A gem in the rough: One senior's search for the perfect class

Since freshman year, and especially since becoming a history major, I have tried to prove the merits of classroom education to my father. A radiologist and French major, he bemoans the rushed reading of Western canons he suffered through as a Columbia undergrad and claims to have learned all he knows about the Western World from reading books and watching documentaries on the History Channel.

He also brags about Princeton to everyone he meets and marks alumni/parents day on his calendar three months in advance — but he still prods me to prove that he's getting his money's worth for my education.

Every person at Princeton has his own opinion on what makes that hundred-dollar-per-lecture education worthwhile. And of course there's that dictum all underclassmen academic advisers seem to live by — that one should always give a class a chance, because what might be one person's worst experience, might be another person's best.

But as a senior — and yes, I'm granting myself a certain authority because I've been here for three and a half years — I've learned that there are, in fact, certain components that create the perfect class. There is a certain formula Princeton's best classes follow that transcends subject matter and includes much more than assigning Pulitzer Prizewinning biographies, or screenings of filmed battle reenactments narrated by renowned historical experts.

I would grant that if the material of a class inspires someone, he will undoubtedly learn. But Princeton has gained the reputation as having the best undergraduate program not because some of the world's most erudite professors pass through the gothic arches and microphones send their lessons resounding throughout McCosh's cavernous lecture halls. It is because those professors pair a mastery of material with a masterful ability to teach. Or at least the best do.

Flashback to freshman year to the natural science class where the professor would put up notes on a slide projector to supplement his too-quick-to understand speech, and then switch the slide before we even had time to copy down what we hadn't heard him say. Or that 200-level history class where the majority of our reading came from a dense textbook bursting with dry stories, and every paper assignment came down to deciding who held power at the end of a certain age.

And then there was the American history course I signed up for when I realized I should have some background on black history before plunging into my thesis on Princeton's African-American community. About halfway through the semester, I realized I was taking the "perfect class."

The material itself was fascinating, but made more so because of the way the professor taught it. She made it come alive, not only through her animated lectures, but through the way she lifted the words of our essays off the page, teaching us how to craft a better argument during office hours held not only during the week, but also on Saturday mornings.

But the best part was the way she evaluated our knowledge without ever giving us a concrete test. She tested us with our one-minute rounds at the beginning of each precept, when we commented on some aspect of the reading. And she tested us through papers that compelled us to set our own close reading of primary documents in the context of what we had learned from the readings and lectures.

I try to take away something from every course. In my freshman science class I read a fascinating book by Thomas Kuhn, and in that first Princeton history class I learned how to better study for a final exam. But those two are the exceptions to my Princeton experience. Not every class has been "perfect" but the proof of the Princeton class pudding — I would tell my dad — lies in that exchange between professor and student, that invisible source material in the form of lectures and discussions about papers that may incorporate books and movies, but only use them as a starting point. And I know my dad would be happy I have proved his theories wrong.