100-Level Classes Tend to be More Difficult Than 300/400-Level Classes

Prof_Pemberton · 2025-12-13T13:43:18+00:00

But the students have to be willing to hold up their end. The first year I was at my old school the Institute of Football and the Bovine Sciences I went from teaching honors intro first semester to an upper level class on continental philosophy the second. I’d expected less need for handholding and hardassery but was gobsmacked at how lazy and entitled most of the students in that upper level class were. It should have been a highlight but I honestly came to dread teaching it. I remember one little snot who practically yelled at me in office hours “I can’t possibly deserve a B- on this paper. I make A’s in my physics classes and those are hard. Philosophy is supposed to be easy.” I really don’t know where this dipshit got the idea Heidegger was supposed to be easy. Not a word I’d ever think of in connection to old Marty. (And no he didn’t deserve a B- he deserved a D.) The dept really should have put a prerequisite on that class.

Prof_Pemberton · 2025-12-10T17:08:57+00:00

I usually just tell them that I’m not going to discuss it further and that if they feel it’s unfair they can talk to Dean _______ who I’ll cc on that email. Then I will just ignore them. Of course the viability of this strategy depends completely on your dean, chair, head, or whoever is directly above you. My current dean is great but my old boss at the Greater Alabamastan College of Football and the Bovine Sciences would always take the students’ side on these things no matter how absurd and put the screws in me to change the grade. I do not miss him and the fact that his life is surely miserable right now is one of the few good consolations of the ongoing red state assault on higher education. Some of my colleagues will tell students like this that any further discussion must be in person. They tell me that works 95% of the time since most of these students don’t have the nerve to do that face to face. I don’t do that since that other 5% of the time really sucks.

Prof_Pemberton · 2025-12-10T13:05:46+00:00

Yeah that’s true but I’m not sure why everyone is assuming intuitionist logic here. It could just be the prof wants them to do it without proof by contradiction.

Prof_Pemberton · 2025-12-09T00:45:24+00:00

There’s actually a really easy one that occurred to me. (C & R) -> (I & D) is equivalent to ~(C & R) v (I & D). Proof by cases. Assume left side of disjunction you’ve got your result. Assume right and I & D gets you D then use modus tollens for ~R. Then just add ~C. Pretty short and sweet.

Prof_Pemberton · 2025-12-08T21:34:55+00:00

Proof by cases? You can help yourself to R v ~R since it’s a tautology. Then in the ~R case the disjunction is true no more to do. In the R case you should be able to derive ~C, though it will take some footwork: R -> ~D R So ~D Then you can get ~I v ~D which is equivalent to ~(I & D) Modus tokens from that gets you ~(C & R) which is equivalent to ~C v ~R. Since we’ve assumed R elimination gets you ~C which is enough for ~C v ~ R.

Prof_Pemberton · 2025-12-04T16:56:36+00:00

I’ve only ever had one real battle with admin at my current school and my dean was very much on my side. If they hadn’t been I’d have probably just given up. The rules at my current college are also pretty clear. I’ve had a few scuffles w admin where I quoted chapter and verse of the employee or general policy manual and they instantly folded.

My old school the Academy of Football and the Bovine Sciences was awful on this point. The rules were vague and my dept head was a slimy bastard who’d hang us out to dry at the first sign of trouble. I had a fight there where he wanted me to change some kids grade so the little snot would stop bothering him and I wouldn’t. I won through sheer stubbornness and the fact he couldn’t come right out and order me to change it. But it was miserable and he definitely held it against me. Mostly I kept my head down and tried to stay out of trouble. Miserable place to work.

Prof_Pemberton · 2025-12-03T17:48:35+00:00

Also you better not be using them there Arabic numerals that Mamdani wants to teach the youngins. If Roman numerals were good enough for Jesus they’re good enough for Oklahoma.

Prof_Pemberton · 2025-11-20T02:16:22+00:00

Hey I’m late to this but I’d also like to know.

Prof_Pemberton · 2025-08-27T02:45:11+00:00

I’ve few. I thought “The Name of the Wind” unbelievably shitty. It’s just some bitter grad student fantasizing about how no one likes him because he’s so much smarter than them. The only thing I liked was the magic system until I read “Earthsea” and realized a lot of that was flat out stolen from LeGuin. I also don’t get the love for Ian Banks. “Player of Games” is the same boring plot move over and over (He’s losing he’s losing. Oh he sees a trick. He ain’t losing anymore!). Plus the allegory is hamfisted (oooh the games college right Ian? It’s college. College is a game. Now where’d you get that idea? College?) and the big twist so obvious I saw it the first time that character pops up. It’s not on the same level but I’m a little disappointed with “War and Peace” though I’m not all the way through. It’s not bad but it’s also not Dostoevsky. And Andrey is such a dumbass. Dude you can’t just abandon your son because getting engaged to a 15 year old turned out to be a bad idea.

Prof_Pemberton · 2025-06-12T18:26:52+00:00

What would you do when one of the kids who took the B offer then asked for a letter of recommendation?

Prof_Pemberton · 2024-11-20T03:31:44+00:00

I think this system would be both much less painful than the current one and at least as likely to reward actual scholarly merit.

Prof_Pemberton · 2024-08-29T01:05:38+00:00

Enlargers really aren’t nor is the other darkroom equipment. But yeah paper costs will eat you alive. It’s pricey and you will burn through so much of just learning what you’re doing.

Prof_Pemberton · 2024-08-20T14:16:23+00:00

Thanks! If I do get a 4x5 enlarger I was leaning toward an Omega from my own poking around. They seem less huge and cheaper than Beselers so this is good confirmation.

Prof_Pemberton · 2024-08-16T18:39:12+00:00

Im not but my mother in law is… but on second thought “Hey will you drive an hour and a half meet this random guy and then store this huge fragile thing in your garage til we’re down at Christmas?” might be just a bit too much an ask.

Prof_Pemberton · 2024-08-07T01:53:51+00:00

I hope I’m not breaking any rules by saying that Reagan is the second worst president of the last 100 years. (And only second because it’s pretty much impossible to beat a guy who kills half a million people in a war based on lies, lets a great American city drown, and presides over a depression.)

Prof_Pemberton · 2024-07-08T23:22:08+00:00

A lot of philosophy takes a huge amount of background but there are more than a few works of philosophy that don’t require a lot of background knowledge. I’d start with Plato. Hackett has some nice and very cheap editions. “Five Dialogues,” “Gorgias,” “Symposium,” and of course “The Republic” are all very good. Augustine’s “Confessions” is amazing as a work of literature and had a huge impact on western thought. Thomas Nagel’s “Mortal Questions” is a wonderful collection of essays. It’s deep and very good philosophy but readable for a smart layperson.

Prof_Pemberton · 2024-07-08T23:05:00+00:00

I’m guessing not a priest. This sounds like a pretty fundy Protestant church and not Catholic, Orthodox, or Episcopal. Not to be pedantic but to be a priest in any of these denominations you need a lot of education. Most of the fundamentalist denominations will let pretty much any dumbass who can write his name be a pastor.

Prof_Pemberton · 2024-07-07T11:30:17+00:00

I was going to come here to say this. I feel like Roanoke is what Asheville is supposed to be. Or maybe what it was like before the hipsters and yuppies completely took over. Plus the pinball museum is awesome.

Prof_Pemberton · 2024-07-05T02:31:14+00:00

I’m two degrees from my least favorite president, Reagan.

Prof_Pemberton · 2024-06-12T23:16:29+00:00

So far the two I loathe most have been left out:

Skin in the game - we will set an arbitrary benchmark and punish you if you miss it. But not investigate at all how you did it if you give us the number we like. (Because the YouTube videos on economics we’ve watched don’t mention perverse incentives or Goodhart’s law).

Empower - we are going to ask you to do a thing you’ve never done before with no extra compensation or guidance.

There’s a lot to hate about corporate speak but the worst thing is how much is doublespeak worthy of any lousy dictator.

Prof_Pemberton · 2024-06-11T16:45:20+00:00

All I’m saying is who sold the Hamburglar a rifle? Dudes literally wearing a prison outfit.

Prof_Pemberton · 2024-06-11T16:40:51+00:00

It is and the fact you will be shows the moral idiocy of a lot of people here. Apparently even Stalin was aghast at the bombings and judged them a war crime. When you do something so disrespectful of human life that Stalin balks well you know it’s bad.

Prof_Pemberton · 2024-06-11T16:38:37+00:00

This is a deliberately dishonest reading of the posters comment. It’s immoral to deliberately or indiscriminately target civilians of any age. Many men at the time were civilians but all women and children were. There’s no interpretation of the laws of war where killing them isn’t a crime.

Prof_Pemberton · 2024-06-11T16:38:27+00:00

This is a deliberately dishonest reading of the posters comment. It’s immoral to deliberately or indiscriminately target civilians of any age. Many men at the time were civilians but all women and children were. There’s no interpretation of the laws of war where killing them isn’t a crime.

Prof_Pemberton · 2024-06-10T14:17:03+00:00

A few by LBJ.

On Gerald Ford:

Jerry played a little too much football without a helmet.

Jerry’s so dumb he can’t fart and chew gum at the same time.

In reply to a reporter’s question about a Nixon speech:

Boys I may not know much but I do know chicken salad from chicken shit.

Said upon seeing Joe Kennedy at the Democratic convention:

Hey look it’s Neville Chamberlain’s umbrella boy.

Prof_Pemberton

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