How many of your professors know your name?

It's a simple question that, for most students, elicits a number much smaller than the number of classes on their schedule. Personally, I can confidently say that of the nine professors I've had this year, no more than two of them have taken the time or effort to get to know the most basic fact about me.

As a freshman, I came to MSU expecting an incredible educational experience, one filled with interesting teachers, substantial material and unparalleled access to unique learning opportunities.

Instead, I've discovered many professors who only guide students through never-ending textbooks, large, echoing lecture halls with hundreds of students and drab PowerPoint presentations that serve as nothing more than a teleprompter.

The fault of this displeasure rests not only with the university's faculty, but also with students trying to cut corners. In the process of scheduling courses for the upcoming school year, I've encountered more students concerned primarily with the professor's track record in regard to grading — via suspect reports on www.allmsu.com and www.pickaprof.com — than the content of actual classes. Many students have come to the point in which a grade-point average outweighs the value of knowledge in a given class.

In proposing this observation, I do not mean to generalize all professors and classes as fitting this description. This is the exact contrary — I actually hope to use exemplary professors with a passion for both teaching and the material being presented as an example of the university's potential.

At the same time, I find it hard to believe that of the hundreds of professors employed by the school, this large pool represents the best available combination of vastly traveled professionals and experienced teachers with an interest in informing the next generation of great minds. While MSU may employ some of the world's foremost experts in business, mathematics and a myriad of other studies, I've found not every authority on a subject can teach with the enthusiasm and ability necessary to be a great college instructor.

Perhaps I was naive to expect a utopia where higher education intensively prepares students for the challenges of the real world.

Perhaps I have just had an unfortunate run of dispassionate professors, some as stoic as the bronze statue of Sparty found in the heart of campus.

And perhaps I'm just one in a long line of students and faculty who are following in the jaded footsteps of graduates and professors of the past, who also placed transcript grades above the pure educational value of college.

But in response to this, I present one professor I've had the pleasure of learning from this semester. This professor has a class of nearly 100 students, many of whom begrudgingly roll out of bed before the sun rises.

While this professor has a class with conditions propitious to student-teacher anonymity, he has taken the time to get to know every student's name during the course of the semester. Almost every morning, he spontaneously sits next to a student before the beginning of class, ready to chat about anything from the weather to the class and even a student's major.

For decades, Professor Carl Liedholm has traveled the world as a foremost expert in his field. And most importantly, he teaches economics with a real passion for the topic and uses a multitude of mediums to ingrain important information in young students' minds.

While not every professor needs to be this animated, many of the university's faculty and students should take note of the enthusiasm necessary to take classes seriously. There is far more to the college experience beyond what a number reflects on a transcript, and it falls on educators to motivate instead of perpetuate the university's status quo.

College, as cliché as it sounds, should be about expanding the proverbial "intellectual horizons" of some of the nation's brightest up-and-coming minds.

Instead, it has become a race to see how close we can come to the number four at the end of the semester — whether it takes scheduling an easy professor or memorizing mindless PowerPoint presentations year after year. It falls on faculty and students to change this monotony we've fallen into so that the college experience lives up to its acclaimed image — even if www.allmsu.com says differently.

Jacob Carpenter is a State News intern. Reach him at carpe219@msu.edu.