I had the fortune of taking a class with Brian Kernighan at Princeton and later having him advise my senior independent project, and the one thing I'll never fo

I had the fortune of taking a class with Brian Kernighan at Princeton and later having him advise my senior independent project, and the one thing I'll never forget is just how incredibly down-to-earth and kind he is. An example: In that first class (COS 333) with ~150 students, I was surprised when he knew my name — and then I found out that he didn't know just my name but the names of all of his students. It takes a special kind of professor who takes the time to do that every semester.