Just as you realize that watching all those Breaking Bad episodes reading all your chemistry textbooks during break still doesn’t shake that feeling that you’re not quite so ready for another semester, your professors made another round of funny comments to get you back into the swing of things.

Couch Potato i.e. I know what you did last summer

Professor Richard Bulliet, History of America in the Muslim World 

“Hitler’s been the gold standard of evilness.”

Eric Blanchard, Gender and International Relations

On why weekend e-mail responses tend not to be so prompt: “Because sometimes we need to go to Tijuana, too.”

Brad Garton, Music Hum

“As you can tell, we’re going to spend a lot of time on avant garde stuff and contemporary music. Why? Because I have tenure! Muahahaha.”

Erik Gray, Literary Texts & Critical Methods

“Have you ever noticed how people pretend to eat babies?”

Norma Graham, Statistics for Behavioral Scientists

”We used to have a heavy contingent from Barnard. They must have learned—they have learned how to teach statistics.”

Read more…

2015 in Lit Hum

Today is the first day of classes and of Columbia’s unofficial two weeks of “shopping.” Accordingly, professors tend to bust out some of their best material in order to sell you the idea that the whole class will be entertaining/worth it/whatever you’re looking for. Sometimes it will be, and sometimes today is simply a masterful bait-and-switch. Either way, we love to hear about our faculty’s sharper moments, so send them to tips@bwog.com or share them in the comments.

Image via Wikimedia Commons

And now for something a wee bit different. In today’s Actual Wisdom, English professor Edward Mendelson teaches us a lesson about breaking the rules. And about the perils of questionnaires. It’s all below, in his personally requested format. It’s kinda like when you take major liberties with an unappealing essay prompt and end up writing something that only tangentially answers the question—professors, they’re just like us!

The questions:

Edward Mendelson

1. Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer.
2. Your claim to fame.
3. What’s your most valuable or unexpected college experience?
4. What’s the craziest student excuse/extension story you’ve heard?
5. Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese?
6. Back in my day…
7. Three things you learned at Columbia.
8. What’s your advice to students/academics/the human race in general?

 The answers:

(a) W. H. Auden wrote in a poem: “Thou shalt not answer questionnaires.”

(b) Never give personal answers to impersonal questions. A questionnaire isn’t like a conversation where anything you say can have an effect on the next thing someone else says. A questionnaire is like a machine that keeps talking but never listens. Other question-asking machines that you should avoid answering include evaluation forms, marketing and political surveys, and anything else that reduces you to a statistic when you answer it. An assigned paper topic is essentially a single-question questionnaire; avoid courses with assigned paper topics, or find a way to make the topic your own instead of the instructor’s.

(c) It’s impossible to give a meaningful answer to any question in the form, “What’s your most valuable experience of this or that?” Every interesting experience is interesting in itself. You can’t measure it or rank it or compare it to any other experience without trivializing it.

(d) Questionnaires simply start and stop. Unlike personal conversations, they don’t have a beginning, middle, or end. Avoid any kind of speech or writing where you can’t choose the shape and structure of what you want to say.

This is Achilles, delivering his own closing remarks upon leaving Eretria.

Happy mid-December! Celebrate the end of classes with some pithy phrases your professors say that we call Closing Remarks. 

Bruce Robbins, Modern Comparative Fiction: “You don’t have to express yourself. People don’t give a shit, they never have.”

Randall Balmer, Evangelicalism: “Thank you so much for being interested and coming to this class. If you didn’t, I’d have to teach something boring, like comparative religion or something.”

Roosevelt Montàs, CC: ”After this first semester, God is dead to CC.”

Sam Moyn, Historical Origins of Human Rights: “In times like this, I have to ask myself what would Jesus do, and he had to separate the wheat from the chaff. That’s why I use IDs on the exam.”

Aaron Ritzenberg, University Writing: “When you see me on campus, don’t just pull out your iPhone and pretend not to see me. It’s more embarrassing for me if I don’t remember you.”

Elizabeth Keenan, Music Hum, regarding what kind of spring Stravinsky was composing about: ”A shitty one!”

Casey Blake, US Intellectual History since 1865: ”Kurt Vonnegut once said ‘I’ve worried some about why write books, why are we teaching people to write books when presidents and senators do not read them, and generals do not read them. And it’s been the university experience that taught me that there is a very good reason, that you catch people before they become generals and presidents and so forth and you poison their minds with humanity’ … I hope the TAs and I have succeeded in poisoning you.”

Evan Neely, CC: ”Don’t tell a classicist this, but if you read one book of Plato, you don’t really have to read any others.”

Red figures from Wikimedia

Here it is, the last day of classes of the semester. Fun, wasn’t it? We thought so too. As they are wont to do, your professors may end class with a delightful tale, some words of wisdom, or an awkward, abrupt silence. Or if you’re in SEAS, they’ll rush to finish that last example then tell you when the review session is.

Either way, we’d love to hear about some of the more memorable closing remarks. Send yours to tips@bwog.com or post them in the comments below!

For inspiration:

“The key to holding on to power is kissing the ass of the people one level below you, brutalizing the people three levels below, and hoping the people in the middle don’t notice. See modern America.”

—Nathan Pilkington, Lit Hum

Your professors are free of you, now.

Tuesday-Thursday classes for Fall 2011 are done forever. They are in the past. Depending on what you study/believe, the past, and those classes, might not strictly exist anymore.

Passing over that—and any of the impending existential crises that tend to come a’ knockin’ late Thursday night—you should tell us the notable things your professors said to tie off the course. Submit via electronic mail to tips@bwog.com.

A piece of inspiration:

“And they’re still alive, the New Left! Hopefully they’ll all be dead soon.”

—TA, History of the World Since 1500

The fulfilling part of their lives via Wikimedia

This weekend, we published a preliminary petition declaring the support of Columbia and Barnard faculty for the Occupy Wall Street movement. The petition has been officially released today on behalf of the Faculty Action Committee with 328 over 350 signatures (and no repetitions this time), by Professor Paige West. You can read the full press release that accompanies the petition, which includes a statement from former Provost Johnathon Cole, by following the link at the bottom of the post.

Many observers have expressed a desire to understand who these protesters are, rather than simply sympathizing with their frustration. Two recent Columbia grads, Victor Suarez, CC’11 and Laura LaPerche, CC’10 made a short documentary, ‘More Than One Demand’ to tackle just that question. It examines the multifaceted messages of the protesters, by asking individuals to explain the meaning of their signs. The doc even includes one of our own! From 2:06-2:41 Columbia Philosophy Professor John Collins describes the inclusiveness of the protests as “a stroke of genius.” The New Yorker recently published a list of some of the signs held up at a recent march, which simply presents the spectrum of opinion.

Read more…

a few more quotes from your witty and wry professors. Like, um… Pringles, the, uh, fun of professor remarks doesn’t stop after the first day. Feel free to send in any weird, kitschy, or cute thing your professor says as the year progresses. “>

Two diligent students hanging on to their professor's every opening remark. (Or responding to text messages from behind their computer screens.)

Here are a few more quotes from your witty and wry professors. Like, um… Pringles, the, uh, fun of professor remarks doesn’t stop after the first day. Feel free to send in any weird, kitschy, or cute thing your professor says as the year progresses.

Prof. Musatti

”Unfortunately, most societies still believe in…monogamy.”

John Magyar, Inorganic Chemistry

“For the first exam, you’ll need to memorize the periodic table. Otherwise, you won’t know the difference between Ruthenium and Rubidium or be able to understand how the valence electrons can make molecules like CH4 tetrahedral and BH3 trigonal pyramidal. Actually…(glances at periodic table) I guess there’s not a lone pair there so it’s actually trigonal planar.”

Erik Gray, Romantic Poetry

“So Romanticism is a reaction to the Enlightenment, but it’s not just the opposite. Thinking that would be the grandma-is-a-virgin fallacy.”

Emanuel Zur, Financial Accounting

“I know everything about you. I stalked you all on Facebook. Seriously, some of you should take down some of those photos. They’re pretty obscene.”

Peter Kelemen, Earth: Origin, Evolution, Processes, Future

“Until I was 18 I had to look at my hands and remember which thumb I sucked to in order to know which hand was my left and which one was my right.”

Sunil Gulati, Principles of Economics

“Jeff Sachs is the reason many of you wrote in your college essays that you wanted to come to Columbia. 11 of you did. I checked. I didn’t check, but I’m guessing.”

Stephen Edwards, Fundamentals of Computer Systems

”The number of t-shirts you can understand on thinkgeek.com is the best indication of your ability as an engineer.”

More Professor hilarity after the jump.

Professors say the darndest things. Sometimes it’s unintentional, and sometimes it’s a well planned line that they’ve used for years to break the ice. Either way, we find them funny, and Bwog collects the best quotes at the beginning and end of each semester. Here is a roundup of our favorites so far.

Prof. Lambert, Organic Chemistry

“Seriously, you just spend three years making piss?!”

Sam Moyn, Historical Origins of Human Rights

“Hi, I’m Sam, I work here.”

Evan Neely, CC

“I love reading my CULPA reviews…my favorite one, and I know who it is, we always know, goes, “I’m an athlete, so I don’t have time to do all the reading, and gets it.” No, I don’t get it! I just don’t care if you don’t talk.”

Christia Mercer, Philosophy and Feminism

“What if a penguin walked in the class smoking a cigar and told you to go fuck yourself? … I enjoy saying that too much.”

Gary Okihiro, Intro to Comparative Ethnic Studies

“…and to greet me they presented me with a pineapple, which was funny because I had just written a book about pineapples.”

Professor Simpson, Intro to Native American Studies, talking about one course book’s topic (land acquisition) versus a book involving a lot of ”sexy times”

”Getting killed for your land – SO not sexy”

Laura Kay, Life in the Universe

“We use big numbers in astronomy. You all should be getting used to billions and trillions from Congressional discussions anyway.”

“You guys pay like $5000 a class, so you might as well pay attention.”

Classes start today! And as you probably already know (unless you’re a wee freshperson), today is noteworthy for two reasons:

1. You will actually attend all of your classes.
2. Your lovely profs will say silly/funny/hilarious things to convince you to continue to come to class for the rest of the semester.

We at Bwog enjoy a good giggle every now and then, so send your most ridiculous professor quotes to tips@bwog.com. We’ll post them, your Bwog-reading professors will blush, and everyone will have a wonderful time. Cheers!

Dapper didact via Wikimedia Commons

Farewell!

Congratulations, you made it through a whole semester’s worth of classes! Now all that stands between you and summer vacation is…finals. Procrastinate by checking out all of the ridiculous things professors said before ending class. If you forgot to send one in, or we just foolishly overlooked it, feel free to share it in the comments. And when you’re done seeing how funny your professors can be, don’t forget to review them on CULPA!

Judith Russell, Intro to American Politics: “The West Wing is like porn for Democrats.”

Joseph Traub, Scientific Computation: ”I appreciate you all being here on such a gorgeous day. If I didn’t have to be here, I wouldn’t.”

Marcellus Blount, African American Literature II: “We’re not going outside today. It’s too distracting. People aren’t wearing a lot of clothes…I didn’t say that.”

Bernard Tamas, Intro to Comparative Politics: “There’s nothing I can teach you about being mad. You sort of just pick that up.”

In Interpretation of Culture:

“You can’t choose your family. You were born this way.”
Class laughs.
“What? Is there something funny about identity politics?”
Class explains that it’s a song.
“There’s a song called Identity Politics?!”

Pascale Crépon, Elementary French II: “It’s amazing how depressing it is on Fridays in this room. I need a mojito afterwards, but I have another class…”

Chris Durning, Transport Phenomena II: “If you go to France and don’t speak French, you’re going to have a hard time finding the toilet.”

Michael Como, Buddhism: East Asian: ”Speaking of compassion and karma, your course evaluations…”

Read on to see closing remarks from Core professors and others!

A nifty tool for capturing closing remarks.

It’s the last day of Tuesday/Thursday classes. Before you abandon them forever, let your professors’ wisdom/ejaculations come in through one ear (see right) and onto Bwog. Send your sendoffs to tips@bwog.com, or leave them in the comments. It’s a tradition!

P.S. Don’t forget to include the name of the professor and their course.

Aural organ via Wikimedia

That's all folks

“How much of what I’ve told you about myself over the course of this semester do you think is true or valid? Absolutely none of it…”*

It’s that time of the year again, when your professors make sardonic, life-changing comments because they are glad to be rid of you and your smartphone and your youthful idealism. Listen out for these pearls of wisdom throughout the week, and send your favorite closing remarks (don’t forget the names of your professor and course, you know, for posterity) to tips@bwog.com or post them in the comments!

Tearful departure via Wikimedia

We’ve all been trying to keep tabs on the current situation in Japan. Bwog wants to help you make sense of the headlines, and who better to ask than our own faculty? We have one of the oldest and most renowned East Asian studies departments in the country, and a slew of scientists cited across the national media, all with interesting insight into what’s happening across the Pacific. The threat of radiation has been by far the most discussed topic, followed by the science behind earthquakes and cultural observations.

Health Risks and Disaster Preparedness

David Brenner, Director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University

• “Chernobyl was the equivalent of 1 million Three Mile Islands. [Japan] certainly looks much more like a Three Mile Island. There are a lot of similarities between this and Three Mile Island. In both cases they were able to shut the reactor down almost immediately.” (The Daily Beast)
• At Three Mile, “There is no evidence that anybody at all got sick, even decades later. The medical consequences depend entirely on how much radioactive material is released. The sorts of numbers I’m seeing are not the sort that could be linked with radiological symptoms.” (NYT)
• Any risk to the US is “extremely unlikely. … The distance is simply so large the cloud will be so dispersed by the time it reaches the U.S.” (CBS) Plus, You don’t ingest radioactive material by inhaling it. “The way to prevent it is just to stop people from drinking the milk [and] I wouldn’t be eating an apple from a tree close to the plant.” (NYT)
• On the nuclear workers still at the plant: ”Their situation is not great. It’s pretty clear that they will be getting very high doses of radiation. There’s certainly the potential for lethal doses of radiation. They know it, and I think you have to call these people heroes.” (CNN)

Irwin Redlener, Director for the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health

• Americans are “extraordinarily underprepared for disasters,” and have proven we have no idea how to handle a similar situation. “Motivating citizen efforts to prepare for any kind of disaster, from earthquakes and hurricanes to pandemics and terrorism, has been essentially unsuccessful over the past decade.” (The Daily Beast)
• We can, and should learn a lot from careful observation: “Japan’s economy and level of development are in many respects very similar to that of the U.S. So we need to pay careful attention to what went wrong – and what’s gone right – before, during and after this complex disaster.” (CNN)

Seismology

James Gaherty, associate researcher professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

• The earthquakes are fairly difficult to contextualize: “These kinds of events are very well-understood in Japan. The fact that they have large events on the order of magnitude 8 is something they’ve had many times over their history. This one is a little bit unusual in that we’re not necessarily expecting something quite as large as this. These mega-quakes, more like a magnitude 9, are very rare, even over geologic history looking back. We have a hard time finding evidence of them. We’ve observed now three, really, in the last six years, since Sumatra. So we seem to be in a period of very active occurrence of these. But how the really big quakes develop is something that we’re really trying to understand.” (CBS)

Read more…

We thought you might appreciate this auto-correction, Professor Kahn. Photo credit: Matt Hayto

Dear Professors,

We hear you. Sometimes we under-hear you (read: 9 a.m. class), but when we’re very lucky, we overhear you! And not just while you’re weighing in on important international issues; we also hear those cavalier comments you improvise in lecture. And since we like what we’ve heard lately so much, we thought we’d share:

• Shamus Khan, while talking about how sports and games allow for the expression of rivalries in society without violence and fighting: “You’re not about to go do a physical, hostile takeover of Harvard. Although if you do, I will lead you.”
• Alan Brinkley, in response to question about the interstate highway act: “Destroying communities is something I know a lot about, being Provost for seven years.”
• Ruben Gonzalez, giving a metaphor for chemical equilibrium: “Has anybody been to that new Joe Coffee shop? It’s sort of like an equilibrium situation—there’re always 100 people in line, but it is a dynamic, changing 100 people.”
• Lucius Riccio, prefacing an Operations Research lecture: “Today we are going to talk about forecasting. It is the fine use of divination, like Professor Trelawney’s class, in order to predict the future.”
• John Collins, in a metaphysics class: “In classical epistemology, it is assumed that every actor has unlimited access to his own internal thoughts, but in Jewish epistemology, your mother has access to your own internal thoughts.”