In May 2006, the AMS Notices printed a remembrance article for Serge Lang. Dorian Goldfield was one of the contributors, and as an undergraduate, he described himself as follows:
Of the many people who had serious interactions with Serge, I am one of those who came away with fierce admiration and loyalty. In the mid-1960s, I was an undergraduate in the Columbia engineering school on academic probation with a C–average. In my senior year I had an idea for a theorem which combined ergodic theory and number theory in a new way, and I approached Serge and showed him what I was doing. Although I was only a C–level student in his undergraduate analysis class he took an immediate interest in my work and asked Lorch if he thought there was anything in it. When Lorch came back with a positive response, Lang immediately invited me to join the graduate program at Columbia the next year, September 1967.
Then again, Goldfield was not a "late learner" as he was 20 when he finished college and 22 when he earned his PhD. But...
