The outgoing and the incoming: my new professors

I left the house at 6:45 and arrived on campus just after seven this morning. With nowhere to go and nothing to do, I went to my accounting classroom and waited for others to arrive. A few minutes later people trickled in, and then Jack Peterson, our professor, joined us.

Remember, it’s about 7:25 am now and there are a bunch of sleepy college students waiting for summer school to start. The next thing I remember is Jack saying, “Anybody like P!nk?” and blasting “Get The Party Started” throughout the classroom. “This is one of my favorite songs,” he said.

Jack wears a suit and tie and is probably in his late 50s/early 60s. He’s taking early retirement at the end of this semester, which makes us the last ACCT 2010 class he will ever teach. Up until about six years ago he owned his own CPA firm, meaning his experience in teaching is likely only surpassed by his experience in real world accounting practices, making him the perfect instructor.

He spent the first hour just getting to know us. “I want to know how many accounting majors we have in here.” He looked around at the raised hands. “Yep, there’s usually about five or six in this class. Well now I want to know what everyone else is studying.”

A few of us raised our hands. I was probably the third person he called on. “Math-Actuary,” I said when he picked me. “Really?” he said with surprise. “Math-Actuary....I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone do that major.” He began pacing. “So you want to be an actuarialist. Why don’t you tell everyone here what an actuary is.”

I gave my two-sentence example of risk management in an insurance company and the use of probability and statistics. When I finished he walked over to me, pointed at me, and said, “This guy is going to make a LOT of money.” He then took a few minutes to explain the fact that actuaries make a TON of money and then turned to me and said, “Will—do me a favor, will you? When you’re making all that money, will you remember your humble accounting teacher?” I quickly replied, “If you prove to be humble, yes.” Immediately I realized that probably wasn’t the best thing to say, but there I went.

Several hours later, in the afternoon, I arrived at my business law class. The instructor was sitting at the front of the class when I walked in and took my seat. He looked young and made small talk with one of the only other people already in attendance. When I had a moment I said, “So how long have you been teaching?” He thought for a second and said, “Well, in about two minutes I will have just started.”

In contrast to my accounting professor, Jake Olson is just beginning his life as a college instructor. He actually works out of California (not sure how that works) for a law firm of some kind. And I gotta say, he’s a really neat individual. Great class discussion, very interested in what we have to say, very flexible with the course schedule.

During the break, I asked him for his age, and he told me his is 35 years old. He could tell I am interested in the subject matter and that I want to be involved in the discussion, so he spent much of his time looking at me while he was teaching. (Sound familiar?) Later, he sent me an email thanking me for a comment I made because it was something he hadn’t before considered.

Also, he asked for a show of hands of non-business majors and happened to ask me about mine. I went through the actuary thing all over again. A little less than half the people in my business law class are also in my accounting class, so it was kind of redundant and they helped answer questions. It was kind of funny.

I think this will be a rewarding and interesting four week term.