Over winter quarter (freshman year) I took a philosophy class by David Charles, who was a very big name in the field of ancient philosophy. He was a retired professor in Yale who visited Stanford to teach a couple classes. It was my first philosophy class at Stanford and was a really eye-opening experience; I never realized philosophy was such a well-developed and interesting field.
Here are some papers I wrote in that class: Phil116C Paper 1 Phil116C Paper 2 (the one I’m most proud of :)) Phil 116C Paper 3 (the one I’m least proud of, which is unfortunate since it was also the longest paper. I was low-key dying doing my CS229 project as I wrote this :(.)
As of the time of writing David passed away two weeks ago. Although I, frankly, wasn’t quite the best student in the class, he was always really kind to me and an inspiring combination of intelligence, intellectual curiosity, and humility. It is my life dream to be half as delightful and sharp as he was. He will be sorely missed.