Dear Answer Person,
Some of my classes at Duke were bad, and some were good. Some were good, but I wasn’t in any condition to appreciate them or learn from them. I assume that many people could say this about their college experience.
My question is: why does it seem now like a few key things I’ve read since then would have been a perfect foundation to have to be more equipped to deal with those good classes I wasn’t ready for?
Good question. I too remember not being ready for a lot of things I read as an undergraduate (Robbe-Grillet, Calvino, Garcia Marquez), and only really “getting it” after more experience (both in life and in the classroom). I’m going to guess that the answer has something to do with faculty forgetting where they were – intellectually and emotionally – at that age to construct an appropriate syllabus.