[nemacol]

I had a professor from college who recently passed away. He was an unconventional teacher. High energy and sort of rambled on about the subject, his experience, and how non-tech folks experienced and reacted to tech.

His stream of consciousness communication style plus his decades of industry (steel mills) experience and expertise of the subject matter made him an excellent teacher. Computer Programming and Logic and Database Design classes were my favorites.

Also, he rewarded unconventional solutions to projects and test questions. One memorable example - I turned in a project and before he gave it back asked me to explain my thinking. After I defended my work he complemented my "creative" solution and followed it up with why, while it might work, was sub-optimal.

I really learned a lot from him.