This resonates with me, I had a real mixed bag when I was doing my undegrad degree. There were some incredible professors who wanted to teach, were very approachable, and would always make time and reply to emails with good detail. Then there were other professors who clearly only had their open office hours because they had to, would rarely reply to emails, and the moment you stepped into their office it was clear their top priority was getting you to leave.
This is getting off topic, but I'd love to see a fundamental rethink in how 'teachers' for undergrad courses are hired. Certainly for year 1 and 2 courses the 'teachers' should be selected and hired ~100% based on their pedagogical skills and passion and ~0% based on the impact of their publications. Universities also need to start recognizing, valuing and rewarding teaching ability.
The best first year math lecturer I had at university (and the person that is the reason I ended up majoring in math) didn't get tenure and ended up taking a job a smaller 'unprestigious' local college. The by far the worst lecturer I had is now at MIT.
