I’ve taken no less than four classes with Rory Smead, who I believe to be one of the best professors Boston has to offer. After the first of those, Introduction to Logic, he invited me to his research group, the Rossetti Scholars. Rory is not a traditional philosopher by any means - an experienced meditator, game theory expert, prolific paper consumer and producer, and a lover of all things strange in the world, he’s always striving to explore new ideas. Rossetti brings together students who have the same ideology, and each semester we explore a new topic to dive deep on - topic suggestions can include anything from economic theory to astrobiology.
A semester that stands out in my mind was delving into the realm of easten Buddhist philosophy and the Dao De Ching, an ancient chinese text revered by many as one of the deepest philosophical works ever written. It turns out to be the case that it’s far less useful to study these texts without practicing their content, and so we also learned about meditation through daily meditative practice, using Altered Traits by Goleman and Davidson as our guide.
Rossetti was a fantastic community for me in college, and I met some seriously interesting individuals in that motley crew. My experiences in it emphasized the power of spending your time with people on the same wavelength as yourself, and I’m always in search of these environments!