For me, it was mainly the philosophy and politics teachers. Boy oh fucking boy, for some reason, every single one of my philosopy and PolSci teachers were... interesting personalities to say the least. It was our philosophy teacher who introduced us to the Labor Theory of Value, oddly enough, and the issue of economic inequality. And as for the PolSci-Side, two teachers stand out: One grew up in the GDR and was very, very nostalgic about it (with some fair criticisms, especially concerning the Stasi), and the second, and final one in my case, was an irony-poisoned super-leftist with a gigantic disdain for the rich, the state and capitalism.
converting to Judaism? Pardon my ignorance, but is that actually a thing?
From my admittedly still small understanding, as I am in a learning process: There are three main branches of Judaism, Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform. Reform Jews are pretty chill and allow conversions.
Conservatives allow allow and recognize conservative conversions and most Orthodox conversions, rarely Reform conversion.
Orthodox conversions happen very rarely, and they almost always only recognize Orthodox conversion.