Many of my clients and their parents ask me for advice about the all-important college course selections that are made in the freshman year of college. Those pesky General Education classes, that most schools require for a degree can leave you with a “so what” feeling or provide you with an opportunity of a lifetime to learn from some of the most esteemed educators on the planet.
I can speak to such an experience. As a freshman at the University of California-Berkeley I was required to take a science class and found that a physics course designated for non-majors fit the bill. I asked the smartest student I knew which of my class options was best. He said, without hesitation, “Take visiting professor Richard Feynman’s class that uses his textbook ‘Lectures on Physics.’ ” Feynman was from Caltech, a Berkeley rival, and he was considered to be the best physics educator in the country. I have never been happier with my decision to take his class.
Feynman’s textbook was based on his freshman lecture series at Caltech. The class was a huge eye-opener, and I learned a great deal more about physics than I could have ever imagined. I found that I could identify with the Nobel Prize winner. He appeared to struggle with problems the same way I did.
He said his IQ was only 125, but he always tried to be creative when solving problems, often playing bongo drums at parties to help himself relax, and even sketching out theoretical problems at a strip club near the Caltech campus. He said the latter experience helped him discover his famous “Feynman Curves” that won him the Nobel Prize.
Perhaps it was his love of learning that helped me identify with him. He hardly ever attended world conferences on physics or hobnobbed with the world-famous scientific establishment. Feynman would rather spend his time working with local high-school science classes in Pasadena and Los Angles. He was always interested in the most fundamental of questions — not what we learn, but how we learn. He made the subject of learning seem important. He made you feel important. His lecture series gave me an appreciation for science that I have kept all my life.
Years later, I ran across him again. This time, he was on the Rogers Commission investigating the cause of the Challenger Space Shuttle crash. He made everyone look like a fool as debates raged among members of the blue-ribbon panel. Was it mechanical failure or human error? Feynman said it was human error. He said the shuttle should not have been launched that day because the sub-zero temperatures at the launch pad made the rubber O-ring gaskets on the engines too brittle to seal properly. He explained the brittleness of the seal allowed hot gases to spew out between the two sections of the engine and pierce the shuttle’s external fuel tank. The charts and graphs provided by NASA officials on the blue ribbon investigative panel proved inconclusive on this point.
Finally, in exasperation, Feynman decided to do an experiment to prove his point. He dunked a strip of rubber O-ring material into a champagne bucket filled with ice water. He pulled it out and twisted it into various shapes. It never sprung back to its original profile. This simple demonstration proved his point. Many in the audience gasped at the truth of its simplicity. It was pure Feynman as I remembered him — always down to earth.
I can honestly say that my college career and yes, my life, was shaped by his intellect.
My advice to college freshmen is that it is important to take every opportunity to expand your horizons as a college student. You never know when you will encounter a course or professor who will make a profound difference in your life.
NOTE: For those interested in Feynman’s place in the history of science, a collection of Feynman’s letters, “Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard Feynman,” was published in 2005.
Gerald Bradshaw is an international college admission consultant with Bradshaw College Consulting in Crown Point.
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