(no subject)
Just a little addenedum on Weitz, the professor I want to do an independant study for and ask to write a recommendation letter for me, only because I think it's important to say WHY I want to be like him so bad.
This guy has this teaching style that used to mystify me, but now i recognize as PURE GENIUS. He's a really big physiology dork, so what he studies has everything to do with highly complicated genes and morphology relationships, and so can appear initially to be the most boring shit ever, because under any other circumstances, it IS. So he always starts out the semester with three weeks of some INTENSE technical talk, stuff that no one is talking about in intro-or early-semester intermediate-level classes, but he jumps right the fuck in. And these are anthropology classes, so almost no one is used to doing any hardcore science research, much less listening to these very complicated lectures. So everyone is always like, "What the FUCK is with this class? Why have we been talking about HIF-1 for two weeks? This is "Environmental Physiology", I thought we'd be talking about homo erectus hunting and stuff!" and I'm always like, "Just wait for it." Mid-semester, Weitz will do a 180 after one quiz, and throw everyone off by jumping into some strictly theory shit. No one's ready for it, everyone has been memorizing the different forms of hypogonodotropin hypogonadism, or whatever, and is like, WHHAAAAA? Following another quiz, Weitz does ANOTHER 180, and galavants BACK into the hardcore physiology stuff, tying it all together, and, for the students that just stuck with it and read all the boring articles he assigned, BLOWS THEIR MINDS.
MORE on Weitz:
-He rides a bike to school everyday wearing a helmet and black spandex bodysuit
-He has been to Mount Everest, and has hung out for months at the base-camp doing research
-He has seen a Sherpa eat GLASS - and lots of it
-He does marathons
-He has a moustache
-He's seen dead bodies on Everest
-He made his own documentary about the people of high-altitude Nepal, where he worked in a laboratory that was heated by mule dung
All this and he's pure geek. I love it.
Don't YOU want to be like Weitz?
This guy has this teaching style that used to mystify me, but now i recognize as PURE GENIUS. He's a really big physiology dork, so what he studies has everything to do with highly complicated genes and morphology relationships, and so can appear initially to be the most boring shit ever, because under any other circumstances, it IS. So he always starts out the semester with three weeks of some INTENSE technical talk, stuff that no one is talking about in intro-or early-semester intermediate-level classes, but he jumps right the fuck in. And these are anthropology classes, so almost no one is used to doing any hardcore science research, much less listening to these very complicated lectures. So everyone is always like, "What the FUCK is with this class? Why have we been talking about HIF-1 for two weeks? This is "Environmental Physiology", I thought we'd be talking about homo erectus hunting and stuff!" and I'm always like, "Just wait for it." Mid-semester, Weitz will do a 180 after one quiz, and throw everyone off by jumping into some strictly theory shit. No one's ready for it, everyone has been memorizing the different forms of hypogonodotropin hypogonadism, or whatever, and is like, WHHAAAAA? Following another quiz, Weitz does ANOTHER 180, and galavants BACK into the hardcore physiology stuff, tying it all together, and, for the students that just stuck with it and read all the boring articles he assigned, BLOWS THEIR MINDS.
MORE on Weitz:
-He rides a bike to school everyday wearing a helmet and black spandex bodysuit
-He has been to Mount Everest, and has hung out for months at the base-camp doing research
-He has seen a Sherpa eat GLASS - and lots of it
-He does marathons
-He has a moustache
-He's seen dead bodies on Everest
-He made his own documentary about the people of high-altitude Nepal, where he worked in a laboratory that was heated by mule dung
All this and he's pure geek. I love it.
Don't YOU want to be like Weitz?