October 26, 2020:
There was a professor named Michel I wish I'd worked with.
He was French, and, if I recollect accurately, was expert in Pascal and Spinoza, meaning, for the me of today, he'd have been a welcome resource. He also taught an autobiography course, intriguing for the contemporary yours truly. Sadly, he was unwell, with cancer I believe. He was gone after my first year, so that I missed the chance.
This though is pure projection. The Mark of today might value his help. The Mark of 1977 hadn't yet heard of Pascal or Spinoza and wouldn't have known what to do with them.
This is how the dialectic between available resources and existing knowledge played me in that period. Even if appropriate resources had existed there's no guarantee I'd have been able to utilize them. A comedy of timings and disjunctions.
Whose fault is this? Mine, of course. Yet I will also point a finger at the San Diego City Schools of 1966 through 1975. If I'd not been forced into the gifted program and had not responded with populist anti-intellectualism I might have been in better position by 1977 to leverage a resource like Michel.