Walk into Professor Eduard Fanthome’s office hours expecting to talk about ancient ruins, and you might walk out with advice about joy, softness or why “you don’t matter” is the most freeing thing you’ll ever hear. Sure, this semester he’s teaching Space and GIS, Intro to Archaeology and Ancient(ish) Urbanisms, but the real syllabus he’s handing out isn’t about ancient ruins or map-making. It’s about how to live.
Fanthome’s own teaching origin story is worthy of a Netflix miniseries: His parents were the founding teachers of a high school in Bhutan, where his dad taught English and his mom taught chemistry. More than genetics, however, what he really inherited was the conviction that teaching changes lives. For decades, his parents weren’t just educators; they were pillars of their community, guiding entire generations of Bhutanese students. Growing up with that legacy left him both deeply inspired and acutely aware of the ripple effects a good teacher can have.
When it came time to choose his own path, Fanthome didn’t dream of chasing prestige or stacking publications on a CV. In fact, he swerved hard away from research, dismissing it as “competitive and gross.” Instead, he chose the messier, more human route: being in the classroom, hanging out with students and embracing the everyday magic of ideas catching fire in real time. It wasn’t the traditional choice, but for Fanthome, it was the only one that felt alive.
When I asked Fanthome what advice he’d give his 20-year-old self, he didn’t hesitate or reach for something polished. He went straight to a word most people avoid: softness.
“Being soft and strong at the same time is very difficult,” Fanthome said, “but it would’ve made me a much better friend.”
It wasn’t the kind of answer you’d expect from a professor who spends his time talking about cities and maps. No “follow your passion,” no “network early,” no checklist of professional moves. Instead, it was raw and vulnerable, the sort of honesty that doesn’t usually make it onto syllabi.
The best advice he’s ever received? “You don’t matter.” Which, yes, sounds like the world’s harshest fortune cookie, but Fanthome swears it’s anything but depressing. In his mind, it’s liberating. If no one’s ranking you on some cosmic leaderboard, then the pressure to measure up, to compete, to perform according to someone else’s rules, evaporates.
“ The best advice he’s ever received? “You don’t matter.” ”
“You stop trying to live up to hierarchies that were never worth your time in the first place,” Fanthome said.
Suddenly, the rules you thought defined your life — the grades, the accolades, the approvals — aren’t chains; they’re optional. You’re free to decide what actually matters: the work you care about, the relationships you nurture, the small joys you pursue.
It’s not nihilism; it’s permission. Permission to fail spectacularly, permission to change course, permission to craft a life on your own terms. And somehow, hearing “you don’t matter” transformed a slap of cold reality into a rallying cry: You don’t have to fit into a system that doesn’t see you. You get to build your own.
Much of Fanthome’s life philosophy can be traced back to an unlikely source: a Snoopy comic strip. In it, the question is posed: What do you want to be when you grow up? The answer is simpler than most think. Not a career or a title, but to be happy. Simple. Obvious. Yet revolutionary if you actually stop to think about it.
For Fanthome, this small comic carried a huge lesson: life isn’t a checklist of achievements, promotions or accolades. It’s about the ongoing, messy work of finding joy, curiosity and fulfillment. That little strip reminded him early on that the end goal isn’t a résumé, it’s a life you actually want to live. He carries that lesson into the classroom, showing students that the pursuit of knowledge, curiosity and connection can be about far more than grades.
While Fanthome might roll his eyes at the competitive “grossness” of academia, he’s profoundly serious about the joy he finds in teaching. Sure, there’s a special kind of satisfaction when a student finally grasps a tricky concept, when the gears click and they see the world in a new way. But there’s something far more meaningful to him: the moment a student recognizes that the thought they’ve been nursing, perhaps doubting themselves for weeks, isn’t just valid — it’s brilliant.
Fanthome watches them light up with that realization, a mix of relief, pride and surprise. It is in those bursts that teaching becomes more than a job. For Fanthome, this is the reason he keeps showing up, day after day, to classes, office hours and conversations and why he chooses to spend his time with students rather than chasing publications or prestige.
The tiny sparks of validation, he says, are the real currency of education: “I find those moments of affirming students – and it can happen one-on-one, it can happen in a classroom – […] the best student scenes that you can have as a teacher.”
So yes, Professor Fanthome is the guy who teaches classes with titles such as Critical Cartography (punk band name pending). But the real curriculum? How to be soft without breaking, how to be strong without hardening, how to laugh at hierarchies that don’t deserve your energy and how to remember that “happiness” is a perfectly good life plan.
Siena Giacoma PZ ’27 survives on endless cycles of caffeine, half-written drafts, and lofty promises to “finish that book tomorrow.” Her cat, Olive, remains skeptical, offering judgmental stares in place of encouragement.
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