Christopher Edley Jr. '73

The Honorable William H. Orrick, Jr. Distinguished Professor, UC-Berkeley Law

“I learned not to be afraid of being stupid. I refer often to the experience of being in an honors seminar on the mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics with three students and two professors and getting to a point where we were all stuck on page 74 of a book ... That experience of working really hard ... was really humbling. So I think it left me in retrospect being somewhat fearless intellectually, and that has really stood me in good stead. It's made me unafraid of being outside my intellectual comfort zone and excited at the prospect of taking on issues, problems, and subjects about which I know very little, if anything.”