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Why would you sabotage your peers? Grading on a curve?
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Jan 6, 2015 18:18
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canyoneer posted:Why would you sabotage your peers? Grading on a curve? Yeah, this seems like TV drama poo poo. Only thing I can imagine is limited slots and me not understanding the heady world of post-graduate education. Which is a horrible thing to say given that I'm planning to head that way.
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Jan 6, 2015 18:33
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canyoneer posted:Why would you sabotage your peers? Grading on a curve? I'm not sure this is par for the course at every law school, but a buddy of mine recently graduated from a state university's law school, and he explained that the lowest-scoring X% of students would automatically fail at the end of the semester. I'd never do it, but I can certainly see the appeal of getting to the law library first and stealing the one book the whole class needs for an assignment in order to guarantee you get a leg up on everyone else. I guess you just have to have a "do whatever it takes" mindset to succeed there, even if "whatever it takes" means loving everyone else over. My program, however, wasn't like that at all. Your grade was your grade. If everybody in your class got an A or a B, they'd all pass. There was no remotely justifiable reason to gently caress people over. That didn't stop them, though. My big problem with it (or, one of my big problems with such a mindset) is that in my situation, so much more was to be gained from helping rather than hurting. You could help make your department and your university look better and actually contribute meaningful research to the discipline if everyone adopted a "we're all in this together" attitude instead of "haha gently caress you because reasons."
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Jan 6, 2015 19:16
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GOTTA STAY FAI posted:My program, however, wasn't like that at all. Your grade was your grade. If everybody in your class got an A or a B, they'd all pass. There was no remotely justifiable reason to gently caress people over. That didn't stop them, though. Who is more likely to actually get a job though, the person with the 4.0 or the person with a 3.5? The law world has a reputation for having stiff as gently caress competition and not everybody is going to get a job and, well, these are aspiring lawyers we're talking about and that's not a demographic that has the best reputation. Yeah your grade is your grade but even in that situation there are people who will ensure that other peoples' grades are worse. At the same time stakes are really high. How much money does it take to get through grad school? Lots. What happens to people who drive themselves into massive debt and then don't get a law job?
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Jan 6, 2015 19:47
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<Talking with friends just after exams> Friend #1: "That exam was pretty easy, I for sure aced it." Friend #2: "Yeah, and the fact that they let us use our notes for it, at the last minute. Who expected that?" Me: (have all the same classes as they do) "What the gently caress are you talking about?" Both of them: "We just had an exam in Mrs. Balens class. . . actually, where were you? Writing that was a course requirement! Me: Realizing that I just failed that class, and will not be getting my degree next week like everyone else. <wakes up sweating 6 years after graduating without failing a class>
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Jan 6, 2015 20:34
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Warmachine posted:Yeah, this seems like TV drama poo poo. Only thing I can imagine is limited slots and me not understanding the heady world of post-graduate education. Which is a horrible thing to say given that I'm planning to head that way. I had one premed explain it to me thus when they were trying to pull some shenanigans involving library books: there are only a limited number of slots in internship program and good med programs. The fewer people there are competing for them, the better their chances.
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Jan 6, 2015 21:27
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Who is more likely to actually get a job though, the person with the 4.0 or the person with a 3.5? The law world has a reputation for having stiff as gently caress competition and not everybody is going to get a job and, well, these are aspiring lawyers we're talking about and that's not a demographic that has the best reputation. Yeah your grade is your grade but even in that situation there are people who will ensure that other peoples' grades are worse. Oh I'm not trying to argue against the law tradition. I'd much rather have the dickhead lawyer who hosed everyone over on my side during litigation. I wasn't clear enough in my post--I wasn't in a law program. I was in political science. The myriad different goals and focuses of my peers ensured that we'd rarely be competing for work. One guy specialized in the history of maritime law. The Campus Greens gal focused on feminist political theory and lobbying. Another gal was obsessed with the rights of the accused in the justice system. I was super interested in statistical analysis, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the history of political theory. Nobody that graduated with me was applying for a position that any of the others was--there was no goddamn reason we all couldn't work together and not gently caress each other over, but they did it anyway.
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Jan 6, 2015 21:46
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Blistex posted:<Talking with friends just after exams>
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Jan 6, 2015 22:49
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Zeether posted:I have nightmares about having to go back to high school before almost every semester, and now that I'm starting my last I hope to god they stop. I have some terrible news.
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Jan 6, 2015 23:48
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canyoneer posted:Why would you sabotage your peers? Grading on a curve? Couple of musings on dealing with academic politics/bullshit: When I was a grad student struggling with this sort of bullshit, and utterly baffled why so-called peers and colleagues would do this to one another, I went back to visit an undergrad mentor. He listened sympathetically, agreed with me that it is bullshit, and then said, 'But what do you expect, academia is a sheep eat sheep world.' People gently caress one another over because there are very few slots for scholarships and post-grad jobs in your field (especially in the humanities), and the competition is cutthroat. This is the same guy who advised me to approach writing my PhD dissertation as if I were trying to cross a big pasture that was covered in cow poo poo -- you have to watch where you're going, although you will occassionaly step in poo poo; make sure to look up occasionally to make sure you're still headed for the field's exit and not wandering deeper and deeper into the poo poo. That advice works at pretty much every level of writing. The other thing came from someone on my dissertation committee; I was getting really stressed out because it seemed as if all of the other students on my programme were steadily cranking out drafts, chapters, conference papers, award winning books, Nobel-prize acceptance speeches, etc. She asked me what proof I had of this. I told her that everyone was talking about their work and bragging about how much they had done, &c. Her, 'Did it ever occur to you that they're lying and haven't done jack poo poo?' That was a seriously  followed by  moment. I felt like warmachine because I couldn't believe that people were acting like this -- let's put it this way, if you've got time, go watch the film The Paper Chase. I've seen it three times: more or less when I was still quite young and didn't really understand what the grownups were doing (I was about 8 or 9 when it came out); then in grad school, when I had to turn it off because it was so painfully close to home; then much later as an adult with Mr Boods, who couldn't understand why people would act like that, while I kept going, 'No, seriously, this is what it's like.'I tell students that now, especially at this point in the school year when I get tearful seniors in my office telling me that 'everyone else' is nearly finished their theses, and they have only done one or two chapters. It's funny, because usually I've actually seen and given feedback on those one or two chapters, but haven't seen bupkiss from the students who've been bragging about their work.  Zeether -- I'm just about at the half-century mark, got my final degree in 1996. I still dream about missing classes and exams, not being able to find a classroom, and, my fave, showing up to the first day of the semester, and my head of dept telling me that I have to step in and teach a class on a subject that I know nothing about [usually to do with math and/or science].
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Jan 7, 2015 12:44
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Ms Boods posted:This is the same guy who advised me to approach writing my PhD dissertation as if I were trying to cross a big pasture that was covered in cow poo poo -- you have to watch where you're going, although you will occassionaly step in poo poo; make sure to look up occasionally to make sure you're still headed for the field's exit and not wandering deeper and deeper into the poo poo. That cow poo poo analogy is wonderful. And it took me forever to figure out everybody was lying, as well. I was about only about a month into writing my thesis when one of my peers asked me how far along I was. "A little ways," I said. "There's a lot of work to be done." She says, "Oh, you're not done yet? I finished mine last week." She really hadn't completed hers, and was so late finishing up the night before her 9:00 A.M presentation that when she walked into the department that morning she still had the unmistakeable strung out, greasy look people only get when they pull two or three all-nighters in a row on Adderall. Oh and Zeether, I woke up in the middle of a sleepwalk one night last week. I was deep in my hall closet, "digging for my backpack" so I could check my class schedule because I was scared I'd signed up for a class and had forgotten to go to it all semester. I finished grad school a long time ago 
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Jan 7, 2015 14:59
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Boy, this is making me wonder if grad school is even worth it. Sounds like a bunch of animals.
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Jan 10, 2015 11:36
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I don't know when I'm going to graduate, if I'm going to graduate, what I'm going to do with my life, or basically anything, but I do know one thing and I've known it since I first stepped into a university classroom. I am never, ever, becoming a grad student.
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Jan 10, 2015 12:12
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KiteAuraan posted:Boy, this is making me wonder if grad school is even worth it. Sounds like a bunch of animals. I think it depends on the degree. It seems the humanities are cutthroat, but the engineering program I'm in isn't too crazy, though I still have peers who got mad at me last semester because I wouldn't let them copy my work.
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Jan 10, 2015 19:27
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Blistex posted:<Talking with friends just after exams> Christ, the worst part about these dreams is that they always happen when you're done with it. I had a dream last night where I was absolutely sure that I had completely failed a final, and not finished the term paper at the same time. (and it's the middle of winter break)
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Jan 10, 2015 23:56
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In a 400 level Finance course, part of the final would be questions based off other students' presentations earlier in the semester. Each group was asked to submit 4 questions to the instructor, one or two of which would make it onto the final. So, of course, as business school students, they all collaborated to cheat on it. One douchebag asked every group to send a copy of their questions/answers to the entire class, so they would know what was on the final and could memorize it. Someone emailed the instructor, and the day of the final she announced that that section would be optional and ungraded. Same douchebag speaks up and whines, saying that it was unfair because he had spent a lot of time studying for it when he could have been studying something else. What a loser. Same guy would always boast about "working on Wall Street as a fund manager" due to some connection he had through his dad. He interned there through high school, and over every summer, and made tons of money, blah blah blah. Kinda weird that he was going to school getting mediocre grades at a low-20's ranked public business school (though the finance program was not nationally ranked) instead of a top school! Something doesn't add up
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Jan 12, 2015 18:47
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canyoneer posted:In a 400 level Finance course, part of the final would be questions based off other students' presentations earlier in the semester. Each group was asked to submit 4 questions to the instructor, one or two of which would make it onto the final. Had someone try to pull that poo poo with my roommate's classes. Decided that they all were going to do subpar work so the teacher would *have* to mark them average for less grades since everyone would be poo poo. Roommate didn't agree with this and continued being a bad rear end mother fucker only to come to class to find her stuff destroyed. The teacher still marked her fairly despite that and ended up failing a few of the bigger assholes. Teacher's aren't as stupid as students think (all the time).
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Jan 12, 2015 21:24
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Horrible Smutbeast posted:Teacher's aren't as stupid as students think (all the time). You go to college once. The professors go to college for decades. Yes they've seen other people pull the same poo poo you think is brilliant.
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Jan 12, 2015 21:28
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KiteAuraan posted:Boy, this is making me wonder if grad school is even worth it. Sounds like a bunch of animals. This is adult life in general. No matter your education or career, there will always be cutthroats who will do anything to get ahead or put perceived competition behind.
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Jan 12, 2015 22:47
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I was getting harassed pretty extensively last month by people I thought were my friends, and in the interest of my own mental health I decided to take time away from social media. I took my Facebook down for about a week and tried just chilling and reading, but I was only an hour or two into that when the campus police showed up at my apartment. My friend had seen my Facebook disappear and thought I'd killed myself, so she called the cops. Not mad at her, she was just worried. I'm being brought up on conduct violation charges now (The policy is "Other") in response to being reported as suicidal. Last Spring I actually made an attempt on my own life and was expelled from my former school for it (I had already left the school/withdrawn/lived 200 miles away, but they still held a conduct meeting without me and charged me). My complaint? gently caress the higher education system's "attempt" at giving a gently caress about students and their wellbeing. I live in Washington state, which is supposed to be more progressive than others in this realm, but apparently you're still a problem to schools if you're suicidal.
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Jan 13, 2015 21:37
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Dusty Baker 2 posted:I was getting harassed pretty extensively last month by people I thought were my friends, and in the interest of my own mental health I decided to take time away from social media. I took my Facebook down for about a week and tried just chilling and reading, but I was only an hour or two into that when the campus police showed up at my apartment. My friend had seen my Facebook disappear and thought I'd killed myself, so she called the cops. Not mad at her, she was just worried. Lawyer time.
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Jan 13, 2015 21:52
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One of my buddies went to my school's wellness center once to talk about some mental health stuff and they apparently threw him into a local hospital's mental health ward for a while, leaving him no better off and indeed probably mentally worse for the ordeal and also thousands of dollars in debt for medical treatment that he didn't want and which he didn't have the money for.
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Jan 13, 2015 21:56
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I'm starting school again after a 10 year hiatus. I really do not like how ingrained some classes are with technology just to justify selling an access code. My statistics teacher said we do not need the book, that she puts lecture notes online which is cool. I assumed then the online code needed for math lab would be wayyyy cheaper than the $160 book, code alone was $110. Having the financial aid office email you at 4pm on a Friday saying you owe $2000 but have paperwork from two months prior saying your GI Bill had been cleared and authorized.
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Jan 13, 2015 22:28
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Warmachine posted:Lawyer time. I spoke to the ACLU about my previous school, which I detailed earlier in this thread like a year ago. I could win that case easily, sure, but I've been in school for 6 years now. I did 2 years in community college to become a firefighter, then got into a car wreck and hosed up my back, so I went to Western Oregon University for 3 years for History. I ended up having to leave there because of my grades and transferred to Evergreen State College, and after I'd left WOU they held my conduct meeting. I wasn't allowed on campus for it, so I couldn't go to it, but not going to it was an admission of guilt (as they said, I was guilty until proven innocent). I've got another year here and I just want to get my schooling over with so I can move on with my life. I just want to be left alone.
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Jan 13, 2015 23:30
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So I'm living in campus housing this year. We have busses that take students from the dorms to campus because it's about half a mile walk. Usually I just walk it because I'm a fatty and need the exercise, but today is cold and wet and I decided to say gently caress it and take the bus. During the day, busses are here every 5-10 minutes, and during peak time the trouble is finding a space to sit or stand. I have a 5:30 class that I'm now late to because it's been nearly half an hour and the bus is just now getting here.
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Jan 13, 2015 23:31
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taiyoko posted:So I'm living in campus housing this year. We have busses that take students from the dorms to campus because it's about half a mile walk. Usually I just walk it because I'm a fatty and need the exercise, but today is cold and wet and I decided to say gently caress it and take the bus. Let me guess, they're gonna say "You should have planned ahead" right?
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Jan 13, 2015 23:41
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Dusty Baker 2 posted:I spoke to the ACLU about my previous school, which I detailed earlier in this thread like a year ago. I could win that case easily, sure, but I've been in school for 6 years now. I did 2 years in community college to become a firefighter, then got into a car wreck and hosed up my back, so I went to Western Oregon University for 3 years for History. I ended up having to leave there because of my grades and transferred to Evergreen State College, and after I'd left WOU they held my conduct meeting. I wasn't allowed on campus for it, so I couldn't go to it, but not going to it was an admission of guilt (as they said, I was guilty until proven innocent). I've got another year here and I just want to get my schooling over with so I can move on with my life. I just want to be left alone. Something was very off about your story last year and there is something very off about this story also. Are you living in the dorms still? If so, why? It sounds like you're roughly 22-23 and dorms are often not a healthy place to live if you have mental health issues. Living off-campus will help alleviate the pressure from some of the draconian rules that are covered under "conduct violations".
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Jan 14, 2015 00:07
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taiyoko posted:So I'm living in campus housing this year. We have busses that take students from the dorms to campus because it's about half a mile walk. Usually I just walk it because I'm a fatty and need the exercise, but today is cold and wet and I decided to say gently caress it and take the bus. that sucks, usually the only advantage at all to living in dorms is that you're living on campus.
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Jan 14, 2015 03:13
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Eh, as far as renting a place to live at goes, it's mostly not too terrible. I get my own bedroom and share a full kitchen, bathroom, and living room with my roommate. Cable, internet, and laundry room are all included. It's not a terrible walk to campus when the weather cooperates, pretty decent security in the sense that we have a rfid card that allows us access to the building, campus police (actual police, not rent-a-cops) are pretty visible around the area, and there's always someone on front desk duty if there's a not-911-type emergency. Runs about $1100 a month for downtown Atlanta ($4344 for the semester for having only one roommate, there can be up to 5 people living in an apartment). School provides a bus from both my dorm and another dorm building next door to main campus. Biggest downside for me with this has been that parking for my dorm is $400 a semester. I tried going car-free once, it didn't work very well because Atlanta transit is generally poo poo. I'm just glad I'm not a freshman and have to live in the buildings that don't have kitchens and force you to buy a meal plan. I'd like to live off-campus, but I'd have to find a job that would allow me to afford that...I'm paying for the dorm out of my financial aid.
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Jan 14, 2015 05:11
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taiyoko posted:Biggest downside for me with this has been that parking for my dorm is $400 a semester. Shittalk the rural Midwest all you want, but one thing we have in spades (other than corn) is space. A whole year's worth of parking at the central hub lot at the state university in my town (a lot <10 minutes' walk from the most distant classroom building on campus) will set you back a whopping $46. I can't imagine cutting a check for $400 just for a place to keep my car for a semester.
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Jan 14, 2015 05:30
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InEscape posted:Something was very off about your story last year and there is something very off about this story also. Are you living in the dorms still? If so, why? It sounds like you're roughly 22-23 and dorms are often not a healthy place to live if you have mental health issues. Living off-campus will help alleviate the pressure from some of the draconian rules that are covered under "conduct violations". 23, yeah. I want to move out at the end of the term, but I'll get nailed with an early-move out fine. It might be worth it. The only reason I was on campus this year was because I moved to an entirely different state, so I knew nobody here and didn't want isolation to feed into my depression. I'm in apartments on campus, so not quite dorms but still obnoxious with the policy stuff. This is honestly the first issue I've had with this school, so I'm hoping it's only a random issue and not something that will be repeated, like my previous school. Also holy crap I can't believe you remember my other post haha.
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Jan 14, 2015 07:34
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One of my profs is currently getting us to use Google Classroom and Drive because "Blackboard isn't in the real world so you might as well get used to what they might use at your future job", but so far hasn't figured out how to actually share any course material to our Drives.
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Jan 17, 2015 03:29
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A White Guy posted:Christ, the worst part about these dreams is that they always happen when you're done with it. I had a dream last night where I was absolutely sure that I had completely failed a final, and not finished the term paper at the same time. I actually missed a final. I got put on the wrong mailing list, so I went to the scheduled final for a separate, but related class. I did pretty well on the wrong final, everything worked out with getting a makeup, and I stopped having those dream.
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Jan 17, 2015 04:55
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GOTTA STAY FAI posted:I'm not sure this is par for the course at every law school, but a buddy of mine recently graduated from a state university's law school, and he explained that the lowest-scoring X% of students would automatically fail at the end of the semester. I'd never do it, but I can certainly see the appeal of getting to the law library first and stealing the one book the whole class needs for an assignment in order to guarantee you get a leg up on everyone else. I guess you just have to have a "do whatever it takes" mindset to succeed there, even if "whatever it takes" means loving everyone else over. What drove me nuts was we apparently had instances of pre-meds destroying/sabotaging lab stations in a quant analysis lab, so everyone else's lab results would be off while theirs would be more accurate, gaining them more points. The graders at least gave the afternoon classes a few extra points to make up for it slash went easier on allowed ranges. :/
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Jan 17, 2015 09:42
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GOTTA STAY FAI posted:Shittalk the rural Midwest all you want, but one thing we have in spades (other than corn) is space. A whole year's worth of parking at the central hub lot at the state university in my town (a lot <10 minutes' walk from the most distant classroom building on campus) will set you back a whopping $46. I was also in the Midwest, and parking was free. All you had to do was register your plates with your student ID and you got your window tag for the year. I can't imagine having to PAY for the privilege of driving to campus and having space to park on top of the already ludicrous tuition. It was a small private STEM school though, and I think they knew we probably would have leveled the admin building if they tried to pull that poo poo on us.
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Jan 17, 2015 14:52
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Tunicate posted:I actually missed a final. Once I showed up to a final two days late. I got a zero on the final and failed the class. Nothing bad happened and my life went on. I've never had one of those dreams.
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Jan 17, 2015 22:02
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Why are university students using Internet Explorer? They were using it to access Google Drive. I just feel so lost. How does this happen? I'm 33, and most of them are 19. It makes sense for me to know what IE is, but how the hell do they know? Did they only ever use Grandma's computer to play Club Penguin up until now?
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Jan 22, 2015 08:19
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The work order forms at my university required Internet Explorer, but that was just some legacy business software they're too cheap to upgrade. This was the UC system, though, where are you?
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Jan 22, 2015 08:25
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Business students in Calgary in an entrepreneurship course. There is no hope. And this is coming from someone in an "Ecotourism and Outdoor Leadership" major. I'm supposed to be the anti-tech hippie Luddite if we're going by stereotypes and preconceived notions.
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Jan 22, 2015 08:50
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Just had to pay $80 to access mymathlab. Pearson themselves wanted $118.
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Jan 22, 2015 12:20
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