"In my experience, relatively few students appreciate how much they're learning in my course while they're in it." That quote describes me to a T. The Univers

"In my experience, relatively few students appreciate how much they're learning in my course while they're in it." That quote describes me to a T. The University of Minnesota taught a sophomore class on OO using SICP. At the time, C++ was hot (this was about 1991 or 1992) and I distinctly remember someone raising their hand and asking "Why are we learning this language that we will never use again? Why isn't an OO class taught in C++?" And I remember thinking to myself "Who cares what language it's in? I'm kind of excited about learning another language." And I truly was. It wasn't until much later, after being in industry for a decade (currently starting my third decade now ;) )that I recall thinking to myself "You know, that book had a tremendous impact on how I write software and program in general, I need to pick that up again, what was it?" And I re-found it and am on my third reading of it as I write this, mostly just to refresh the ideas in my mind (since I mostly work in Java and JavaScript these days), but I have never truly finished the whole book. The class took us through chapter 3 and then sort of a mixed bag of topics from later in the book, so I've never truly read the whole book, but certainly enough of it to help me. I didn't realize it was a famous book at the time, it was just our text book. I still didn't realize it was a famous book when I re-bought it a decade later. And now I know why it is a famous book, it is that good. And though the third re-read is very familiar, I still enjoy it and find it profound.