanded this talkative guy in class. Haha, I wish I could see that again. Professor Christou is also a pretty funny guy without trying. Like every class I take at UCLA, I sat in the front row, and every morning at around 11 am, he'd show up to class and wait outside for people. I'm not sure why he does that, but he does. He still does it now. But almost everyday, he'd ask me what time it was, or whether class is over yet. I told him the time, but it was weird because I noticed he wore a nice watch everyday. So I assumed the watch no longer worked and that he wore it for sentimental reasons. It didn't bother me at all, in fact I liked it, it showed that he noticed I was in his class.
Professor Christou also took time out of lecture to hand back homework. That is rare for professors, usually TAs hand back in class. And he handed them back INDIVIDUALLY! He called each of our names and sometimes stop class in the middle to hand them back to late people! WOW! Even TAs would just hand the front person the huge stack and let everyone find his/her own hw during class. What a unique professor! And I think that really helped him to remember everyone's face and name.
I still never went to office hours, but he had so many office hours, it showed he cared and I tried to make an effort to go sometime. First time I went wasn't that memorable. I find that you need to have studied and know your stuff before you go to his office hours. He really makes you think and I can't think under pressure like that. So I just ended up feeling dumb and having him explain everything. That's why I didn't end up going a second time until tenth and finals week. But the second time definitely helped. He knew my name. That makes me so happy when a professor remembers my name without me ever telling him in the first place. I have had professors where I would go to office hours 4-5 times and they STILL wouldn't remember or care to remember. Yeah, during that office hour, I found out that his watch just needed change of battery and he wore it everyday to remind him to change the battery. (BUT THAT WAS A DURATION OF 10 WEEKS OR MORE!) hehehhe, such a funny and weird guy! Definitely, I felt good going to his office hours and during that period of tenth and finals week, I went to every single office hour he had. It was probably a total of 3-4 times. It encouraged to start studying earlier and harder for his class than any other class. I think that's why I did well on the four hour final.
That's right, we had a four hour final! It was one of the most difficult tests I ever took. He let us bring books, hw, etc. to the test. And paranoid me, I brought everything even though I had studied so hard for the test. There was one question I'm especially proud of. It wasn't a remember and regurgitate question. It was completely new but required us to use the knowledge we'd learned that quarter. I thought and thought and finally came up with what I thought was right. I'm assuming I got it right, since I found out much later that I got the highest score on the final. But yeah... those were good times.
Another thing, during the quarter, around mid February, that was the period where I really wanted to donate blood. Ever since Sept. 11, I promised God that I'd donate blood. But I didn't have the courage to go do it until February. I was researching donating blood online and I ended up at Christou's webpage! Fate! He had posted a message from the UCLA Blood and Platelet Center telling people to donate blood. Wow... well, I had done it on February 18, 2002: donated blood for the first time. I really wanted to let him know that I did it the next day, but I hadn't known him well enough to talk to him about it.
He is such a nice and great guy that I wrote a letter of praise to the Statistics department for him. I still have no idea whether he knows, but I won't be telling him.
Spring quarter 2002: I was applying to the UCLA IGERT bioinformatics internship and needed letters of rec on less than seven days. It was my first time that I ever needed to get letters of rec and I was scared and nervous. It was obvious I'd ask Prof. Christou for one, he was the only professor on campus that actually knew I existed and knew my name. I emailed him about it and he was so nice about it! It wasn't like uh..okay, maybe I'll write you one if I have the time, it was of course I'll write you! It made me quite happy, and when I went to his office the next day all prepared to talk to him about it, he'd already finished it!!! Not only did he finish it, he let me read it before he printed a nice copy, signed it and put it in an envelope for me. =) So incredible.
dangit...not enough time... still much more to say about Christou, will have to continue later... (I'm gonna be in his class AGAIN in two weeks!!! can't wait!)
