favorite professor quotes

[imported_Imp]

Wasn't said out loud, but got this in an email recently from a professor. Dude is an ass, but funny as hell, weird-ish and pretty good at teaching.


"Recent graduates - I warned you that, like Hotel California, you can check
out any time you like but you can never leave!)"


Didn't know what the song was about, but the reference is hilarious.

 

[oiprocs]

Originally posted by: Unmoosical
Reply to a student asking what ID numbers we needed to put on our first exam.

"You don't need to put your PID down, all I need is your bank account number."

Hmm, my school refers to the ID number as a PID as well. UCSD?

 

[IronWing]

"Ignorance is your constant companion."

"How can you be so damn stupid."

"I hate going in the field, lots of great theories get shot to hell out there."

"If you're going to steal software, this is the one to steal."

"That's just a form of mathematical masturbation." In reference to a numerical analysis technique developed by another professor in his department.

"I don't like taking on female grad students, they cry too much."

 

[magreen]

Physics professor in my Quantum Physics 3 class at MIT (he's a famous theoretical physicist) after doing a derivation on the board for 15 minutes, turning around, and realizing he'd lost the _entire_ class about 5 minutes before:

"Come on guys, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to do this!"

(No, just a theoretical physicist!)

 

[theprodigalrebel]

This one time (DSP), I was in the first row and fell asleep with my eyes open, staring straight at the board but completely zoned out. The Professor had just finished explaining something and he asked the class, "Did you all get it?" He looked straight at me and asked me a bunch of times, "Did you get it? Hello? Are you here?" and realized I was asleep with my eyes open.

Finally, he wrote 'We will resume the class when Khan wakes up' on the board and sat down on his desk. A minute later, the guy next to me nudged me and woke me up. Hilarity ensued. :laugh:

 

[wiredspider]

Hehe one my math professors who is Italian liked to say

"time to make the donuts"

He kinda looked a little bit like the donut guy too I think

 

[poopaskoopa]

"Money doesn't make you happy. It buys the things that make you happy."
"Working for SAS, I've been told, is the most fun you can have with your clothes on."

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Quote from a business professor at UNM: "Some people have complaints about my teaching methods. Well, let me tell you, I taught for 15 years at Penn State. If it was good enough for them, it's good enough for you."

Say what?

 

[flunky nassau]

"Let's start off virginally." (while erasing a chalkboard filled with writing)

"When there's a change, things aren't going to be the same anymore." (economic prof.)

 

[Fenixgoon]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: Goosemaster
my old physics prof, Dr. Venkat (venkateraman...)



<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Venkat: Look at the doughnut; do not look through the hole. If you look through the hole, you will not see the doughnut. Look at the doughnut.</end quote></div>


<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Venkat: Do not combine x and y, because if you do you are in deep...

Class: Sh!t.</end quote></div></end quote></div>

did you go to drexel, goose? i *swear* that's what a professor there (also named venkat, but i didn't have him) said (quote 1)


my favorite quote

girl in class: A lot of people dropped the class

prof: a lot of people *should*!

 

[Bibble]

From my intro to engineering class 3.5 years ago, I have no idea what he was talking about. Everything is said in a thick Chinese accent.

"Okay, so you want to put shaft in hole. But, diameter of hole might not be bigger than diameter of shaft, so what do you do? Well, you have two option. You can heat up hole, which expands, then put shaft in. Or, apply extra force to shaft to force it in hole."

 

[miniMUNCH]

Various quotes from different prof's:

"All right folks... so I the midterm here to hand back to you... all I can say is, 'damn'. I started grading these yesterday and I wished I hadn't. These suckers were, bye and large, so bad I went through a fifth of scotch last night. You guys keep this up and you are going to turn me into an alcoholic."

"You know... I heard Hendrix play off the back of a pick-up truck in Golden Gate park. That was pretty awesome. My life has been downhill ever since... fvck, I hate Mondays."

"Some of you did really well on the midterm and some of you didn't do very well at all... yeah, Scott and Karen, you need to see me after class." Oh Snap!!

"I am moving to France so I can have consensual sex with several teenage girls at the same time... Oh, yeah... they are nasty like that over there." The collective inrush of breath in the room was audible.

 

[moshquerade]

My Sociology Prof: "Everything relates back to sex, Everything. Every commercial that has ever been made has sexual references and undertones."

This guy made me feel more uncomfortable with every class, because HE related EVERYTHING to sex.

 

[madogvt]

Marketing Prof said this regarding long lectures:

"A mind will only absorb what the posterior can endure"

 

[eleison]

me: "I'm so tired.. thanks for holding these office hrs..."
physics prof: "no problem.. glad to help students.."
me: "yea, its hard to pay attention to the lectures in the morning, I've been only getting 3hrs of sleep for the past few days.."
prof: "thats not a lot of sleep.."
me: "yea, out of curiosity, being a professor, how much sleep do professors get?"
prof: "I'm not quite sure. I haven't slept since I was 15."

Found out later that he had some kind of disorder... but he was very intelligent... strange; this was at UIUC @champaign/urbana..

 

[esun]

There's a Facebook group for one of my professors from a year ago called "Papaisms" (his name is Christos Papadimitriou). There's a good selection of quotes there.

I also had this physics professor who said the most hilarious stuff ever. It was hilarious in a super-nerdy way, though. For example, he would often say "Click!" and make a hand motion as if taking a picture with a camera to indicate we were analyzing at a single moment in time. When we covered EM waves, he would wiggle his two index fingers in a cross and pass them across his body and say "Zoom!" He also described the Hilbert space (an infinite dimensional complex vector space) as an "infinite dimensional porcupine" (and he proceeded to mimic spikes growing out of a porcupine with his hands).

Oh, and my favorite. He asked the class what you call the energy required to remove an electron from a piece of metal. He said something like "Imagine I have a spoon. What do you call the energy to remove an electron from it?" One student said "ionization energy", and he said, "Yeah, when we're talking about atoms. But I have a SPOON!" and he yelled spoon. Finally someone said work function. It was absolutely hilarious. One of those "you had to be there" things, though.

 

[Unmoosical]

Originally posted by: shaytahn
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: Unmoosical
Reply to a student asking what ID numbers we needed to put on our first exam.

"You don't need to put your PID down, all I need is your bank account number."</end quote></div>

Hmm, my school refers to the ID number as a PID as well. UCSD?

UCF

 

[SoundTheSurrender]

If you're not first, you're last.

 

[vi edit]

I needed to fluff my schedule for a semester and picked up a 2 credit class called "Wellness Lifestyles". It was essentially a "health" class going over basic body systems and current trends in personal health habits. The professor was a 50 year old cougar. She was a nurse and seemed horny as hell. We think she had something for a buddy of mine (he's a 6'2 beast of a man).

Anywhoo...we were in a discussion about genitalia and she starts talking about the statistics of the average male erection and looks straight at my buddy and says "They get up to 6, 8, 10 inches or whatever else they may be packing". Another friend and I were on either side of my man child sized pal and we just busted up laughing.

Almost 10 years later we still give him crap about the "6, 8, or 10 inches" comment.

 

[DaWhim]

From my macroecnomics prof, he is very interesting:

"Diamond lasts forever, love doesn't"

"Whatever don't kill you make you are more interesting person" (I bet he derived this after all the crazy stuffs he did, like shutting off the car engine when going downhill to save gas.)

"You dress up better when you have less confidence."

 

[moonbit]

My research methods prof: "Go home tonight and say goodbye to your loved ones. You won't be seeing them for 14 weeks." (I hate the quarter system.)

"You should know, I grade papers while sitting on the toilet. I'm serious."

My Ethics in Marriage & Family Therapy prof: "And if you do that [something illegal or unethical], you're, what's the word I'm looking for?" Pause for responses. "That's right, you're screwed."

"There are some therapists who don't like to use the DSM [diagnostic book for mental disorders], they say it labels the clients and you harm them that way. You usually seem them wandering around the conventions, wearing Birkenstocks. You don't have to use the DSM if you don't want, but if you do, you'll be, what's the word I'm looking for?" Pause for responses, a few of which are "screwed." "That's right, you'll be poor."

 

[invidia]

History Professor: "Look to your left, then to your right, and now in 9 other directions. Only 1 out of 12 of you will pass this course."

 

[axelfox]

"Silicone Valley"

 

[Xyclone]

"Stop whining like a babies."

 

[sobriquet]

From my advisor, directed at students in one of her undergrad classes:
"What are you thinking?"
"Were you drunk when you wrote this?"
"That's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard."

And spoken to me, only weeks before I finished my thesis and referring to my decision to stay on for the PhD program (and eventually hope to become a professor):
"Why are you doing this? Unless you have one thing, one incredibly important thing that you absolutely need to share with the world, don't get yourself into this. It's not worth it."
It was one of those moments where you know that it's 50% a test of your resolve and 50% a genuine warning. It made me so anxious I probably lost out on a good 5 or 6 days of work.