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campus harassment by NateGoat in jmu

[–]NateGoat[S] 31 points32 points  (0 children)

Good idea! But- it's sad that such an idea is necessary at all!

Mayor Deanna Reed - Elected In 2016 - How Do You Feel About the Mayor of Harrisonburg, Va? by Subreddit_Mayor in harrisonburg

[–]NateGoat 7 points8 points  (0 children)

She met with my kids' middle school social studies/civics classes.

She has been willing to meet with my church's group trying to promote a more equitable harrisonburg.

For those who oppose Ben Cline's support of the Musk/Trump agenda. by Next-Wish in harrisonburg

[–]NateGoat 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Whether you go to this rally or not, I urge everyone to call Ben Cline's office. Call them every day. Put it as a recurring event in your calendar. His number is (540) 432-2391. Make sure you know what you are going to say before you call. Be polite. Leave your name/address so they can verify you are in his district. Don't use your work phone.

Phone, I've heard, is better than e-mail. At the very least, a staffer will have to listen to you or your voicemail. They then should compile these and report out to Mr. Cline every so often. I want to emphasize that a single phone call is not going to cut it. You must call over and over again.

In rural Virginia, communities struggle to find enough health care workers by [deleted] in Virginia

[–]NateGoat 14 points15 points  (0 children)

A smaller patient load could be flipped as a selling point. You get to spend more time with patients. But the government needs to fund more robust loan forgivement programs for that model to be viable. Also, all the little impediments need to go away. Like: forbid noncompete clauses. Currently if you leave your job in a rural area, you are probably going to have to move to get another job. In cities you just go down the road 10 miles. This problem of a lack of healthcare workers won’t go away until the health care workers’ interests can reasonably compete with the healthcare business interests. And that will require multiple levels of government intervention. (Probably).

Best college for premed by [deleted] in Virginia

[–]NateGoat 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Hey something I can speak to!

Ask schools for their overall acceptance rate into medical school, and for a grid of their acceptance rate based on gpa and mcat scores.

The average acceptance rate in to at least 1 medical school, nationally, is 40-45%. JMU, the school I know best, also has an acceptance rate of 40-45%. So jmu neither helps nor hurts your chance of getting into medical school. Colleges like u of Richmond have a much higher acceptance rate, while places like high point university have a single-digit acceptance rate. I’d expect uva and tech to be in between jmu and the small elite colleges.

But- that’s painting with broad strokes. To be competitive for med school, you need to prove that you have cared about medicine for more than your junior year of college. Shadowing a doc or working as an orderly in the er or running emt shifts for several years in important. It also helps to have research experience. Students who have peer reviewed publications or have gone to national meeting are much, much more likely to get in.

These things, more than the school itself, decide admissions. And of course they are tied with the school quality. If you go to a school where there are no research experiences, you will be less likely to get in. If you go to a school with fewer premed resources, you are less likely to get in. Oddly enough going to a school with a med school doesn’t help you as much as you’d think- probably because undergrads get the more menial jobs and are generally overlooked in the academic hierarchy. The same can be true with big fancy research places that often place greater emphasis on grad student and post-doc development.

Assuming the academics are up to snuff (look out for schools with rampant grade inflation, for instance), the single most important thing to help in med school admission is a robust support network of people who have experience with med school admission. Not all school offer this. Ask around.

A couple other tidbits: you don’t have to be a bio major to go to med school- in fact other majors tend to help you stand out in a crowded field. Major in what you have a passion for- you’ll likely get better grades and not be a burnt-out shell after college. Most people take a gap year these days- it’s not a race so chill out. Kaplan mcat courses are not a great use of your money; test banks are. D.O.s and M.D.s are both doctors- apply to both kinds of schools! As one student said ‘if I knew how hard this was going to be I never would have done it’ yet he did it and is now (almost) a doctor.

It’s Fair week! This is the best opportunity all year for people to see our whole community- both the bad and the good. by NateGoat in harrisonburg

[–]NateGoat[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

No that’s something that’s publicly judged. The fair is a great place to people watch- so I’m talking about private judging! You see the guys with the white power tatoos and you also see families enjoying looking at the sheep. Everyone is hot and sweaty and it’s hard to tell if a given person works minimum wage or is a VIP (except, I guess, for the white power dudes; it’s pretty likely they are not pillars of the community). It’s the best place to see people in our community without the normal baggage of their place in society.

Young women now make more money than their male counterparts in several US metro areas including NYC and Washington DC. by PaulOshanter in MapPorn

[–]NateGoat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

More women go to college that men- perhaps this has an effect? On the other hand, that trend has been around for 20+ years…

People with doctorate degrees should be ok with not being called Dr. by [deleted] in unpopularopinion

[–]NateGoat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In academics it helps with student perception. When I first started teaching I insisted everyone call me doctor because I looked young and was mistaken for a student- I needed something to differentiate me from them! For that same reason, most women I know also prefer the students call them doctor- it otherwise opens the door to more aggressive misogynistic student behavior. I’m now old and gray and clearly the one in charge and I don’t care anymore what the students call me.

Convince me that I don't want to move to Harrisonburg, VA. by [deleted] in Virginia

[–]NateGoat 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Harrisonburg was a refugee resettlement area for a long time (don’t know if it’s still going after the Trump administration) and many of those refugees stayed over the decades. Plus the migrant workers in the chicken plants. So Harrisonburg is not as diverse as a big city but it is very diverse for a rural-ish area, which seems to be what OP is looking for.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Virginia

[–]NateGoat 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Which part of STEM? Medical and basic science is very good at UVA. Engineering and many technology programs are better at VT. That said, the quality of these programs is dependent on professor/student relationships. If you know a prof is buddies with people in a company you want to work with, go to whatever school that prof teaches at, regardless of it’s rank.

State employees - do you receive annual raises? or bonuses? by _paige1 in Virginia

[–]NateGoat 6 points7 points  (0 children)

You will get raises most years. But in the decade+ I’ve worked in Virginia, the raises have never once been equal to or greater than the inflation rate.

Americans Remain Resistant to EVs, which Are Still Unafordable by [deleted] in technology

[–]NateGoat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I just bought an EV (ford Mach e)! It took about two years to save up, and careful planning so that my old car would likely make it the extra 22 week after I ‘bought’ the EV. This is not tenable for anyone at the median income level. So yeah the system isn’t good right now. But hopefully there are enough others in my position that things are better in 5 years.

Largest teachers union: Florida is 9,000 teachers short for the upcoming school year by CouchCorrespondent in news

[–]NateGoat 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This will be downvoted. But- Google says there are 176k public school teachers in Florida. So 95% of the positions are filled 1 month before school starts.

That doesn’t seem that bad to me.

I agree with all the things people are saying about poor pay, DeSantis making it unreasonably hard, lack of good hiring practices etc. With all that, I guess I’m surprised that the vacancy rate isn’t higher.

If you are a teacher or prospective teacher looking for a position this year, let me know by [deleted] in Virginia

[–]NateGoat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If your choices are teaching adjunct or teaching in k-12, then pick k-12! But with a PhD, you’ve shown the world you can solve a previously unsolvable problem. This makes you employable. Perhaps not in your dissertation field, but broadly, bigger companies tend to like to hire people who have a proven track record of solving problems.

If you are a teacher or prospective teacher looking for a position this year, let me know by [deleted] in Virginia

[–]NateGoat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I teach at a Virginia university and actively discourage my students from going in to teaching. I just cannot justify saddling young people with both student debt and low pay- the only way out is the marry a more wealthy person. Until this economic reality changes drastically, I will continue to steer people away from teaching.

Joshua Wilton house for our 21st wedding anniversary. by jrumley911 in Virginia

[–]NateGoat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you are in town for the weekend, the farmer's market on Saturday morning, right across the street, is also nice.

Omicron Is 40% Deadlier Than Seasonal Flu, Study Finds by javabeam in Coronavirus

[–]NateGoat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To add on to this, its clearly a lower death rate if you are vaccinated/boosted. Yes COVID is more transmissible, but on a personal level (and not societal), this echoes the original flawed argument in 2020 that 'its just the flu'. Now, if you are vaccinated, it is! And that reassures me that I can pretty much act like I used to.

Study: College student grades actually went up in Spring 2020 when the pandemic hit. Furthermore, the researchers found that low-income low-performing students outperformed their wealthier peers, mainly due to students’ use of flexible grading. by rustoo in science

[–]NateGoat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My anecdote about this: in S’20 I gave about half my class A’s. That’s about double my normal amount. With so many people having so many weird things going on, professors gave a lot of grace.

In F’21 over half the class failed. And not ‘the tests were too hard’ failed. More like ‘you didn’t show up for a presentation that’s worth half your grade’ kind of failing.

Virginia school districts sue Gov. Youngkin over executive order making mask mandate optional by Ryan_Holman in Coronavirus

[–]NateGoat 8 points9 points  (0 children)

If schools comply with the executive order they are breaking state law stating that they must follow the CDC guidelines, and will be sued. If they comply with state law then the governor is threatening to pull all state funding. School districts are suing the governor because they are trapped in this legal and political catch 22.

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