My Favorite Professors

Good evening, everyone! The end of the semester rapidly approaches—only a few days of class remain!—and all of us on campus are starting to feel the final push. But I know that all of you are facing a similar feeling as the end of this month approaches, so here is a post to help with your decision making process:

Awesome Professors.

This list will by no means be inclusive—I haven’t been here for so long after all—but I would like to share two of my favorite professors I've had since joining the Barnard/Columbia community. I have yet to have a single professor who would not meet with me in office hours. So take heart: amazing teachers and mentors await on both sides of Broadway!

Professor Casey Blake, Professor of History and American Studies

Blake is the bomb. I took US Intellectual History with him last semester, and I can say in all seriousness that it was life-changing. And I know at least a dozen people who agree with me. 

A quote from CULPA (Columbia Underground Listing of Professor Ability) reads, “It took a little while to get used to Blake's lecturing style, since he talks a bit like Woody Allen and sort of stares at a point on the back of the room about 10 feet over all our heads. That being said, he's brilliant.” I could not agree more: he is definitely a genuine academic, and he teaches that way. He stands at the front of the room and lectures for the full hour and fifteen minutes; there are no flashy gimmicks, no cheesiness, and no dumbing-down of the material. But he is incredibly passionate and wonderfully well spoken (I frequently frantically copied down whole sentences, with the hope that I could learn to speak like him…though that has yet to happen). 

During the first few weeks of school, I gathered all my courage, marched myself into his office, and introduced myself, just because I was so enjoying his class. He invited me in, and we ended up spending half an hour discussing my classes and interest in history. Not every professor would take that amount of time to chat with a student who came in for no real reason, but Blake is not just any professor.

This semester I’m in a seminar with him, and he manages it brilliantly. Many profs have a hard time passing the discussion on to the students, rather than monopolizing it themselves, but not him. What a guy!

Antonio Carmena, Lecturer of Dance (Read: Ballet Teacher)

Antonio is…also the bomb? I thought I’d use a new word, but nothing else quite captures how great he is. Even if you are a less hardcore dancer (like me), Antonio squarely fits the great-professor requisites of being a) inspiring, b) helpful, and c) caring. Also he’s really, really funny.

Antonio is a soloist with New York City Ballet, which is a pretty big deal, and it is really cool to have a teacher who comes up to Barnard for an 8:40 class, and then goes downtown to rehearse and perform. 

I admit that I was rather nervous about taking his class: Am I really at the ballet five level? Am I really cut out to take class with a dancer of his caliber? Technically, the answer to both of those questions may be “no.” But it doesn’t matter, because Antonio somehow manages to be completely welcoming and relaxed, even as he urges us to work as hard as we can. Also, he recognizes that we are not 12-year-olds at a conservatory, and he treats us accordingly: he repeatedly tells us that we are adults, capable of making our own artistic decisions, and pushes us to move away from strictly academic interpretations. And though he doesn’t seems entirely clear on exactly how we spend the rest of our days, he does understand the stress we’re under and is very sweet and funny about it. A quality Antonio quote: “And then it’s spring break, and after that all your…middle-terms and things will be over!”

Ok, folks, that’s all for now. I highly recommend both of these teachers, and if you would like more recommendations, or if you have any other history or dance, professor or class questions or comments, leave me a comment! They make my days spent reading and translating much more exciting :)

Have a good one,

Chloe