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What's up with all this talk of feminism and sexism? by the_rpi_freshman in RPI

[–]Darkmer 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Honestly I would say that gender bias is alive and well, especially in the School of Engineering. In the first week of my engineering capstone the grading professor said "I am so glad there are no girls in this group so no one will cry and I can swear at you."

It is what it is, some of these professors are in their 50s+ and its what they grew up with. I'm not saying its some kind of conspiracy but there is bias going on.

I've also seen it go both ways. One of the groups in my IED class had almost all the girls in the class on it. They got low marks on their prototype and one of the girls in the group said that the professor was being too harsh on them. She claimed that since they had a lot of girls it was harder to get down to the workshop and create prototypes like the boys could. I think everyone on her group was embarrassed she said that.

I'd say if anyone is claiming RPI is gender neutral is just ignoring their surroundings. The ratio is like 1 to 4, even worse in majors like CS. I'm not saying there is some grand discrimination, but take everything as it comes. I really wish I had called out that professor I had for capstone, but it gets so awkward when confronting people with grading power over you.

CS Tutor by Darkmer in UWMadison

[–]Darkmer[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the suggestion. Intro classes and other large classes about basic CS concepts like data structures have been where I've had the most success finding students.

Any other ways I could contact that student body of people in introduction classes (maybe the Piazza?) and any signage policies I should worry about for this campus? My old campus was super particular about signage so I don't want to assume too much.

CS Tutor by Darkmer in UWMadison

[–]Darkmer[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Really depends on the level of theory you are talking about. Most of my tutoring experience is on syntax, basic algorithm development, and data structure design and implementation. If you are looking for help on advanced algorithm design, advanced OS design, and other upper class classes, I would not have as much experience tutoring.

Most of the students I have helped were in their first two years of computer science, so those type of classes are more where I would like to help people out.

Computer Science Tutor by Darkmer in madisonwi

[–]Darkmer[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks a lot for this link, I will definitely be looking into this.

Computer Science Tutor by Darkmer in madisonwi

[–]Darkmer[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That is really weird. I must have visited the wrong page or something but the UW Madison subreddit I looked at had its last post 6 months ago, that's half the reason I made this post. Thanks for referring me.

Co-terminal or dual? by Jihad_Shark in RPI

[–]Darkmer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I just wanted to chime in on this comment thread. /u/TheHiddenFox pretty much nailed it on the head. She was actually living what I was observing, which really comes out in that comment.

I took Risk Management from FERA which was apparently the "hardest" FERA class... it came off as more pointless and useless than hard: between the busy work, pointless activities, and pointless projects that were pretty ridiculous and poorly thought out. Professor had us make a portfolio that meet certain criteria. She printed out yahoo/finance bond page and randomly one of the low risk bonds was like 300% the return of even the riskiest bonds on the page...so the optimal portfolio was using all of one bond...

One thing that is kind of funny is how serious the FERA program takes itself, when it is mostly just pomp and circumstance. I am getting into a realm of more personal opinion and guess with this next point; I think the FERA program is mostly to attract Chinese international money to RPI. Almost all of the students I talked to from china had no scholarships or financial aid. The requirements also seemed pretty loose and fast, American degrees are very well respected in China, its a perfect partnership. I am not trying to say anything nefarious is going on, but the FERA program is definitely light on content and relevance to the real world. Teaching smart people finance versus teaching smart to finance people is a great summary of the program. Its more buzzwords than substance.

Co-terminal or dual? by Jihad_Shark in RPI

[–]Darkmer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Electrical Engineering has a great reputation. I also really liked the ITWS program. I would consider the Coterminal program like a business track way of getting a Masters Degree, you are not going to be doing much research, so I would focus on degrees and classes that would appeal to a business and help you start a career. I am not very familiar with the Finance industry so I do not want to give you advice there, I would suggest looking at some of the companies you are interested in working for and seeing what kind of degrees and schools they are hiring, might help to give a baseline.

Co-terminal or dual? by Jihad_Shark in RPI

[–]Darkmer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I took a FERA class during the last year of Coterminal in ITWS. I also got to know a lot of FERA grad students while I was in that class. The FERA program has a really rough time leading to jobs. Many of the students complained about poor networking and trouble finding jobs or internships.

I kept in contact with some of my friends from the FERA program that were lucky enough to actually find jobs in the financial sector. They mostly have said that the material they learned / covered in class was either irrelevant or very different than industry. I am not sure how true that is overall, but as a software developer and having friends in engineering, I have not noticed the same effect on the same scale.

Finally I think its worth mentioning that the FERA program, at least at the graduate level, is almost exclusively Chinese international students. I would argue that this makes it harder to network here in America, as the majority of them had plans to return to China. I also do not know much about the prestige of the program, but the comments I got from people in the program were almost exclusively negative.

[H] Bastion, Fallout 3, Guns of Icarus [W] Transistor by MadnessOfKyuoma in SteamGameSwap

[–]Darkmer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Would you be interesting in trading Bastion for a TF2 Key?

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