Whenever I meet someone going into college, I always tell them to take the professor, not the course. I always learned more from the right professor teaching the "wrong" class than I did with the wrong professor teaching the "right" class. Sure, my transcript is all over the map, but it helped me in the long run.
And yeah, like Balog said, the more advanced the course is, the greater the chance becomes that you're going to get a professor who cares more about what he's studying than what you're studying. Eastern Thought turns into "listen to me talk about my book," English Composition 192 becomes Poetry 401, and Calculus II becomes Advanced Self-Study Techniques 211 with a minor in Interpreting Accents 101.
There are a lot of teachers who want to make a difference and have a passion for their subjects. There are a lot of teachers who want to spend eight hours a week teaching and thirty-two hours a week on their own research. And, like any government or union job, there are a lot of teachers who want to get paid very well for doing a very average job, retire early, and start collecting a pension. Seek out the good ones and stay close to them.
