The Course That Changed My Life

“He is so intimidating!” “He does a whole lecture about how college is a waste of time!” “You either hate him or you like him.” I heard so much about Professor Coplin before I took PAF 101 and honestly, I was intrigued. I decided to sign up for the course because I knew a lot of Policy Studies majors who were very passionate about it, and I felt I had to experience Coplin once in my college career. Who would have thought (myself included) that seven months later I would be a Policy Studies major and a Teaching Assistant (TA) for the very course I took the semester before?

            The very first class, I realized I fell into the “like him” category. I found Coplin to be hilarious, nonconventional, and interesting. He grilled kids whose answers didn’t make sense. He smashed a cell phone with a hammer to make a point about policy. He went on random rants about topics I had never questioned before. For example: Was Mother Teresa a true “Do-Gooder?”

Weeks went by, and I fell in love with the course. I learned so much about what I was capable of in class. Class was all about putting yourself out there. The importance of giving concise answers is now drilled into my head, and I realize how often we dance around the answer when in reality it is so simple. For our modules, I loved how challenging it was to find articles that followed the instructions. My head would throb from the stress, but I thrived from it. I felt that this course was testing everything I had inside of me unlike anything I had experienced before.

Coplin (this is what everyone, himself included, calls him) also has such a fascinating outlook on life. He thinks college is useless unless you develop “skills” and leave with as little debt as possible. Dale Carnegie is his idol and Excel is his creed. He wants college to be a hands-on experience, which is why he has undergraduate TAs running his courses and advocates credit-counting internships. I realized that with Policy Studies I could learn more than I ever dreamed and stand out in the applicant pool.

So after taking PAF 101, where do I stand? I added Policy Studies to go along with my International Relations major. I have also declared a minor in Management because Coplin once said to me: “Everything is a business, even the government.” I am also the TA Manager for PAF 101 this semester, which I like to think of as the diplomat who negotiates with Coplin and the other TAs while also making everything run smoothly. I am incredibly satisfied with my college experience so far and I believe that PAF 101 altered not only the course of my college career, but also my outlook on the future. And for any SU students reading this— take PAF 101!