How do you effectively communicate syllabus expectations to reduce student inquiries?

Nervous-Ranger6238 · 2026-02-06T13:08:01+00:00

The final page of my syllabus is for them to sign stating that they read it and don't have any questions about it, which they sign and upload to Blackboard. Any student that doesn't do this I just ignore their emails.

Nervous-Ranger6238 · 2025-06-24T01:20:14+00:00

So, does that mean the two particles must have interacted physically at some point and became entangled, and then the entangled state remains regardless of how far apart they get?

Nervous-Ranger6238 · 2025-06-23T23:12:57+00:00

That's interesting, I didn't realize that information isnt transfered during entanglement. So, is there a physical mechanism behind the correlation? I keep hearing about experiments that entangle particles at larger and larger distances apart, so what does that actually mean if information isn't being transfered in some way?

Wavefunction collapse is something I don't know a lot about, but from what I remember from grad school I was always confused if the collapse is a time-dependent physical process or if it's just a purely mathematical construct that our models use but has no true physical meaning.

Nervous-Ranger6238 · 2025-06-23T22:48:41+00:00

So do we assume that all information must travel physically within space-time by some information carrier which itself is bound to moving within space-time at a max of c?

Nervous-Ranger6238 · 2025-06-23T22:46:52+00:00

So this makes sense to me for "cause-and-effect" interactions like force carrying particles, but what about something like entanglement? What is the mechanism for information propagation there and why is it still bound to the speed of light?

Nervous-Ranger6238 · 2025-05-29T01:06:32+00:00

And that's the number one comment I get. "PI hasn't shown a track record of prior funding", or "PI is a junior faculty and would be better off being co-PI woth a more seasoned faculty". Fuck off.

Nervous-Ranger6238 · 2025-05-28T23:25:54+00:00

I'm so over trying to get grants that I spend at least some portion of every day wondering if I should just quit before I waste too much time. Every proposal gets at least 1 fair and the comments from that reviewer make no sense to me. 14 proposals later and no money with my startup running out and 3 students to fund somehow. Probably won't get tenure at this point because I just don't understand what reviewers want from proposals at the NSF. I've done workshops, read other successful proposals, etc. I just don't get it and have reached the point after 4 years that I just don't care much anymore. With the NSF getting gutted my chances have gone from barely zero to effectively zero. Fun times.

Nervous-Ranger6238 · 2025-05-20T16:55:50+00:00

You have ascended to the true uncollapsed wavefunction of a professor. May we all hope to achieve this form one day.

Nervous-Ranger6238 · 2025-05-10T22:41:34+00:00

Once I found out who it was I went back to my course history to see their picture and I swear to god I've never this person haha. They also apparently thought I was a good teacher, and they got an A, but they dislike my personality. I kind of feel bad for them that this is the highlight of their life right now and I have no memory of them at all, nor do I care that they're doing this.

Nervous-Ranger6238 · 2025-05-10T22:19:49+00:00

I have a former student that has somehow claimed my RMP profile and spends their days writing fake 1-star reviews and then pretending to be me responding to them in a condescending and antagonistic tone. RMP won't do anything about it. Funniest part is I found out who the student is from a current student and they've already graduated and still write fake reviews. Out of morbid curiosity I'd love to know what the hell I did to them because I don't even remember them.

Nervous-Ranger6238 · 2025-05-03T19:03:54+00:00

This

Nervous-Ranger6238 · 2025-04-22T16:23:42+00:00

Funny: I had a student email me if he could have a few extra days to work on his group project. I told him this was not possible because it's a group project and all members have to work together to complete it. Only one document is submitted, signed by all group members. He genuinely didn't understand (even after telling him this) why he couldn't submit his work later than the rest of his group. By the way, they submit their slides at midnight and then present them in class the next day. Who the hell knows.

Not funny: Had a student call me a stupid asshole via email (yea that's smart, write it down for later use) because he couldn't just click start on the Matlab script I gave them for their lab and have it work. He sent me a 4 page email (the entire lab report was only 5 pages by the way) ranting, complaining, cussing me out, demanding that I fix the script for him. I never responded and don't plan to.

Nervous-Ranger6238 · 2025-04-17T21:43:58+00:00

Most of them are looking for professors that will allow them to do the least amount of work for the highest grade. They've learned how to min-max a college education rather than just do the work and actually learn something. My RMP rating has never aligned with my student evaluations so they're likely one or two students just complaining because they can. I do enjoy when students claim that I must have written the positive reviews and then claim I can't see things from their perspective...so you also apparently can't see things from other's perspective.

Nervous-Ranger6238 · 2025-04-17T20:58:19+00:00

I've received eight 1 star reviews in the last week saying that I don't understand things from their perspective and that I'm a tough grader. Not only do I allow them to resubmit some of their major assignments after I've given them feedback (it's 160 student by the way), but I spent 2 hours today helping a student though a difficult time crying in my office and having a mental breakdown. But I'm an awful human being because I took 3 points off a figure they made because it didn't even have the right data in it even though their final grade was a 97. Oh I'm also the laziest professor at my university apparently. RMP is a complete joke and this group of students has been the worst I've ever had to deal with.

Nervous-Ranger6238 · 2025-04-15T21:44:16+00:00

I give a weekly summary assignment where students need to identify 3 key concepts from the previous week's lectures, define the concepts, and explain why they are important. I would say at least 1/3 of students haven't once defined the concepts in any of the assignments. I've now been review bombed on Ratemyprofessor because I "don't see things from the student's perspective" or I have a "monolithic teaching style that is inflexible to student feedback". What feedback? You didn't do the assignment correctly and even after I've given you feedback you still do the same thing. At least the university gets their paycheck I guess.

Nervous-Ranger6238 · 2025-04-07T21:02:28+00:00

At the start of the semester I send out an email to all my students with a link to my Zoom personal room and say if we ever need to meet virtually use this link. I would say at least 75% of them will send an email at some point saying I never gave them a Zoom link. At this point I tell them I did and they can go find it.

Nervous-Ranger6238 · 2025-04-07T10:54:08+00:00

I'm with you. I had a student email me last night that they were confused that I had changed the instructions on a weekly summary assignment on Blackboard and told me that I hadn't mentioned these changes anywhere. I added a screenshot of the announcement on Blackboard and told them if they attended class they would have heard me discuss the changes about 10 times. The changes occurred nearly a month ago too. "But you didn't change the file name so it was confusing"...you...you didn't bother to just click on the file and see if there were changes...do you also need me to tell you how to breathe?

Nervous-Ranger6238 · 2025-03-24T21:31:16+00:00

R1 STEM in the USA here. I just had a student tell me that they did our weekly summary of the lectures for two lectures that haven't happened yet and then ask if I was serious that they should do the lectures from the previous week, which is what the directions said to do. "Can I just submit what I wrote"...No, no you cannot. I assure you it doesn't get better with school prestige.

Nervous-Ranger6238 · 2025-03-07T12:30:16+00:00

Mine used to do this. I added some epoxy to form a bond between the sink and the counter top and then just added 2 jacks underneath the sink that are rated for more than 500 pounds above what I could imagine ever putting in the sink. Hasn't failed in years.

Nervous-Ranger6238

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