the importance of (good) teachers

After falling down the youtube rabbit hole at midnight (per usual),
I found the old, unlisted lectures my Discrete Math professor created
and instantly, everything came rushing back.

discrete math is supposed to be exactly that. math.
truth tables. graph theory. the dry stuff that usually filters out freshmen.
but he didn’t really care about sticking strictly to the syllabus.

he looked at a room full of kids who wanted to build software,
but who had absolutely zero clue how the actual industry operated.
so he just... showed us.

suddenly we weren't just proving induction.
we were learning how to set up ssh keys.
how to actually use github instead of just zipping files.
why your git commit messages shouldn't just be "fixed stuff pls work".

he didn't have to do any of that.
he definitely wasn't getting paid extra to teach version control.

and it didn't stop in the classroom.
he runs these extra info-lectures at the university just because.
he has entire lecture series sitting on youtube.
just hours of free, high-density knowledge for anyone who actually wants to listen.

it really makes you think about the butterfly effect of a good teacher.
one guy deciding to go slightly off-script,
and suddenly an entire cohort of students doesn't completely embarrass themselves
at their first internship.

so yeah. if you have a professor who actually gives a damn,
who teaches you the stuff that isn't on the final exam just because you need to know it...
thank them.