Mudd Stories (Part 1: The Intimidator)

In honor of Harvey Mudd College's 60th anniversary, I decided to write up some of my favorite professor stories from Mudd.

Today, we have The Intimdator.

Going into Mudd, I knew I wanted to be a physics major. But I didn't quite place well enough to take a slightly accelerated version of freshman physics. Consequently, I took "basic" physics (Physics 23), consisting of calculus-based mechanics. (Unlike the wunderkind of my year, I definitely didn't take calculus-based E&M first semester.) That was a bit of an ego hit, but it was okay. As I rapidly found out, I was surrounded by people far brighter and better prepared than I was. Fortunately, I was not quite sharp enough to figure out how truly far behind I was, and so I did my best to work twice as hard to catch up. It worked reasonably well first semester.

Second semester consisted of Physics 24. It was a slightly unusual class -- a large chunk of it focused on Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, and was taught by our resident Obi Won Kenobi figure. The rest of the class concerned rotational mechanics and oscillations. Because of it's unusual nature, those who placed out of Physics 23 typically were required to take Physics 24. As a result, Physics 24 was packed with my entire graduating class.

One day, we were covering rolling friction. I was doing fairly well in the class -- on track to get nearly straight-As for the semester. I raised my hand in lecture and asked a question regarding why it was static friction instead of kinetic (or something to that effect). I thought it was a good question.

The professor said, "Oh! I guess someone didn't read the book!"

Audible "Ooohs" echoed through the hall as I shrank to a third my size in my seat.

In that moment, I knew I needed to pick The Intimidator as my academic advisor.

In retrospect, it was an unusual choice. The Intimidator wasn't an astrophysicist. And The Intimidator was scary. The Intimidator was famous for saying things like "You're wasting your parents' money!" whenever students did badly. The Intimidator would also say "I expect most of you [in my section] to do better than average."

According to legend, The Intimidator once told a student, "You're Asian, and your parents are rich. I expect more from you."

So I hesitated, like Fanny Price, before that door, before I asked The Intimidator to be my academic advisor. But unlike Fanny, I walked in.

Where did this bluntness come from?

I never knew for sure. But I heard a story that The Intimidator had majored in physics in China. As a result of the Cultural Revolution, The Intimidator had to work on a farm for ten years. After the end of that dark period of self-cannibalistic madness, Chinese policy permitted the Intimidator to study abroad. The Intimidator earned a PhD in physics from MIT. I can only imagine the tenacity that it took, given those circumstances, to relearn (or maintain) that knowledge and focus.

That was why The Intimidator was at least ten years older than other associate professors.

But I never knew if that story was true. I never asked -- it seemed inappropriate and invasive to ask about that period of life. What I did know is that The Intimidator became The Encourager, The Facilitator.

A few weeks before finals, I got struck by acute appendicitis. Thanks to some less-than-stellar diagnosis from the campus medical center, I tried to tough through it for a couple sleepless days. My mom ended up showing up to campus and taking me to the ER (but not before I fired off the physics lab data to my lab partner), where after hours of waiting, I got it out. It had been leaking, and so I had to spend an extra week in the hospital.

When I got out, I went to the department and was studying for finals. The Intimidator came up, looked at me, and said, "You don't look so great. Maybe you should take the day off."

Given The Intimidator's reputation (and alleged incredible personal history), I must've looked like I was on death's door.

Or, more probably, The Intimidator wasn't in fact intimidating. The Intimidator was, at the core, a good person. The kind of person to bring back tea from China after sabbatical. The kind of person to shrewdly pass me to the second-most-intimidating person in the department during that sabbatical.

I heard that The Intimidator was worried that HMC professors coddled their students too much. It wasn't a judgment on how things were harder in the old days. It was more a statement of fact that HMC was a special place, and that perhaps it was a disservice to give students a skewed set of expectations regarding support. In that, and so much else, The Intimidator was both wise and correct.

I still don't *really* understand static friction for wheels. But I do understand that everyone needs someone like The Intimidator from time to time to troll and cajole the best work from us.

Dear Najet

As a grad student, I was pretty miserable. I  felt trapped on a path that seemed increasingly divergent from my interests and for which I felt increasingly unprepared and ill-equipped.

But if I am honest, there were bright moments. Najet was one of them.

She knocked on my apartment door. Evidently she had just moved in and was unfamiliar how the shower worked. I helped her with that, and took her grocery shopping. She cooked me a delicious meal, a curry I think, though to be honest I wasn't paying so much attention to the food. It was then that she told me that she had a boyfriend in France.

Still, we spent many months going out to eat, talking occasionally on the phone. By all external appearances, we probably seemed a couple to most people. We laughed, though internally I wept.

Then she broke up with Kader. After ten years, it was over.

In the months preceding the breakup, I remember talking with her several times. The relationship was never ideal. Sometimes she cried. I held her hand, and sometimes held her in my arms. I was a good friend.

I had learned a bad habit over the years. To deal with heartache and fear, I tended to rationalize why a relationship couldn't work out before it even started. It had taken many forms over the years.

"It's bad if we're both only children."

"I shouldn't fall for people in the same field."

"I'm a replacement for another Asian ex, and not valued in myself."

"I'm too young."

"I'm too old."

And always, in the background, my mind hissed:

"I will end up like my father. I must protect her from the horrible fate of having a mentally ill partner."

It was easy in Najet's case. Cultural difference (she was French Moroccan), religious difference (she was Muslim), and professional uncertainty (she was on a postdoc, and would leave within a year). I was also a mess at the time.

But I was a good friend. And because I was a good friend, I didn't seize upon her breakup.

And a week later, she had met someone else. Khalid. Online. In France.

We talked a bit of politics. But mostly it was about life. About relationships and family and academia and how many chickens she had killed as a virologist and whether life was out there in the universe.

Like all cases of heartache, I thought I would never get over her. But I did. We drifted apart. She moved to Germany. I moved to Maryland, and then back home. We haven't spoken in five years.

Did she ever know that I loved her? Or that I felt what I thought was love? It's hard to say. She might've known. Or maybe it's easier to believe in a less complicated friendship. Maybe I lacked the words -- or the right connection between words and feelings, in any language.

It's not just the Paris attacks that brought her to mind. I met up with Marc, a fellow grad student, on Monday. Marc speaks French. I remember when they met at a party, he and Najet were able to converse effortlessly . It speaks to my humanity, and I smile at it now. But how jealous I was at that moment! Even though I knew Marc was happily in a relationship with someone else, and in fact Najet, though less happily, was attached to one of the K boys at that time. Even though I had given up hope or ambition, still, I was in that moment, so profoundly human.

For that moment, and for all the others, I am grateful.

And so I think about her now. She is French, and spent many years in Paris, and so is in mourning. She is Muslim, and so is afraid perhaps of what is to come. I fear for her, too. I mourn with her, too.

And so this is what I think of when I think of Paris. I spent a week there, alone and somewhat depressed, in 2005. The city itself has no sentimental hold on me. But the people, I miss.

I worked with a postdoc, Frantz from France. He was seven feet tall. His wife might've been under five feet. He was so kind; even as my world and my mind was falling apart, he always treated me kindly and as a valued colleague. We talked about family, about the future. Though perhaps more than either me or Najet, he had a greater sense of calm and certainty. Maybe that came from aikido. Maybe it came from his own wisdom.

I remember one of the last times I went into the department, I heard his deep bass voice shout, "Ryan!" I didn't turn around; I was so depressed and lost at that time I felt numb. But I wish I had, and wish I had told you how much you had done for me. You hadn't saved my graduate career, but you did save a piece of my humanity and self-respect. And for that I am eternally grateful.

Frantz... he is safe. He is not in Paris. And he is not Arab. He is Safe. But Najet...

I have met other French citizens over the years. But those two loom largest. And so I can't grieve for Paris. I grieve for them. For their way of life, and what they love, and hate, and love to hate about their nation was attacked. And both the best and the worst of humanity will emerge from this. I grieve for them because I love them.

That will have to be enough.

Frantz -- I hope you are still mentoring and teaching, and doing amazing things with light that the French seem to own so well. Fresnel, Fourier, Fizeau, and Frantz. :)

And Najet -- bisou.