To the freshman psych lecturer who set Kevin Keeker straight 22 years ago, a belated thanks.
“I lived in Allen Hall, in a corner quad on the fourth floor. My Psych 100 class was at 10 a.m. in the basement,” says Sony PlayStation North America’s principal researcher (BA ’90, psychology).
“There was a sprawling ’70s-style carpeted room ringed on two sides with four or five carpeted steps perched slightly above a healthy smattering of rounded-block ottomans, fractured sectionals and bean bags. It was like a Greek-theatre for ‘Sesame Street,’ or a classroom for the exceptionally lazy — me.
“In my memory, at least, that was our basement classroom. Sad but true: Sometimes, I had a hard time getting down those five flights of stairs to the basement. More accurately, sometimes I had a hard time waking up.
“My freshman year was, at times, an experiment in just how much I could get away with on the basis of BS alone. But my psych lecturer was encouraging. Maybe she saw promise in my particular brand of BS.
“She suggested that maybe I should get in the habit of staying after class to watch ‘General Hospital’ with some of the more socially-engaged students. Maybe the power of habit would overcome my powers of mischief.
“It did. I did.
“Thanks to a couple of crushes, the irresistible draw of vapid daytime TV, and the threat of failing a 100-level class that was in my own basement, I found the motivation to get to class. Eventually, I chose to graduate with a BA in psych.
“Thanks, Freshman Year Psych Lecturer — without you, I might have had a completely different life.”
