Questions about politeness etc.

real_pochacco

I just found out that a professor is coming to give a lecture at my college. The interesting thing is that she is actually the wife of a professor/writer that changed my life and whose work has inspired me a hell of a lot (he is a philosophy professor who was also trained as a psychoanalyst, and I have wanted to be a psychoanalyst ever since I read one of his books). I'm definitely going to go to the lecture, but I'm really worried that I'll come off as rude if I try to talk to her. "Hey, your husband changed my life" isn't necessarily something that she wants to talk about, you know?

Do you have any tips on how I can avoid seeming obnoxious while still (possibly) doing some sort of networking kinda thing?

I feel a bit lost as far as my career path goes, because while I could get a lot of help/information from the psychology department here about cognitive-behavioral sorts of perspectives, I don't really know where I am supposed to go in order to get where I want to end up. I've always kind of hoped that I could get in contact with this guy or maybe even find some sort of way to work under him (I doubt that would be possible).

JebusUD

In my experience speakers generally hang out and will talk with anyone about most anything. How big of a deal is this professor? If the speech has, say, many thousand people comming, maybe won't be so willing to talk. If it is just a normal ~100 people or less speech deal then as long as you aren't snorting and falling over yourself I am sure she will be happy to hear about how her husband changed your life. It would be a compliment to her and her husband.

Might want to segue it in with something about the speech though.

Duffel

A lot of lectures involve periods at the end where the audience can meet and greet the lecturer. Just go up to her, tell her that, as a psychology student, you've always been interested in her husband's work (don't tell her it changed your life, it sounds too fan-ish), a few observations you have on his positions - stuff like that. Then tell her, if you have the time, that you're interested into going into a similar field and ask if she has any advice on how to get into that field of study in particular. If you're lucky, she might make some suggestions, but don't feel bad if she doesn't - unless you have a working relationship with her it's probably best not too expect too much. Good luck.