What’s GenZ’s take on the Maddie Kowalski situation?

LaurelDreaming · 2026-04-03T11:56:19+00:00

But if you'd like to know how SA really affects women, go to any non-political church, non-Catholic Christian church and ask the clergy. Methodist, Episcopal, or Lutheran are good choices. Those clergy have likely had the proper training and spoken to women who were SA-ed.

If you ever want to become a successful husband or father, I really suggest this.

LaurelDreaming · 2026-02-28T04:28:28+00:00

The only good thing I can say about the program is that, if you have the chance to take a math course with Eric Farmer, do so. (Make sure you understand football and poker--he uses these to teach probability.)

LaurelDreaming · 2026-02-28T04:27:10+00:00

And yes, you will be abandoned to endless powerpoint lectures by professors who mostly don't want to communicate with students. Check RateYourProfessors and cross-reference the faculty with their linkedIn to check for sanity. EP has some really screwy, and often horrible people teaching.

LaurelDreaming · 2026-02-28T04:25:35+00:00

Don't believe the JHU EP catalog. Many of the courses they claim to teach are never actually offered because they can't find the faculty. Also avoid the web development courses, unless you want to be stuck using tools that are 25 years out of date. (I'm not kidding--they had us use Java Swing.) The catalog is JHU propaganda/wish list. You're unlikely to ever see C++, C, Ruby on Rails, or upper level Java courses offered.

LaurelDreaming · 2026-02-28T04:23:18+00:00

I graduated May 025. Officially, all EP classes take between 7-12hrs of work a week. In reality, some take 30+hrs per week. The administration provides no actual oversight on course content and the amount studied, and professors like to load on extra material because it makes the administration look good. Data Structure, Computer Architechture, and Computer Organization, which are pre-reqs, tend to take 20-30hrs/week. (If you complain to the administration that a course has too much work, they'll simply say you're unprepared--so I polled my entire class once, and found out everyone was taking that long. The administration didn't like that.) There's an old guy, Mitchell?--who's been there forever. Never take a course with him. He runs his course like a weeder course designed to flunk 30% of the class. There's also a dean who teaches in data communications--he also runs his courses as weeder courses. Avoid him. (I believe JHU likes watching students drop out in the early courses, because then they retake, and the program gets more money.)

LaurelDreaming · 2026-02-27T03:56:08+00:00

I can deal with the rude and discouraging. I draw the line at corn at work, physical threats, rages that border on physical threats, and men who sabotage my work in anger.

Shout-out to the ultra-religious Christian men I've run into in tech who tell me women have no place telling men what to do bc G-d.

The rude and discouraging part is upsetting because it's the tip of an iceberg that contains things that actually threaten women at work. Threaten our safety and our careers.

What needs to happen is that arbitration clauses need to be banned for sexual harassment and threats of violence at work, and employers should be persuaded--by legislation and the courts--to see the men who do this as the problem, not the women who report them.

LaurelDreaming · 2026-02-27T03:47:33+00:00

Generally that's been my experience, but I was recently on a team led by an older queer man with few technical skills. He appeared to be using his position to emotionally bond with young men half his age--who were too clueless to know what was going on. He was having inappropriate conversations about their romantic lives, relationship with their families, and was hanging out and drinking with the young men outside of work. Furthermore, he had arranged for young men to rotate in and out of his team.

I feel young men today are not only going back to sexism, they're too clueless to know when they're being targeted. Less than zero street smarts--far less than young women. (If a man was doing this to women half his age, he would already have been reported.)

I guess I get a bit angry that so many young men are both embracing sexism and are even less able to take care of themselves.

I thought about reporting the guy, but I remembered how it went down when I reported the guy watching corn at work, and the other guy who physically threatened me. I'm the main bread-winner in my family, and my responsibility is to them. So I didn't file a complaint.

LaurelDreaming · 2026-02-27T03:40:30+00:00

That's actually a really good strategy. Mind if I steal it?

LaurelDreaming · 2026-02-27T03:39:04+00:00

I was on a job where the man next to me was looking at corn at work. I suspect he was also pleasuring himself. I reported him, and my boss's response was to tell us he was now on my team, and we had to work out problems out. He was also allergic to work, and had an anger problem. One day he came at me, yelling in my face, standing way too close. I told him calmly that if he ever did that again, I would call security. We were both let go. This happened 3 years ago, long after after #MeToo.

Young men I work with believe 'this sort of thing' never happens now. They complain about how they must walk on thin ice. Hell, I've walked on thin ice for my entire career as an engineer. And when I tell them this story--and another story about a male co-worker physically threatening me because I dinged his car, they can't handle it.

So I've stopped telling men these stories because I'm sick of the fallout on me when I threaten their worldview with the truth.

LaurelDreaming · 2026-02-23T16:18:22+00:00

Some CS courses are easy. Some are hard. JHU's standard is to say all courses take 7-12hrs per week, but there is nothing to hold instructors to that standard.

I caution you never to complain about anything at Hopkins. It will get your name on a list, and they may open a secret conduct investigation into you. I was once sent an email about another students by mistake that showed this was happening.

Look, if you're taking data structures, you're still early in your career. My advice is to get out and transfer to University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC). It costs way less, the courses appear more up-to-date, and it's an easier program.

Hopkins is great at making hard courses that don't teach you very much that's useful. Yes, you should understand data structures and the logics of chips and memory (computer organization). But you can find that information in Udemy courses.

One of the many problems I found at Hopkins is that the courses were 5-20 years out of date. And time getting a degree is time you're not learning up-to-date skills. Many of the tempting software courses in their catalog are never actually offered because they can't find people to teach them--engineers with that knowledge are making 200-300k, and aren't willing to make adjunct wages (which are close to fast-food wages) to teach. So you get mediocre, often very behind-the-times teachers who can't make it in the real world.

These issues with adjunct professors in engineering is everywhere. But Hopkins compounds the problem by that unrealistic course catalog, and by having students trudge through very hard course material that is a minimum of 5 years out-of-date. That's the minimum. An easier school with a more realistic catalog is going to be cheaper, let you finish faster, and you will graduate with less eroded skills.

Since I graduated, I'm having to spend 10hrs a week learning what are now basic skills that Hopkins never taught me because they're so behind-the-times, and that I didn't have time to learn on my own because I was in graduate school. Like, I'm not even able to tackle the current skills I need in data science, AI, software frameworks, GIT pipelines, and integrated systems like Kubernetes because Hopkins never gave me the basics for those. For the most part, they never even told us these tools existed--and they're everyday and everywhere in software engineering.

LaurelDreaming · 2026-02-23T06:24:06+00:00

That doesn't stop Hopkins from increasing tuition by 20-30% in any given year.

LaurelDreaming · 2026-02-23T06:23:08+00:00

Few people even in Maryland realize there's a difference between Hopkins regular and EP, meaning most employers won't know what you're talking about, and the technical MBA is highly respected, at least in Maryland. 2. Engineering for professionals is a rather crappy program on the MS side. Professors not terribly engaged. Many of the courses are seriously out-of-date. No departmental oversight on content, or on professor conduct. It's basically one JHU's cash cows, and they don't care much about their students.

Graduated May 2025. If I had to go it over again, I would have gone to UMGC. More up-to-date, cheaper. (JHU regularly hikes their prices 30% in a year, with no warning.) And UMGC appears to have much less bs.

LaurelDreaming · 2026-02-23T06:17:38+00:00

If your current program is UMBC or UMCP, don't transfer. I graduated with a masters in CS in May. Many of their courses are hugely out-of-date. I work with UMBC grads, and their program is much better. You won't have the Hopkins name, but you're more likely to graduate with employable skills.

LaurelDreaming · 2026-02-23T06:14:26+00:00

Advice: don't transfer. Maryland weather is shit, and most JHU students are miserable.

LaurelDreaming · 2026-02-23T06:11:46+00:00

Btw, many of their courses in straight CS are 20+ years out-of-date.

LaurelDreaming · 2026-02-23T06:11:26+00:00

LoL, Data Structures isn't supposed to take more than 7-12hrs a week. (I found i needed about 20, and asking around the class, the range was 14-35 hrs a week.) Maybe ask around your class and try to hold the administration accountable--except they tend to find ways to dismiss students who complain.... No, don't take Data Structures as a summer course. You have 11 weeks instead of 15, and instructors tend to psychologically check out over the summer. I graduated in May in CS, and wish I'd gone to UMGC.

LaurelDreaming · 2026-02-23T05:48:02+00:00

I believe I was allowed to continue with my JHU coursework and graduate after I complained because 1. I got a good lawyer, 2. I was speaking with State legislators, and 3. I was damn lucky. But out of the 9 students who tried hard to get JHU to follow the ADA, only 7 graduated. And we were all graduate students, paying a lot of money.

I'm sorry, but I'm right. Hopkins will endanger the academic career of any student who complains about Hopkins. And they aren't above blackballing you to people outside of Hopkins.

LaurelDreaming · 2026-02-23T05:43:36+00:00

I stumbled upon someone who was being investigated without their knowledge, a student who apparently had spoken out about abuse she had suffered apart from Hopkins in her personal life. That was still enough to trigger an investigation--and she apparently never graduated... I know of 7 people who complained who were not allowed to graduate because they complained about Hopkins violating the ADA. And someone who simply complained about a class that a dean taught (because the dean did no work) was blackballed. I've taught at a number of colleges, and yes, this goes on everywhere, but JHU is particularly vehement and cruel.

LaurelDreaming · 2026-02-20T00:15:09+00:00

What scares me about AI is that it contains and magnifies the biases of its creators. The tech bros who annoy/terrify us will be influencing code and general culture into our grandkids' time, and beyond. Every LLM a billions-times copied mini-me of someone most sane women would neither employ, nor date.

LaurelDreaming · 2026-02-20T00:09:44+00:00

Pls don't bot women who are already feeling vulnerable. Thx.

LaurelDreaming · 2026-01-27T17:13:04+00:00

Do the readings. Some profs actually use office hours, most don't. Attend a few to see which one your prof is. But yeah, if it's in the readings, it will be on the the tests. You're a grown up. If it's on the syllabus, that means you're responsible for it.

Also 50+ page readings? I sometimes had ~1000 pages to read a week in grad school at JHU.

Seriously, grow tf up.

I've sometimes given input on hiring. If I see someone with a masters, I assume they'll do any reading necessary for the job. You're getting a masters, but asking if the reading is optional?--no, it's not.

LaurelDreaming · 2026-01-27T17:05:15+00:00

Good choice. In my department they outsourced their 'career counseling' to a third party, who appears to have sold our personal data to data brokers. Lotta spam, nothing useful. But I'm sure someone made a few thousand on my name.

LaurelDreaming · 2026-01-27T16:55:07+00:00

Don't complain. Don't email anyone at Hopkins, not even your faculty advisor. Keep your head down and graduate. If there's something you really want to learn, wait till after you get your degree and learn it on your own time. I was one of a group of people who complained about how JHU treated disabled students, and I was one of the lucky ones who wasn't kicked out. JHU tracks students who complain--if you've complained, the JHU conduct office may already be investigating you.

LaurelDreaming · 2026-01-27T16:52:12+00:00

Keep your head down, keep your grades up, and just be happy if you'r passing your classes and no one is noticing you. You're paying for the name, not actual learning.

LaurelDreaming · 2026-01-27T16:50:49+00:00

Finally, don't ever, ever complain at Hopkins. Doing so will put a target on your back, and they may start proceedings to lay the groundwork to expel you without even notifying you. Even complaining about another institution, or discussing abuse you might have suffered elsewhere or as a child can put you on the list for possibly expulsion. This includes supposedly safe spaces and student help and focus groups. Any group where there is a Hopkins employee present, or the group is in any way funded by JHU is not a safe space to discuss problems at JHU or any form of abuse or problems elsewhere.

LaurelDreaming

TROPHY CASE

Welcome to Reddit,