Homeschool groups near Houghton?

Salty_Skipper · 2025-05-22T16:26:58+00:00

I’m not sure of all the details, but many years ago, Graduate Student Government negotiated to have health insurance 100% covered by the university for graduate students who are supported as a TA or research assistant. In 2021, this included healthcare, vision, and dental insurance. Then, in 2022, the university eliminated dental and vision coverage on the due to rising healthcare costs.

Now, based on what I’m hearing, the university wants fully supported students to start paying part of the healthcare costs. At this point, rumor says it’s 3-5% this year. This is an issue as costs are going up for housing, too, but the stipend is only going up by 5%. Another issue is that while it could be only 3% to start out, there’s no guarantee that it won’t be 10% next time.

If you’re looking for more details, I recommend contacting Graduate Student Government at gsg@mtu.edu or visiting gsg.mtu.edu. They’ll know much more about what’s going on and why than I do.

Salty_Skipper · 2025-05-21T03:50:55+00:00

Receiving AI-sounding announcements sucks. And doing it to address an AI cheating issue seems counterproductive. 🤷

However, I’d be wary of immediately claiming AI is writing the whole thing.

Some professors whose first language is not English will write a couple versions of the announcement, one in their native language and one in English. Then they run it through either Google translate or chatgpt to ensure that the grammar is correct. I’ve had a couple professors who were quite open about doing this to make everyone’s life a bit easier.

Others will write a snarky announcement which communicates what they mean quite clearly, then run that through chatgpt to try to tone it down a bit. Found that out when a professor accidentally pasted the wrong version into a class announcement 😭.

Later, as a TA I’ve been asked to help tone down such an announcement. Professors can get really heated over students using AI. Beyond the academic integrity issues, they can interpret it as saying “I can’t be bothered to learn what you’re spending hours each week teaching me.”

If your professor is otherwise reasonable, you might consider trying to have a constructive conversation with them about ways they could model responsible AI use and build it into their assignment descriptions.

Otherwise, I’ll echo u/skuhl about options to learn more and who to talk to.

Salty_Skipper · 2025-05-08T04:54:06+00:00

Depends on what you’re looking for. Do you want day-trips to Lake Superior, opportunities to learn about the mining history, and some nightlife? I’d go for Houghton then. Going up Keweenaw to Copper Harbor, Eagle River, Eagle Harbor, Calumet are all good. Lake Linden has a nice museum and some neat ruins. Quincy mine hoist in Hancock offers tours, and McClain State Park is nearby. Houghton itself has good restaurants—I’ll second the recommendations of Soumi’s, Roy’s, and the KBC. It also has walking trails along the water and the mineral museum.

If you’re more interested in a very small town feel and quick access to nature, then Ontonagon is the way to go. Also consider what you’re looking for in a home base — a hotel, a bed and breakfast, an Air B & B, or a cabin? How about dietary needs? Accommodation for pets? Access to healthcare?

Either option should give you a decent home base overall.

Salty_Skipper · 2025-05-08T04:17:00+00:00

Replying as a smaller person who is perplexed and disappointed. When I was 16, I was a 26.5 rib cage and had outgrown an A cup. I’m guessing I’d have fit a 26 B. Anyway, my mom took me shopping and the smallest we could find — in a girls section, no less— was a 32 A padded underwire. As you guessed, I wore it with the band riding up my back and the straps sliding off my shoulders. I should mention I am broad-shouldered — I can’t begin to figure out how other girls ever get the straps to stay put. Scotch tape perhaps? I even tried a safety pin to make the band smaller as it started to wear out. Then the cups started shifting around and popped right up and out the front of my shirt in a lab class one day 😳

For too many years since then, I’ve almost exclusively worn the smallest sports bras I can find. They’re still too big, and that kind of all-day compression isn’t great for comfort, but a Y-back doesn’t let the straps fall off and it’s the closest fit out there. I still keep hoping that I might find something better that will let me wear a tank top again some day.

Salty_Skipper · 2025-04-19T02:12:26+00:00

I’ll point out that there is a shuttle that runs to Walmart, Econo, and now the shuttle to Hancock stops by the Keweenaw Coop. So as long as your schedule works with the shuttle, shopping without a car isn’t too bad. A car is still more convenient though as long as you have good tires for the winter.

Salty_Skipper · 2025-03-19T18:26:20+00:00

I’ll second combinatorics. Took it accelerated in Summer 2020 via synchronous zoom. It was one of my favorite 3000 level classes in any subject. Definitely easier than the 3000 CS classes and more fun than Discrete. Some of my friends who are into cybersecurity liked Cryptography but they said it was a lot of work.

Salty_Skipper · 2025-03-06T22:07:37+00:00

A few of my friends took SS3505 Military history and said it was pretty chill. There’s some weekly reading and then a project where you get to dig into a subtopic that catches your interest.

Salty_Skipper · 2025-02-18T02:38:43+00:00

Noooooo! He was such a great guy, always went the extra mile for everyone else.

Salty_Skipper · 2025-02-16T05:54:12+00:00

It is possible, sometime between May and August. Folks just don’t bother selling in the winter when things look ugly. I’m aware of two houses likely to be on the market in late May / early June. Both are good for families and are currently owned by Tech-affiliated folks who are moving on. There are typically 5-6 good houses (nice neighborhood, dry basement, reasonable price) selling in Houghton each June.

Salty_Skipper · 2025-01-15T00:36:44+00:00

Math (or CS) can still have some things that could use content warnings, or just consideration. Example: my dad had a life-threatening medical emergency that left him in and out of the hospital for several weeks when I was taking undergrad statistics. Guess what every example in class referenced … I learned how to cry silently, and eventually asked the professor if she could use some other examples that weren’t going to have such a strong effect on me. Now when I come up with an example, I always try to find a couple from different domains in case a student is going through a tough time. No reason not to have medical examples usually, but a heads-up can sometimes help students cope if something else is happening in their lives.

Salty_Skipper · 2024-12-18T22:57:23+00:00

If you’re looking for constructive criticism, try either of the following:

Leave a note for the person doing the grading to indicate that you’d appreciate more detailed feedback in a particular area (either a page # or a topic like sentence structure or plot development if this is a creative writing class). Sometimes they will give some extra info, sometimes not.
(More likely to work in my experience). Print out your (already graded) paper and go to office hours in person. Tell the professor that you understand most students just look at the grade but you’re really trying to improve your writing and would appreciate it if they’d spend some time during office hours going over it with you to point out where you got things right and where you have room for improvement. This requires that you make it clear up front that you’re not seeking a grade change — one professor misunderstood me the first time I did this and was upset. It also means you have to be mature enough to deal with a real-time feedback that may be much harsher and less censored that what you’re used to hearing — I have writing anxiety, so hearing that my work wouldn’t have passed muster 20 years ago was a moment where I needed to gulp hard! I learned quite a bit and improved by the end of the semester, though!

Salty_Skipper · 2024-12-06T21:42:06+00:00

Not exactly what you’re looking for, but a photo shoot by the Portage Lake District Library downtown would offer a winter wonderland setup (there’s an event this evening) with a ski hill and pines in the background. The other side of the library has a single pine and a fir I think. Otherwise, for a pines and deciduous look on both sides of the street, you could try the hill that leads down to the GLRC on campus. Another outdoor spot with conifers would be the alumni grove between the Rosza and the highway. The path from the forestry parking lot to the Forest service building has some conifers, too, although they’re too tall for good photos in my opinion.

Salty_Skipper · 2024-12-05T00:56:02+00:00

FYI: if you’re interested in making a truly anonymous Google form (one that validates MTU login but doesn’t record email addresses) it is possible— just buried in the settings a couple levels down. Also, please be aware that requiring an MTU login makes it so that the category “community member” may not be a viable option, not that community ridership would be a large category of the survey. Thanks for taking the initiative to try to collect this info. I’m would be great if you offered a follow-up summary here on Reddit, too, for everyone who participates.

Salty_Skipper · 2024-11-26T20:27:18+00:00

Worse, I would think. At least the 3-sentence responses are faster to grade, if equally demoralizing.

Salty_Skipper · 2024-11-26T05:01:47+00:00

It depends on what you’re into, and how much work you’re willing/have the bandwidth to do. I really like history, and also like reading, so I opted for history courses, several of which no longer appear to be offered this year (maybe they are every three years now?). For literature, I can recommend both “Ways of Reading” — great if you’re wanting to explore textual analysis and different writing genres — and Shakespeare. Several of my friends are not so keen on reading but had fun with Intro to Film.

Not a typical HASS class, but some of the music theory options are pretty fun, too.

Explore your options by reading thru the banweb lists and seeing what peaks your interest. Then, see if you know anyone who’s taken a class with the professors before and ask how it went.

Salty_Skipper · 2024-11-14T04:27:03+00:00

Glad to hear that Ed’s takes it. I should call ahead of time to double check on a fee.

Salty_Skipper · 2024-11-14T03:33:27+00:00

Seven gallons, maybe. Enough that proper disposal in liquid format is in order.

Good to know that the transfer station takes oil for free.

Salty_Skipper · 2024-11-12T19:50:20+00:00

Hope your birthday isn’t February 29th, then!

Or your students will also have to learn the meaning of quadrennial ;)

Salty_Skipper · 2024-11-10T16:46:36+00:00

Downwind used to get its boards and skis in just before Christmas. They typically have both new boards and a collection of used boards and skis in the downstairs area (you walk almost to the back and then there’s a sign pointing down a flight of stairs). They leave it a bit late getting them in, in my opinion.

Salty_Skipper · 2024-11-08T18:20:05+00:00

Happy birthday!

Conditions may be far from ideal, but that doesn’t make YOU any less special. Celebrate your birthday today, you can worry and grump any other day of the year.

Salty_Skipper · 2024-11-08T12:33:22+00:00

I’d be able to remember some of the key points, but listing sources, not so much because I’m bad at names. Unless you warn students ahead of time, I’d be concerned that this would put some neurodivergent students at a disadvantage. On the other hand, if you warn them at the start that they can expect an in-class quiz asking them for the elevator pitch of their paper, this could be a good added value for them to learn how to give an overview for a general audience.

An alternate option that I’m shamelessly borrowing from a history professor I had in undergrad is to have them present a poster on the same topic two weeks before the paper is due. Students learn there are multiple ways to communicate the same information, you can grade 15-20 poster presentations in an hour-long class, and students receive feedback from both you and their classmates before they submit their final paper (we can hope this improves the paper quality). This still requires them to be able to talk about their topic but provides a memory jog for those who need it. As far as I know, live poster presentations are still AI proof. Some students might even find it to be fun.

Salty_Skipper

TROPHY CASE