Philosophy
| History
| Syllabi & Course Sites
Course Proposals
| Teaching Evaluations |
For Students
Sitting in a Starbucks one freezing afternoon, I made a breakthrough. I had
been ill for a week, and had missed every one of my classes. I had fallen
so far behind that panic was the only emotion I could express. As I looked
across the table at Terri, nervously shaking my leg and eating my pen, my
mind was blank. In the course of the next few weeks, I would have to write
two papers, yet I knew I was utterly unprepared.
For my other classes and my other professors, my anxiety would stem from the
fact that I was going to write a bad paper, and I was going to get a bad grade.
This wasn’t the case with Terri. What horrified me most was the thought
that I would turn in a paper that would let her down and cause her to lose
her faith in me as a student and as a writer. This is when I realized that
she had undoubtedly stepped beyond the line of just a teacher for whom I droned
out pages and pages of work, and had become someone whom I respected a great
deal.
Crossing that line is almost impossible to do successfully, but Terri has
done so with such finesse that I cannot remember when exactly she did it.
As a junior at NYU, I have had my fair share of professors, and before her,
have only held one in such high esteem. Not only is she one of the most intelligent
individuals I have met, but she is dedicated to her students. Because she
loves what she does, we love to be taught by her.
Acting, Reality, and Technology is a class that discusses the world and the
arts in a way that I have never considered possible. As we tackle dense readings
(Aristotle, Boal, de Bord) and look at films and television, and how they
are constructed, we are learning not only about these outside institutions,
but about how they impact our very lives as we know them. In relating “world”
issues to the lives of college students, Terri gives us a fresh and interesting
way to learn, something that few teachers have done for me at NYU.
As she talked me down from my hysteria, granting me an extension for my papers,
and telling me that everything would be okay, I understood that her support
was something that I truly needed. In Terri Senft, students not only find
someone with a vast amount of knowledge, but someone who cares about her students,
what they learn, and more importantly how they learn. Having her as a professor
has not only given me the chance to learn, but to have more faith in myself
as a student, because of her unending support. I feel that not only has my
academic life been enriched by her, but my personal life as well, as I believe
that even after I have finished college, Terri is the kind of professor with
whom I will have continued contact and someone who I will continue to respect
and admire.