The class was abominable. The lectures were dry and empty of spirit, and the professor uninterested in the students or, it seemed, in the material. If I had to use that class as my basis for learning about the field, I would have walked away and not thought twice. Yet this is a field that I have had a serious interest in since early high school. Another class I took, which sharply contrasts to the previous example, was a computer theory class during my first year at UPenn in the Ph.D. program.
Computer theory is a notoriously difficult and often unpopular field of computer science.
I had taken two computer theory classes in my undergraduate curriculum, and disliked both. I enjoyed the class so much, in fact, that I took an advanced theory class with that professor the next semester. One exercising such power. An effect or change produced by such power. I could write pages on the positive influences that a few select professors have had on my computer science career and, indeed, on my whole life.