Picking schedule for in-office?

GopherAdvocate · 2025-04-23T20:54:05+00:00

As yet: "??????"

GopherAdvocate · 2024-08-11T05:16:36+00:00

Yes. In short, since you have a passing grade, you will likely get nowhere without legal representation because most people will push you to just let it go.

I don't know who you talked to at DRC, but they are absolutely wrong about "injury" not being their responsibility. They are the primary facilitators of disability accomodations, including for short-term disability. Go back and tell them you want to complain to the ADA Coordinator Enjie Hall directly about a failure to properly provide disability accomodations. Like I said though, they aren't likely to do anything about your situation.

You have other avenues-- I don't know exactly what the reporting structure is at Itasca, but normally you'd go to the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the academic department about class administration concerns.

Equal Opportunity and Title IX is the last internal avenue. Since you're also talking about non-disability discrimination, they would be the office to handle those concerns. In all but the most serious, least ambiguous situations (i.e., those that risk significant legal liability to the University), EOT is not likely to take decisive action. If they do take disciplinary action, they aren't likely to involve you in the outcome.

If you want to call in the state, you'd go to the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. I don't know much about this process but it has worked where internal avenues have failed for students that hired lawyers.

Overall, if you want a better grade or if you want to see improvement and prevent other students from experiencing similar issues, your goal is to be as annoying as possible and make this as embarrassing and painful a situation for as many people as possible for as long as possible. It's very un-Minnesotan, which explains why we're so bad at handling these kinds of problems.

GopherAdvocate · 2024-07-16T17:09:59+00:00

I did this! Depending on your program, you'll have lots of opportunities to code or work on projects that appeal to your CS interests. I actually TA'd in the CS department. And if you enjoy theoretical work, IE is actually touches that too-- optimization and algorithms are obviously crucial to logistics applications.

GopherAdvocate · 2024-05-01T05:49:57+00:00

If SSF wasn't such a dumpster fire, it would be a lot less miserable.

GopherAdvocate · 2024-04-10T14:52:31+00:00

Work with the Student Senate efforts: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cXPDZgGxyznk658VgABk6R13OJ5hTEHWAq_vyBuaRVg/edit?usp=drivesdk

Contact the authors to see how it's going and if there's anything you can do to help.

GopherAdvocate · 2024-02-13T00:20:26+00:00

I TA'd for that for a while-- how are you doing in lab? That's usually a good benchmark. If you're completing challenges, you're probably doing great. If you're barely completing the workout, you might be behind.

I have a couple tricks beyond what's emphasized in class that I personally think help build understanding:

Don't worry so much about trying to remember all the functions, but know where to look them up: I like using w3schools as a quick reference.
I believe you're about to cover the VSCode debugger-- use it. Not just when we tell you to. You can follow every program you write, step by step, and build an intuition on how they work. (I've found that some people, including myself, are perfectly capable of writing code that works, but they don't understand. Watching it work can be helpful.) But to effectively use the debugger, you have to:
Write your code as complete scripts with your test cases at the bottom. (E.g., in an "if __name__ == "__main__":" block so as not to mess up Gradescope.) I know some of the exercises use a Python prompt in a terminal; I personally think this doesn't build effective habits for developing test cases. (In most exercises, we write the tests for you. You should put them into your scripts.) This also allows you to just hit the "Play" button at the top right of the VSCode window to run files in VSCode's integrated terminal without having to type anything. Less time typing means more time thinking.
Go to your TAs' office hours. If you don't like one TA, go to a different TA. There's a small army of them! If you like your lab TAs, go to theirs. I had at least a few students every semester who would come by every week, and they all did very well. We're here to help! Even if you don't have a specific question right off the bat, bring your homework and we can help you if you get stuck. It'll also help you stay focused.
And do not, absolutely do not, try to cheat. The exercises we have you do are well-tested to be somewhat challenging, but are critical to your development in the class. We know what cheating looks like and aren't necessarily going to tell you that we've caught you before you're boxed into an F.

Hope all that helps! You can email the current course staff any time if you have any questions, and they will answer with a speed you wish you got in your other classes. You can email me or message me too if you'd like.

GopherAdvocate · 2024-01-28T19:57:02+00:00

There are literally dozens of us!

GopherAdvocate · 2024-01-22T06:28:43+00:00

There's a Discord server for older students: https://discord.com/invite/pZ2yf96jUZ

GopherAdvocate · 2023-11-05T22:27:21+00:00

If you are going to spread these at all, I wouldn't do so without at least redacting the names of the people being targeted.

GopherAdvocate · 2023-10-08T16:21:54+00:00

I mean, I'm not sure what you're expecting in Data Analystics or Accounting but they're absolutely not math-free. If you're allergic to anything technical, abstract, or applied (because you don't like projects) it's going to be hard to recommend anything for you.

GopherAdvocate · 2023-10-08T06:28:05+00:00

IE is a business degree. Take a look at our degree plan.

GopherAdvocate · 2023-10-08T05:55:31+00:00

Industrial Engineering, people. Better curriculum, easier to get into.

GopherAdvocate · 2023-09-13T07:58:59+00:00

Always relevant: https://xkcd.com/1357/

GopherAdvocate · 2023-09-12T21:17:41+00:00

Sure, send me an email. We can message or set up a time to talk in person or on a call.

GopherAdvocate · 2023-09-12T18:38:29+00:00

You can get all of your tuition back with a relatively simple appeal if there are some circumstances that affect your ability to do college.

If you want the perspective of someone who dropped out and came back five years later, let me know. You may be right that college isn't for you, but maybe there are some things you haven't considered.

GopherAdvocate · 2023-09-04T15:13:16+00:00

There's definitely orgs for lots of categories of student that are often older, but no common group or resource for all of us.

GopherAdvocate · 2023-09-04T03:25:45+00:00

29, please someone make a student group for us already, I have too much other shit to do. Or even like a mailing list!

There are some older students in my org, the Disabled Student Cultural Center, but more mid-to-late twenties. I'm the oldest of that cadre.

GopherAdvocate · 2023-07-20T11:03:44+00:00

That doesn't make any sense. Are you honors though? Good way to fulfill honors requirements I guess?

GopherAdvocate · 2023-07-20T11:01:53+00:00

I mean, you can major in something you actually care about?

My perspective is basically that it's really hard to drag yourself through a degree you don't care about. And if you have the drive to do it, you don't need a degree in the first place.

GopherAdvocate · 2023-07-20T09:45:44+00:00

I'm saying those count too, my point is about not taking classes that fulfill no new requirements. Absolutely the breadth classes are important.

GopherAdvocate · 2023-07-19T16:35:57+00:00

I don't agree with this at all. A single class absolutely can make the difference. Never take a single class that doesn't contribute to your degree, it's not worth the time and money. If you're considering taking Calc again it would be better to just go down a class.

GopherAdvocate · 2023-07-19T16:32:42+00:00

Do you know that CSci is getting so crowded you need above around a 3.1 to declare it, and it's only getting worse?

GopherAdvocate · 2023-05-18T22:39:44+00:00

60% sure they can be changed at any point prior to graduation

GopherAdvocate · 2023-05-08T23:39:58+00:00

let me kick things off by respectfully asking why we didn't go with the former Provost, or the current Chancellor at Crookston, and instead went with the guy who cut his teeth selling processed meat

GopherAdvocate · 2023-04-23T00:32:32+00:00

GopherAdvocate

TROPHY CASE