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Author Topic: University/College  (Read 435558 times)

Gemmwah

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Re: University/College
« Reply #500 on: 03 Mar 2011, 08:36 »

Nominations for the student board close in less than 24 hours. My manifesto is written, all questions asked have been answered, my publicity has been designed and printed, and all I need now is a thumb drive to save it all to, a couple of passport photos, and a tenner. Then I will officially be a candidate for the UPSU student elections this year and I am going to kick so much ass WOOOWOWOWOWOWOOOOO!
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Re: University/College
« Reply #501 on: 03 Mar 2011, 10:51 »

So it turns out I need a stats class to get into most / all MPA programs, and in order to graduate I need to take a 300-level course. Which means I'll probably have to take "Introduction to Statistical Methods" over the Summer. It will probably be grueling! But it's necessary.
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Elizzybeth

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Re: University/College
« Reply #502 on: 03 Mar 2011, 13:16 »

English/Cultural Studies (which I assume means lots of critical theory) and Philosophy of Science are both mad interesting, but seemingly very distinct fields.

In visiting the Rhetoric and Technical Communication program at Michigan Tech last month, I met a lot of people interested/working in the rhetoric of science, which is pretty much cultural studies OF the philosophy of science.

One woman, for example, was interested in the understanding/rhetorical presentation of breastfeeding methods.  Another had done his master's thesis on pamphlets about treatment of diabetes throughout history.

The cool thing about the Michigan Tech program is that their humanities department combines English and Philosophy and Communication and Cultural Studies and so on; so you can have professors from Philosophy AND from English on your committee.  It might be worth checking out, Joseph, if you're interested in that sort of thing.
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Re: University/College
« Reply #503 on: 03 Mar 2011, 13:30 »

Hey Guys,

So my B.S. is in the field of Management. Yadda yadda it was an okay show for four years but I think that somewhere along down the road I'd want to start going to school again for things that either interest me or would be helpful in a field I actually want to work in.

The concentrations that I want to look into are either Electrical Engineering and/or Acoustic Engineering or basically something like a Full Sail-type recording school, but accredited. The thing is though, I totally and utterly fucking suck at anything math and science related. The fields I'd be interested in studying probably have a lot to do with those things.

In the future I'd really love to work as a recording engineer in a studio or as a live sound engineer at a concert venue. Currently I run sound at the local bar in town for live music and while I've learned a lot, I'm sure it pales to what I could be learning about at an actual institution.

Uhh... so where do I go from here?
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Elizzybeth

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Re: University/College
« Reply #504 on: 03 Mar 2011, 21:39 »

Out of curiosity, clownshoe, why exactly does it sound like a joke?
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Elizzybeth

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Re: University/College
« Reply #505 on: 03 Mar 2011, 23:45 »

Ah.  So it's the old argument about the importance of the humanities in general (emphasis on the "old": Plato banning the artists from his Republic, etc.).  Not something I want to get into here, really.  I only asked because I thought you might have taken some particular umbrage with the diabetes studies comment.  Suffice to say, most people agree with you.

For the record, though, the field that I'm going into boasts a 95-100% tenure-track placement rate of PhD graduates, which is significantly better than the placement rate for law school grads, into jobs that pay at the higher end of the academic pay scale.  These jobs do, at least in my obviously biased mind, contribute to the "betterment of society": writing program administrators design curriculum for first-year composition courses, train teaching associates, and direct writing centers, in addition to their duties as professors.  The things people say about English majors' job prospects--I can't tell you how many times I've heard the Starbucks-barista-for-the-rest-of-your-life crack--simply aren't true of people going into Composition and Rhetoric.
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Re: University/College
« Reply #506 on: 03 Mar 2011, 23:47 »

So John Jay is out - heard from my department chair that their program, while accredited, is not particularly well regarded. And he knows the assistant dean of admissions at Northeastern who says the MPA program is definitely still in, so Northeastern is back on the table.

Oh well!
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Re: University/College
« Reply #507 on: 04 Mar 2011, 03:37 »

Nominations for the student board close in less than 24 hours. My manifesto is written, all questions asked have been answered, my publicity has been designed and printed, and all I need now is a thumb drive to save it all to, a couple of passport photos, and a tenner. Then I will officially be a candidate for the UPSU student elections this year and I am going to kick so much ass WOOOWOWOWOWOWOOOOO!
I hated my LSS the first year I was involved but this year I am in charge of the sponsorship portfolio and it's pretty fantastic.
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tania

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Re: University/College
« Reply #508 on: 04 Mar 2011, 06:29 »

lucrative career.

grad school is lucrative? where are these money-making programs and why didn't anyone tell me before i signed up for this bullshit

also speaking of "useless" humanities here is a fun email i got from vancouver island university a couple of weeks ago which actually made my blood boil (these specific parts are highlighted)

Quote
Dear Colleagues,

I apologize for the length of this e-mail, which details devastating budget cuts to the Department of Sociology at Vancouver Island University (VIU).

The Sociology Department has been directed to cut $160,000 from our operating budget. We have yet to crunch the numbers, but this reflects in the range of 12 to 15 sections out of our "magic number" of 30 sections (the total number of sections we can offer). We have three part time and three full time faculty members in the department of Sociology.

If this cut goes through as presented, it will leave us with between 15 and 18 sections in total. We will immediately lose two faculty members, and the workload of a third member will likely be greatly reduced (this will depend on the number of sections cut). We will immediately lose our Major, and it is not clear that we will be able to offer a Minor. These cuts are particularly troubling given that we, like every other department in the Social Sciences, are operating at or near capacity. Given the very high demand for all Social Science courses, we find this targeted cut perplexing and deeply disturbing, particularly because we have not been presented with a rationale for why the Sociology department was cut so deeply.

We, like other departments, were expecting that the budget cuts would affect us, but we were not prepared to have our program essentially cancelled. We are trying to absorb the news, working together to strategize as to how to respond, and plan for the effects on our students. With the potential lay-off of three of our faculty members, and with one member on leave, this very difficult work falls in the hands of a few people. We are deeply concerned that a department of 15 to 18 sections is simply not viable, and that our remaining faculty will be vulnerable in the next round of budget cuts.

In addition to our Major and Minor, we play a key role in the Global Studies program, provide electives for the Criminology program and upper level courses for the Women's Studies program, provide courses for the new Political Studies Major, and support to a wide range of programs across campus. We feel that this proposed cut greatly devalues the hard work that we have been doing in the Faculty. We are greatly concerned that the discipline itself will disappear from the intellectual landscape in the Faculty of Social Sciences, and at VIU. In essence, it suggests to us that our department is not of value to the university as a whole, or to the Faculty of Social Sciences.

In this fiscal climate, we do not see that recovery from this kind of cut would be possible, and indeed we believe that the cuts will make it impossible for us to do anything other than service other departments at the first and second year levels. As you might expect, this dramatically alters the working lives of those few department members who have not lost their positions.

Given the discipline's often low public profile, we feel it is important that our colleagues at other institutions know what is happening to Sociology at VIU. In most universities Sociology departments are highly valued and play a key part in the intellectual life of the academy. We are more than saddened that this voice may be silenced at VIU, worried that it may happen at other institutions, and we would appreciate any insight, perspective, or help you might have to offer. Outrage works too.

If you're still reading -- thank you for your patience and support.

nnnggghhgghhhhhhh
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pwhodges

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Re: University/College
« Reply #509 on: 04 Mar 2011, 06:36 »

Oh dear - I thought that sort of thing was a UK special, right now.
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Radical AC

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Re: University/College
« Reply #510 on: 04 Mar 2011, 07:56 »

As far as I know most graduate programs let you do a pretty big change around in direction. My flatmate did his undergraduate degree in Philosophy and came here to do a Masters in Computer Science.

I hear about that stuff from time to time, and would love to do that myself.  I'm getting a Polysci degree next year, and am trying to figure out what undergrad CS classes I would need before a program would even look at me with a BA background.  I'm interested in medicine and computers (neural engineering type stuff) and was just considering trying for another bachelors degree in BME and moving on with that.  If I could skip a lot more undergrad stuff and move on I would absolutely prefer that.  Does anyone know much about doing that kind of thing?

Unrelated university thing.  My state legislature is voting if we(students) should be allowed to have guns on our campuses today.  :psyduck:
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Re: University/College
« Reply #511 on: 04 Mar 2011, 08:43 »

That doesn't sound too good.
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Re: University/College
« Reply #512 on: 04 Mar 2011, 12:30 »

I wrote some long thing about why humanities are important, but whatever. They give you a chance to use the other side of your brain and help your education to be more well rounded. And considering there are so many of them, suck it up and find something that interests you. (This "you" is a a general "you", not anyone specific.)
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Re: University/College
« Reply #513 on: 04 Mar 2011, 12:40 »

I didn't mean to sound combative, clownshoe; I'm sorry if it came across that way.  And I don't think it's at all irrational to choose computer science over the humanities.  My boyfriend's getting his bachelor's in computer science, and he can make up to $100/hr coding blogs for people... with a Master's in English, I make about $12/hr.  I am trying to teach myself php so I can get small coding jobs on the side, because it's incredibly lucrative. If you choose to go into a field because you love it, you have to acknowledge the fact that you may not make as much as someone who does a trade that's in high demand. 

It was only your "betterment of society" comment that irked me, but I realize that you're simply parroting things you've been told.  And it only irked me because I've been told the same thing, many, many times.  So if you detected any bitterness in my tone, it was not directed at you but at thousands of years of people claiming society would be better if all those pesky artists and writers and actors and musicians would stop farting around do something worthwhile for once like fighting in a war or making Wordpress themes, goddamnit.
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Re: University/College
« Reply #514 on: 05 Mar 2011, 10:01 »

I'm currently working on a post-master's degree, mostly because at my current salary, I can't afford the payments on the student loans from my bachelor's and master's, and I don't have to make those payments as long as I am enrolled in school at least half time.  Of course, I'm taking more student loans to finance this degree, which will do little or nothing to enhance my salary.  :psyduck:

I'm basically a one-man academic pyramid scheme. 8-)
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jhocking

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Re: University/College
« Reply #515 on: 05 Mar 2011, 13:16 »

My attitude about college is getting rather muddled. I'm very glad I went to not only undergrad but grad school, but I wonder to what extent all that schooling actually improved my life. Like, I don't regret any of it but at the same time I have to take stock of the fact that I earned a bachelor's degree in biology, a master's degree in fine arts, and now I spend most of my time doing computer programming. huh?

Although I'm maybe better off not having studied computer science, because I see so many people whose minds are warped by Java.

Unrelated university thing.  My state legislature is voting if we(students) should be allowed to have guns on our campuses today.  :psyduck:

Colbert had a funny bit about how if that law goes through then everyone will get all A's.
« Last Edit: 05 Mar 2011, 13:38 by jhocking »
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Elizzybeth

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Re: University/College
« Reply #516 on: 05 Mar 2011, 13:27 »

Michigan Tech, which I mentioned earlier in this thread, actually has a firing range on campus (in the student union).  Bizarre!
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horsefish

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Re: University/College
« Reply #517 on: 05 Mar 2011, 14:43 »

When I went to U. of Arizona, there was a firing range in the basement of the old gym, right across the hall from the Student ID office.  (this is the same gym that served as the ad-hoc nerd barracks in the original Revenge of the Nerds, which was filmed there :-D)
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Elizzybeth

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Re: University/College
« Reply #518 on: 05 Mar 2011, 15:07 »

When I went to U. of Arizona, there was a firing range in the basement of the old gym, right across the hall from the Student ID office.  (this is the same gym that served as the ad-hoc nerd barracks in the original Revenge of the Nerds, which was filmed there :-D)

Amurrka.

(edit: quote added for pagebreak)
« Last Edit: 05 Mar 2011, 15:12 by Elizzybeth »
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Radical AC

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Re: University/College
« Reply #519 on: 05 Mar 2011, 20:08 »

Radical, I would imagine that each school would have different views on admitting someone into their CS grad program with little to no experience. I imagine most schools that would accept a non-CS grad would want a couple intro programming courses, and a data structures/algorithms course. This would allow you to have some experience with the method and logic of programming. A good start would be to sit down with someone in the CS department at your school.

That's really good advice.  I've been looking at other programs because I plan to move when I get my BA, but never considered talking to an advisor for the programs I have here. Thanks.

I know Utah is currently the only state (it is in their state constitution) where you can CCW anywhere on any of their campuses.  Arizona and Texas are looking at a similar law to, where I am, Idaho.  I just don't see how all the upperclassmen being armed would enhance my university experience.  I guess Revenge of the Nerds would have been a lot shorter if they took their revenge with guns.
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Re: University/College
« Reply #520 on: 06 Mar 2011, 15:08 »

I completed that 3000-word paper on connectomics today, and in celebration, I killed a thousand demons in Painkiller: Redemption.

Now all that's left to do is to complete the data analysis assignment I'm doing with four other people. It turned out pretty okay, seeing as the tasks could be distributed easily, but I still get a bad feeling every time we need to do a group project.

With every assignment that you're doing with three people or more, one person (or more) is inevitably going to slack off and have the other two (or more) people do all the work. I've had projects where I was the slacker and projects where I was doing all the work, and I've found that the hard workers can often facilitate others slacking off by leaving them no work to do because 'they will mess it up anyway'. It sucks both ways.

For me, the ideal collaboration is between two people, so that both involved feel that they have responsibility towards the other, and that it will inevitably go wrong if they go behind each other's backs. It's better than working alone, when you have no one to tell you off when slacking.

So how are your experiences with group projects? Good, or bad?
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Re: University/College
« Reply #521 on: 06 Mar 2011, 16:37 »

A lot of colleges that have been around for a while have/had a firing range. It was pretty common to have a competitive rifle team up until later in the 20th century. Some colleges still have competitive shooting teams. Colorado State has a shotgun team that goes around the country for competitions. They don't shoot clays on campus, though.
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jhocking

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Re: University/College
« Reply #522 on: 06 Mar 2011, 17:35 »

A lot of colleges that have been around for a while have/had a firing range. It was pretty common to have a competitive rifle team

Yeah my highschool had a riflery team. The new law under scrutiny isn't just to allow guns on campus but to allow students to carry around concealed handguns:
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/22/texas-weighing-concealed-handguns-on-campus/

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Re: University/College
« Reply #523 on: 06 Mar 2011, 17:56 »

Yeah. I didn't want to get into another goddamn gun debate, though. It always turns into "Well I feel" this, and "Well I feel" that.

CSU has allowed guns on campus for a long time, and most of the community colleges in Colorado were forced to as well, by a lawsuit last year. It's to allow people that already have concealed handgun permits to carry on campus. Practically, that also means they can carry to and from campus, while previously they would have to leave it at home since there are no private gun safes on the edge of campus.

Fun fact, pretty much the same bill was going through Texas legislature in '09. It was looking like it would pass, but then a filibuster of a completely unrelated bill ran the rest of the bills out of time.
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Re: University/College
« Reply #524 on: 07 Mar 2011, 00:35 »

So how are your experiences with group projects? Good, or bad?

I've been pretty lucky with group assignments so far as most of the time I've gotten to be in groups with people who I am friends with and who are not shit at the class. My thesis this year is going to be based on group work though and as far as I know the groups are allocated based on people living near each other. I live an hour and a half away from my university so I don't know how this is going to go.
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Re: University/College
« Reply #525 on: 07 Mar 2011, 00:51 »

I haven't done a group assignment since I was sixteen, unless you count the intra-college mooting competition we had to do in first year and even then we just divided up the work and got on with it alone. I don't understand why a university degree would include group work in its assessment, since it is so easy for someone else's work to influence your grade. Then again, I don't really understand how the American and American-style university system works at all.
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Re: University/College
« Reply #526 on: 07 Mar 2011, 00:57 »

When I did group work you had the individual's mark and then a mark for the whole presentation. This was good because one guy was supposed to be in another group but didn't go to it and got shoved into ours, and never came to any of the meetings we had. The rest of the presentation was good, but his part rambled and went off topic and we had to try and fix it on the fly. I think we might have gained some marks for showing we knew enough about the topic to cover for this idiot, but still.
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jhocking

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Re: University/College
« Reply #527 on: 07 Mar 2011, 05:27 »

I don't understand why a university degree would include group work in its assessment, since it is so easy for someone else's work to influence your grade.

Well the counter argument is that in the real world everything you do is group work and you are never judged in isolation of the influence of your colleagues.

I mean, I suppose it depends on the discipline, so saying "everything is group work" is hyperbole.

I think we might have gained some marks for showing we knew enough about the topic to cover for this idiot, but still.

Good teachers will count highly a smooth recovery from disaster. Life is a series of mishaps after all, and what's really important is how you recover from them. I once received praise after a presentation where my slides got corrupted so I just went to the blackboard and drew them.
« Last Edit: 07 Mar 2011, 05:34 by jhocking »
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Re: University/College
« Reply #528 on: 07 Mar 2011, 05:42 »

I hate group projects and always have. I was REALLY lucky to have been grouped with very good people for my teaching this quarter (we were excellent and completely rocked our unit), but even though all the grad students are very smart in my program, there are some who I don't want to work with. Some people are FAR too pushy or too emotional and when shoved into a group together, this creates a ton of problems. One of my friends got put into a group like that and his group is doing horribly. I feel bad, because I know he's an excellent teacher, but he's not a confrontational guy and his group can't stop fighting with each other. (He also got thrown under the bus by a group member because she's terrified of our professor, which honestly I do not get.)

Also I was about to kill some people for a group presentation for putting off meeting for so long, but we cranked it out and did a great presentation, so I don't want to kill them anymore. But I sure as hell don't want to do that ever again. (We put an hour long presentation together in two days and one of the members didn't even contact anyone until the night before it was due, so we had to insert her into part of it, even though she did no work.)

I mean, I completely understand that working with other people is important, but doing it ALL THE TIME (like I have with one of my classes) is not cool. We're adults with different work schedules and heavy course loads and having to find the time between class, work, and actually doing homework to meet with people who also have these constraints and probably families, too, is just too much. I'm tired of group projects. I want to do stuff on my own. Also I hate that some of my classes are mixed with undergrads. Some of them are lazy or just don't care and I don't want to work with them, but sometimes I have to. Some of them are super cool, but most of them are not. (The undergrads are just getting a teaching license, which are dual or grad level courses they're taking for undergrad credit.)
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Re: University/College
« Reply #529 on: 07 Mar 2011, 05:43 »

i haven't had any problems with group work during the course of my grad studies because, in massive contrast to my undergrad experience, every single person in my program is really smart and really, really wants to be here. if anything, the level of hard work and determination to achieve that is demonstrated by everyone on a near constant basis is pretty intimidating. grad school in my experience tends to attract a much more serious breed of student because it demands so much more effort and quality in student work. the programs and coursework are designed so that it's near impossible to just cruise through on mediocrity - you can't really succeed in any capacity unless you're actually committed to your research in some way or another. if i get anything less than a B+ average, i actually fail out of my program, a prospect that most students here do not take lightly at all because almost everyone in my program (including me) isn't actually from vancouver at all but moved from much, much further away just to attend the school. however, i'm also speaking from experience in my own program which has a reputation for being fairly selective and competitive, so the types of students you find in grad studies probably varies based on school and program.
« Last Edit: 07 Mar 2011, 05:45 by tania »
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Re: University/College
« Reply #530 on: 07 Mar 2011, 19:31 »

Yeah, I took a few college courses in high school via a local community college and on a couple of occasions group work just meant that I did the entire thing.
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Re: University/College
« Reply #531 on: 07 Mar 2011, 19:34 »

Admittedly, it may have been because I was an absolute tyrant at 17.
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Re: University/College
« Reply #532 on: 07 Mar 2011, 19:41 »

I straight up told a group once that I didn't want to meet with them. But I was a sophomore, didn't live anywhere near campus, and generally hated my entire class. Yay electives! I think this was the same class that nobody except me and one other lady would answer any questions. And I mean nobody. The only reason I'd answer was because silence was unbearable and I hated it more than I hated my classmates.

But it was an interesting class! We read adventure novels! (Treasure Island, King Solomon's Mines, The Sign of Four, and The Moonstone.) We watched movies and had interesting assignments and...nobody gave a fuck. It made me sad.

This makes me sound like I hated undergrad, which I didn't. I had a good time. My major classes and most of my electives were quite enjoyable. This was just one of the bad ones.
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Nodaisho

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Re: University/College
« Reply #533 on: 07 Mar 2011, 23:01 »

I have always had good results with group projects in college. Granted, this might be because they have all been in my Computer Science classes. Nobody's taking a 3 to 4 credit class that sometimes requires 20+ hours of work per week unless they are really into it.
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Re: University/College
« Reply #534 on: 08 Mar 2011, 05:35 »

My cohort is really, really small so by the time group work really became a thing that was assessed everybody knew each other so groupwork wasn't something that could be weasled out of. Then again there are some people in the course that nobody wants anything to do with which makes it complicated.
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jhocking

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Re: University/College
« Reply #535 on: 08 Mar 2011, 05:46 »

I want to relate here the time back when my fiancee was in business school. One night she vented to me about how her partners for one group assignment were slacking and the assignment was due soon and they were behind, and I nodded along because yeah that's an annoying situation. At the end she took a deep breath and asked "so what should I do?" I was mildly startled by the question because to me the answer's obvious: "do the work."

I know you can feel resentful of lazy partners who are making you do more than they do, and you feel resentful about someone else getting credit for your efforts, but ultimately you need to stop worrying about them and do what's best for you. Yeah they'll get some credit, but the important thing is so will you.


Also, if it makes you feel any better know that it's actually possible for your partners in a group effort to do worse than nothing. I was once involved in a project where I finally just went ahead and did the stuff other people were supposed to be doing, and they got mad at me for doing their job. So not only were they not doing their part, I wasn't allowed to do it either.

Fortunately this wasn't a group assignment but rather a project outside of class so I was able to simply dissolve the team. Note that these were very talented friends of mine, guys who went on to work for Google and Microsoft, but the project was simply a lower priority for them than it was for me.

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Re: University/College
« Reply #536 on: 08 Mar 2011, 19:50 »

Writing a recommendation letter for myself is weird. Especially for a professor who is an eccentric underground comics nerd. I'm so tempted to write, "Lindsey is awesome and knows her shit. The end," but that doesn't make a good letter. I wish it did though.

Also writing formal letters suckssssss. Do not like, this isn't what I want to do, I just want to make pretty things and stuff.
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Re: University/College
« Reply #537 on: 08 Mar 2011, 19:59 »

I've got two letters of rec lined up, strong possibility for a third, but I need to narrow down my grad school options and get some sort of template going.
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Re: University/College
« Reply #538 on: 08 Mar 2011, 20:15 »

Seriously, google how to write/plan rec letters. It was really helpful and I wish I'd done it a long time ago.
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tania

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Re: University/College
« Reply #539 on: 08 Mar 2011, 21:05 »

when i asked one of my professors for a recommendation letter for grad school back in 2010, he quite literally responded with a "oh, okay, what do you want me to say about you?" and then sat down and pretty much wrote it out right in front of me. about a week later he mailed me an extra copy of the letter in addition to the ones he sent out to the universities because for some reason or another he felt it was really important to be transparent and honest about the process, even though my other professors did no such thing and i never found out what they said about me and i don't think this is really a thing professors do. either way, it's been handy as a draft in case i ever need to write another one for any reason... that and it's just kind of cool to have a formal letter on hand telling you how awesome you are whenever you need cheering up.
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Re: University/College
« Reply #540 on: 09 Mar 2011, 12:13 »

I hadn't realised it was standard practice to sign over the envelope when you write a reference, so when I asked my DoS for one and she not only did that but also posted it herself, I was really worried that she had written "May is a total psychopath who is utterly employable and I can't bear to spend a minute in the same room as her, hire someone else" or something.

I mean, there is no reason why she would have written that as none of it is true, but still. It seemed like you wouldn't write a good thing and then go to such great lengths to hide it.

I got the job though, so whatever.
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Re: University/College
« Reply #541 on: 15 Mar 2011, 11:20 »

Ok, so I got an email today from one of the programs I applied to, the one I want to got to most actually, but I don't know what it means and I am freaking out.  Help me oh wise internet. 
Quote
You may have already seen this information in our Facebook group for prospective students (http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/UM-SI-Prospective-MSI-Students-2011/177899965577604), but in a effort to ensure that everyone is working with the same information, I am sending this email with further information on SI Scholarship process.  This information can be found in a blog entry at:http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/sitrenches1/archives/2011/03/si_scholarships.html.

Our SI Scholarships are merit-based, and typically cover half of tuition (regardless of your residency status).

We go through 3-4 rounds of SI Scholarship offers (which typically cover 1/2 of tuition) throughout the term. We just completed the first round (late February/early March). Our next round will be in mid to late April, with the next round in mid to late May.

The first round of SI Scholarships are entirely merit-based. Subsequent rounds will always have merit as the primary factor for consideration, but we will also look at your motivation to attend SI and if there is anything in particular about the nature of your financial need.

These additional factors can be demonstrated by professional, consistent communication with us. You are welcome to submit an additional letter/email for the admissions committee's consideration. I've seen previous admissions committees look at your excitement about SI, your efforts in applying for external fellowships, anything particular about the nature of your need, the connections you make at Visiting Days, the professionalism of your interactions, and other things for the subsequent rounds of SI Scholarship.

Merit is still the primary factor, and by merit we mean the stregnth of your statement of purpose and personal statement, your letters of recommendation, your internship/research/work experience, your academic record including your GRE, demonstration of leadership, service, comfort with ambiguity, etc. It is NOT just your GRE/GPA.

If you have questions or would like to send a communication to the admissions committee, please feel free to email [email protected] or you can email me directly at [email protected]. For more resources regarding finances and aid, please visit http://si.umich.edu/applying/fin-aid.htm.


Does this mean they have made their first offers and I didn't get one?  Should I be writing another letter to the admissions committee telling them I am awesome?  How does one even do that? I wouldn't know how to even frame a letter like that.  I think my "merit" is pretty good.  I have a 3.4 from a good university.  My GRE scores weren't awesome, but I think they were still plenty good for the program I am applying to.  (630 verbal, 610 Quantitative and only a 4.0 on the essay) But what if it is not?

Does this mean I might not find out if I got in until May? I don't think I can wait that long.  Is this completely separate from admissions, and if so how have they finished their first round of offers when offers of admissions were not supposed to be out until late March? 
also what the hell does "comfort with ambiguity" mean? does that mean this whole email is a test to freak me out? 
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Barmymoo

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Re: University/College
« Reply #542 on: 15 Mar 2011, 13:22 »

It sounds to me like they are just making sure everyone is aware of how they make the decision - rather than informing you of their decision, or even telling you when they will do so. The part about "professional, consistent communication" would suggest that if you write to them about something specific (such as an open day or for information about the course or something) they will rate you higher.  In fact it seems like that is an instruction for you to do just that.
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Re: University/College
« Reply #543 on: 15 Mar 2011, 13:42 »

It's mostly a, "Hey, this is how we're doing things, just so you know," not something that's meant to freak you out. Offers are usually sent via snail mail, so keep an eye out. If it doesn't show up in a week, write a letter.
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Elizzybeth

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Re: University/College
« Reply #544 on: 15 Mar 2011, 18:12 »

Re: snail mail, not the case for the schools where I got accepted.  I got rejection letters via snail mail, but acceptances/fellowship offers via email.

I agree though, that that email sounds like a "heads up" email, rather than a "we've already made all our offers" email.
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tania

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Re: University/College
« Reply #545 on: 15 Mar 2011, 18:22 »

deadlines may be different in the states, but i didn't get my first offers until mid-march, and my final one (where i'm at now) until the end of april. don't worry yet.
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tania

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Re: University/College
« Reply #546 on: 16 Mar 2011, 15:56 »

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Re: University/College
« Reply #547 on: 16 Mar 2011, 15:58 »

YEAH TANIA AND ALSO EAT LESS AND STOP HEATING YOUR ROOM, GAWD, DON'T YOU REALISE THERE'S A RECESSION ON?




I am getting cross because all the best, most affordable flats are just over the 3-mile limit from the University Church (meaning I could not live there and fill my residency requirement, which is a requirement to actually graduate). GAH. Some are literally 0.3 miles too far. THAT IS BARELY ANY DISTANCE.
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Re: University/College
« Reply #548 on: 16 Mar 2011, 17:13 »

Is there any chance you could get an exemption if you talked to the person in charge of residency?
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Akima

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Re: University/College
« Reply #549 on: 16 Mar 2011, 18:41 »

this just in: ha ha ha ha but seriously ARE YOU FUCKING JOKING
WTF? Yeah, like people on a tight budget buy coffee from coffee-shops in the first place! It's like "Oh you can easily afford to pay your increased tuition if you just buy one fewer diamond bracelets a year."
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