Dr. Guy Dalto
Professor of sociology
When I left my home town in New Jersey, I found that it always took me a year or more to get used to my new surroundings. This was true when I went to Chicago in 1971 for graduate school, and when I went to Detroit in 1975 for my first teaching job. But I grew to love both Chicago and Detroit and hated to have to leave. I had the same experience when I came to Birmingham-Southern College in 1982. At first, it seemed quite strange and different to me, but I have come to call it home. 
I was not too happy when I first went to college. I had no real career plans and no college major in mind. Neither of my parents had gone to college, so they were not very helpful. That all changed though when I took an Introduction to Sociology class at Rutgers University, a course that satisfied general education requirements. The class was taught by a professor named Harry Bredemeier. He walked with a limp that I figured was due to his early years as a coal miner in Pennsylvania. His class included a research project that dealt with the issue of social class and physical appearance. That project got me hooked on sociology. I carried this experience with me when I became a teacher. So if you take my introduction to sociology class, you too will get a research project to do.
As an advisor, my advice to all students, irrespective of college major, is to try to balance their general education coursework between the three R’s (reading, writing, and arithmetic). These are the building blocks for success in most occupations. Most students at BSC get the first two in abundance, but are usually lacking in quantitative reasoning skills. So if you happen to be my advisee, you know what I will advise you to do. But the choice is yours.
At Birmingham-Southern, you will find faculty who remember what it was like to be a first-year college student, and who use those memories to be better teachers and advisors of students who choose to attend BSC.