Some Recollections

Some Recollections
by
Harvey J. Cheston

Mr. C. was enrolled in an evening analytic geometry class. He was a mature young man, about twenty-five years of age, employed as a laboratory technician. As the best student in the class, he mastered the material with seeming ease, an “A” student headed toward an “A” in the course.

In the latter part of the semester, he constructed and presented to me a model of the three dimensional rectangular coordinate axes in space. Naturally, the gift was greatly appreciated and used in the classroom for many years.

Well, time passed and final exam week was almost upon us when Mr. C. vanished! I never saw him again or even heard from him. Strange!

Mr. D. was a member of a regular day class that was also in analytical geometry. He was young for college, about sixteen, and, as we say, very bright. He came to class, was attentive, but never did any of the assignments. His habit was to come a bit early on exam days and “look over” the material to be covered.

His paper was usually perfect, or nearly so. A genius? Not really; he had trouble later with advanced courses at the university because he didn’t practice doing proofs.

I am thinking now of two more of my students. They present a striking contrast:

Mr. L. was not a good student. He did little or nothing with trigonometry. Yet he went on after his college experience to rise to the level of “battalion fire chief” in a local fire department.

Perhaps I shouldn’t mention this, but his salary is far greater than that of most college professors.

Finally, there was Mr. S., perhaps the best of all my students over the years. I should add that he is also a very fine person.

After leaving the College (he taught part-time for us for a number of years), he went on with mathematics to the heights of Mt. Olympus—apparently.

He now heads up a group of research mathematicians working on the Star Wars projects.

Bethesda and Takoma Park Campuses: Mathematics, 1949–1971; chairman, Mathematics Department 1958–1964; chairman, Division of Mathematics and Science, 1964–1965; Professor Emeritus.