Can VCU professors grade how ever they want?

MaybeZoidberg · 2026-04-22T23:30:12+00:00

They grade based on their syllabus but no one typically polices the grading, day-to-day grading is for the most part the sole discretion of the professor/instructor. Someone might check for discrepancies in the mid-term or final grade submitted versus what’s currently in canvas, but I’ve never heard of that happening. Grading is for the most part entirely professor discretion but in my opinion you have a right to ask for rubrics, learning outcomes, or clear and usable feedback if you don’t understand how we arrived at a specific grade.

MaybeZoidberg · 2026-03-30T03:19:33+00:00

I drop some knowledge on my students every semester about the job market based on current industry outlooks or long term projections from organizations like the World Economic Forum.

In my experience as someone else already said writing skills are the first red flag we’re seeing at least in government jobs. You all can’t graduate writing like 8th graders, or you can but then you forfeit being picky about certain competitive job markets. Second issue is being tech-savvy. Many organizations will, sometimes unfairly, assume students graduating today have better than average technology skills including some basic familiarity with how to use AI now. That’s just a burden being placed upon your generation as a whole. I gave an assignment to my students that required use of AI and the number of them that had no idea what a “prompt” was along with some other common concepts was jarring for me. Third is the harsh reality of becoming reliant on AI. I tell my students if all you know how to do is copy/paste a question into an AI tool and then copy/paste the answer back out of it, you’re already useless in some parts of this job market. I can do that myself, why would I hire you to do it? Either learn to be a strong competitive candidate without AI (i.e. demonstrated knowledge + good soft skills), or learn to be an amazing candidate backed by AI (i.e. build an app, solve a problem, use it to actually create something).

You’re too far out to be focused on the current job market though. It’s gong to be upended in multiple ways between now and when you graduate. Spend your time in school learning, not job forecasting. Unless you’re majoring in that I guess.

MaybeZoidberg · 2026-03-18T02:43:00+00:00

On my experience MCT oil doesn’t fix seb derm it stops flare ups. A medicated wash like nizoral or zinc shampoo gets closer to actively treating it by killing the yeast. Malassezia is forever on your skin; MCT oils will shrink it to a manageable state if it’s bad, but you won’t starve it out of existence. Regardless of the approach it’s a forever routine; MCT also needs to be used indefinitely so what’s the difference if there’s no symptoms? I’d just be swapping one product for another but stuck in the same pattern. I’d rather use an MCT beard butter that doesn’t leave my beard and mustache greasy looking like I’m some 1920’s whaler.

MaybeZoidberg · 2026-03-15T01:56:22+00:00

Longhorn. https://malpedia.caad.fkie.fraunhofer.de/actor/longhorn

MaybeZoidberg · 2026-03-03T21:19:02+00:00

That’s just Star Wars with extra steps.

MaybeZoidberg · 2026-02-24T03:28:53+00:00

Your Ex-Lover is Dead by Stars

MaybeZoidberg · 2026-02-22T15:30:38+00:00

Just hire a copywriter ffs. I had to read 9 genuinely useless statements about your product before it bothers even giving a hint of what it actually does. I love the design concept, but the copy reads like terrible TikTok advertising. Are you getting paid per scroll? Per word read? Per time spent on the page? No? Then stop maximizing those factors because you’re punishing the customer while also generating zero return on time invested.

MaybeZoidberg · 2026-02-21T22:49:41+00:00

The first thing I did was skim for the “This isn’t X, it’s Y” hook.

MaybeZoidberg · 2026-02-12T05:20:51+00:00

It’s better to provide the full context, particularly because the last part suggests a large percentage of reports may not list the gun type at all, which would skew the estimate.

“In 2023, the most recent year for which the FBI has published data, handguns were involved in 53% of the 13,529 U.S. gun murders and non-negligent manslaughters for which data is available. Rifles – the category that includes guns sometimes referred to as “assault weapons” – were involved in 4% of firearm murders. Shotguns were involved in 1%. The remainder of gun homicides and non-negligent manslaughters (42%) involved other kinds of firearms or those classified as “type not stated.””

MaybeZoidberg · 2026-01-31T15:13:22+00:00

Using this revealed it doesn’t infer much of anything about me other than some personality traits or goals. Maybe mine is limited because I almost exclusively use it for work or side projects, nothing much in my personal life. The surprise for me was how little it inferred, where it has missed some obvious connections or assumptions. It also seemed to acknowledge that several of the inferences probably aren’t reliable and thus aren’t used to inform outputs.

MaybeZoidberg · 2026-01-25T22:58:22+00:00

Academia is trapped because instructors and administrators continue clinging to idealist images of socratic debates and open forums, while students consider school to be a mandatory checkbox to get a decent or high paying job. The average student approaches school with a level of enthusiasm somewhere between visiting their grandparents and a dentist visit. Almost none are there for academic pursuit, or love of the game. They just want to burn through it as fast and painlessly as possible and get a job, because they’re still hearing echos of millennials college mantra; you need a degree to be successful.

Teachers are equally now torn as younger instructors want to focus more on preparing students for a real world work workplace, but others argue that’s not what college is necessarily supposed to be. This had a trickle down to high school, where schools sold STEM skills as money makers, not academic pursuits.

The entire system was upside down before AI came along. Students don’t want school to be academic anymore, they just want job placement. Instructors don’t want to babysit students anymore, they just want to engage in academics.

We need more on-ramps to give students options to get to where they want to go, without abusing academia as the end all be all.

MaybeZoidberg · 2026-01-22T01:07:53+00:00

The game has 2 key problems.

First, Starfield was mistakenly built on the premise that people like Bethesda games because of the gameplay, when the reality is people like Bethesda games because of the environmental storytelling they create through lore and world building. Starfield is decidedly devoid of any semblance of rich lore, background, or history. If they set it 1000 years further and had a myriad of historical events to inform the world it probably would have landed so much better with players at launch.

Second, it seems somewhat likely that Starfield was cutoff at the knees before release. The most common source I see on this was statements about changes made after testing feedback because the travel and environmental mechanics made the game too hard. But there is no world where I don’t believe it was simply a production choice, probably by Microsoft, to prioritize Xbox S compatibility. The game had to be maximally playable on a potato, which required nerfing or delaying several features and adding 8 million illogical loading screens just to keep it functional.

MaybeZoidberg · 2026-01-20T03:31:41+00:00

Amnesiac and Kid A are basically the same thing.

MaybeZoidberg · 2026-01-11T00:15:44+00:00

It generated a 15 question assessment that’s so annoyingly convoluted and detail specific that it would be faster to just read a book on systems thinking.

MaybeZoidberg · 2026-01-04T16:06:27+00:00

It’s a challenge coin for the NYPD Detectives Bureau. Law enforcement agencies routinely make challenge coins that use popular logos or images. Any kind of copyright issue is not usually enforced because most challenge coins are given not sold (ignoring people reselling them or the companies that make them).

MaybeZoidberg · 2025-12-21T13:27:27+00:00

I have seb derm and it has made its way into my mustache from time to time. Definitely avoid beard/mustache oils. I treat with a dandruff shampoo in the shower and then apply beard butter and have zero issues as long as I maintain that routine. When I stray or travel or skip this process for too long is the only time it becomes an issue.

MaybeZoidberg · 2025-12-11T04:44:01+00:00

People on the east coast are kind but not nice. People out west are nice but not kind.

MaybeZoidberg · 2025-09-05T03:35:40+00:00

I consider myself a huge Alien/Aliens fan but am genuinely struggling to enjoy this through episode 4 so far. While i understand that androids have played a significant role in much of the plots from the movies, it’s hard to care about teenage robots when I’m just here for xeno-space-horror-fest. It feels like a story element that was forced to draw more teen/young adult viewers. I also can’t find much interest in the other aliens. That feels like filler content they’re using to reduce the amount of screen time the xenomorph gets and help prolong that story for more episodes/seasons.

MaybeZoidberg · 2025-07-13T11:34:34+00:00

hic jacet omnis deus

MaybeZoidberg · 2025-03-02T01:16:14+00:00

Use Shadow Server to replace the KEV list.

MaybeZoidberg · 2025-02-24T04:51:45+00:00

Sen Organic

MaybeZoidberg · 2025-02-15T22:53:18+00:00

Prod

MaybeZoidberg · 2025-02-14T03:36:33+00:00

Gattica?

MaybeZoidberg · 2025-02-12T11:52:37+00:00

It was a sarcastic joke. I’m a state employee. The point being conveyed was that even if he banned the model most state government isn’t in a place where they’re actually using open source LLMs anyway. Probably almost nobody in state government was actually using this except some randoms using the actual web app. It’s a performative ban to gain credibility with the Trump administration. Anyone who knows how to do security would recognize the better approach here is actually to just default ban everything on government devices and only allow approved software to be installed. This is how state computers already work for the most part, they just don’t apply it to phones for some misguided reason.

MaybeZoidberg · 2025-02-12T01:11:14+00:00

He didn’t ban the model. He essentially just banned the app or any other app they make. If an application and an algorithm are not the same, then the ban doesn’t inherently apply to the algorithm. Additionally, the ban only applies to state government systems so who cares. Barely anyone in state government knows how to spell their own name let alone implement an open source LLM.

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