In my college, there are some who look upon classes filled with first-year students as the penance they must pay in order to qualify for the real business of education: teaching juniors and seniors. Freshman composition is the assignment you must bear in order to teach critical theory; intro chemistry is how you pay your dues before you are assigned research students of your own; general math goes to the part-timers, the pros teach calculus. But I would like to suggest that this sort of academic snobbery is misguided. Freshmen students are one of the delights of a teaching career.