How professors make a difference in student lives

Students are affected by their professors on a daily basis. Going to class, interacting in projects and Cal Poly’s Learn By Doing motto make it so students and faculty end up creating a new relationship — that has effects which last even after graduation.

You needn’t look hard to find professors’ influences on students.

For example, Eriq Augustine, Jon Moorman and Aldrin Montana, all computer science seniors, display multi-colored badges with a photo of their department head, Ignatios Vakalis, on their backpacks.

“They are limited edition Vakalis pins,” Augustine said. “There’s four of them, and then there’s one version that’s super weird. It’s just the department head in different poses.”

Augustine said the computer science department made trading cards for other faculty as well.

“I love my professors,” Augustine said. “I think professors have a very big impact on whatever you do.”

Moorman’s adviser, Zoë Wood, is helping him with his senior project. Two weeks ago, she took his entire class to DreamWorks Animation studios.

“She set up a meeting with our whole class at DreamWorks and got us all in there to demo our projects,” he said. “We have a really awesome department. Pretty much all of our faculty is really excited about what we do.”

Montana will do graduate studies at Cal Poly next year and has Alexander Dekhtyar as his adviser.

“Basically, I just went to him and said this is what I want to do, and he’s like, ‘OK, here’s all of my advice,’ and he told me how to handle grad school, brought me into a project on campus he’s doing, and he’s just really easy and good to work with,” Montana said. “I feel like professors bring together the whole college experience, as far as the academic side goes.”

Brendon Soltis is another computer science senior, but he said he doesn’t feel the same connection to the department as Augustine or Montana. Soltis said he “burned himself out” by his third year and realized it was not what he wanted to do.

The person who influenced him most was actually Andrene Kaiwi-Lenting, coordinator of the Week of Welcome (WOW) orientation program, who is also a part-time lecturer in the College of Education. Soltis became a WOW team leader and has worked with her for three years.

“She’s enabled me to find out what I really want to do with my life in terms of professional work,” Soltis said. “She showed me a path where I could take my technical background, mixed with my leadership background and go to grad school and work in something like a non-profit or a similar orientation program, and really apply my skills into something I really want to do.”

Another student who said she felt their teacher greatly impacted her life is Rachel Bitter, a wine and viticulture sophomore. The professor who influenced her was Erma Stauffer. In the class Bitter took, Stauffer decided to do something a little different for her classes’ final projects.

“That was when all the problems with Haiti were going on, and she knew for the final project that she wanted to somehow incorporate Haiti into it,” Bitter said. “And I had wanted to do something about it. Basically, together, we organized a whole fundraiser event.”

Bitter took a major role in helping “Hope for Haiti” alongside her teacher. With the help of their class, Bitter said they raised close to $5,000. She now makes the effort to visit Stauffer a few times a quarter.

Stauffer said she believes her work is important and tries to help her students as best she can.

“Teaching for me is opening the door for people of your generation, to give you skills and the belief that you have the potential to create changes,” she said.

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