Yiannis (John) Fotopoulos ’76

Student

When I first met Dr.Serdengecti in his office, as a freshman at HMC, I remembered he related to me that he was of Turkish origin and he had been born in a Greek city named Kavala, 100 miles east of my hometown. More than twenty years later, I was visiting HMC with my wife, Eugenia, who has been born and raised in Kavala too. We took the opportunity to visit Dr.Serdengecti in his office and say hello. We both remember him as a very friendly and polite man. Long live his memory!

Aki Nakamura ’66

My counselor in picking up classes for my 1 year stay as a special student in HMC

I was met by Sedat on my first day in HMC in 1965 summer. At that time I was a special student to enrole in HMC for a year from Japan, when Yen was still 360 yen to a dollar. I was on a scholarship. He guided me to engineering courses and some of liberal arts classes around Clairmont colleges , Scripps and CMC at that time. Of course I took Systems Engineering , which served my career in Engineering for my entire life. I also met Mrs.Serdengecti in his room when we were talking about the results of my first semester tests.
It was a long time ago, and yet I remember him clearly as if it was yesterday. Thank you Sedat for your fine guidance which I followed after I returned to the U. of Tokyo for continuing the Mechanical Engineering career afterwards.

Pat Barrett '66 ’66

Student

As others have said, Dr. Serdengecti’s classes were probably the hardest I had at Mudd and the ones I spent the most time studying for. My room mate and I figured we spent at least 20 hours a week just on the Systems problem sets. I was rewarded for all the rigor in his classes when I got to MIT for a masters and was required to take more systems courses. While they may not have been a breeze, I was easily able to handle them based on what I had learned in Dr. Serdengecti’s classes.

In addition to his great teaching ability, he really cared about the students and about the honor code. I was on the Judiciary Board when a case came up regarding a student in one of his classes. He was a meticulous and conscientious in presenting his understanding of the case as he was in teaching La Place transforms.

He was a real treasure and helped make the Cololege what it is today.

Tom Helliwell

Friend and Colleague

I met Sedat in the fall of 1962, shortly after the beginning of my first year at HMC. I was immediately impressed with his intellect, warmth, and careful, clear way of speaking. That year I taught a full set of courses at HMC and was still finishing my PhD thesis at Caltech, commuting back and forth, so was working like crazy. Then in the spring of that academic year my oral thesis defense was scheduled for the early afternoon on a day when I was supposed to teach our junior-level physics course in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics in the morning. That was too much to contemplate for one day, so I asked Sedat if he would be a guest lecturer. He graciously agreed.
On the appointed morning i was free to think about my thesis, but I felt relaxed enough go to the classroom and sit in the back while Sedat lectured. I still remember that his lecture was embarrassingly good, a model of organization, clarity, and insightfulness. And later that day I was able to defend my thesis and return to Claremont with a degree, a grateful heart that
Sedat had helped me so well, and a better appreciation of how good a lecture can be.

Paul Kollar ’67

Engineering major and student of his Systems courses

He was the most demanding of all my professors and exposed me to the most challenging concepts and material. It was an honor to have learned from him. Please accept my condolences to his family and to the Mudd community.