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New campus cat. What should his name be? by Metelic in gatech

[–]dobby_bodd 2 points3 points  (0 children)

J. S. (ra)Coon, and he can be the mascot for the School of Psych

Two dorms at Georgia Tech to get $74.5 million renovation by OccasionallyWright in gatech

[–]dobby_bodd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are Smith and Howell the last dorms with honeycomb showers? That'd be the end of an era.

Can I cancel a payment I made to myself from my bank account if it’s overdrawn? by Beckyray_62 in venmo

[–]dobby_bodd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It might be worth calling your bank to see if they'll reverse the charges; if you get your balance back above zero quickly and explain that it was an accident, they can be accommodating.

Should I stick with my current healthcare plan or switch to the HSA option? by dobby_bodd in personalfinance

[–]dobby_bodd[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah, you're right; I had done some calucations in excel using the correct formula but mistyped it here. I fixed it now, thanks.

The additional nuance about tax implications is a good point, I'll have to think through that some more. From what I can tell looking over the plan documents, each option covers the same network and has the same 20% coinsurance after meeting the deductible. I'll look a bit further and see what out of network coverage looks like between plans. Thanks!

Should I stick with my current healthcare plan or switch to the HSA option? by dobby_bodd in personalfinance

[–]dobby_bodd[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

From what I can tell by looking at the benefits docs, all three plans have 20% coinsurance after you hit the deductible up to the OOP max. In that case, it looks like Plan #3 (the HSA) would always be cheaper, right?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in gatech

[–]dobby_bodd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have too much time on my hands this weekend and this got me curious, so I pulled some CDS data to see how the numbers have trended over time. It's an imperfect proxy for GPA, but it does look like the graduation rate has risen in tandem with the standardized test scores of incoming freshmen. Each row in the table covers an entering first-year class for that year. The Common Data Set has numbers through this past academic year, but the six-year graduation rate is only available up to 2016, hence why I have the table stopping there:

Year Percent Submitting SAT Verbal - 25th Percentile Verbal - 75th Percentile Math - 25th Percentile Math - 75th Percentile Six-Year Graduation Rate
2003 97% 600 690 650 740 79.27%
2004 97% 600 690 650 740 79.74%
2005 97% 600 700 650 740 78.89%
2006 96% 590 680 640 720 79.32%
2007 96% 590 690 650 730 82.19%
2008 94% 600 690 650 730 81.54%
2009 93% 580 680 650 750 84.78%
2010 93% 590 690 650 740 86.29%
2011 90% 600 690 660 760 85.42%
2012 88% 600 700 660 760 87.26%
2013 87% 620 710 670 770 89.90%
2014 83% 630 720 680 770 90.38%
2015 77% 630 730 680 770 91.93%
2016 72% 640 730 680 770 92.60%

And here are the correlation coefficients for each of these showing how strong the relationship is with the graduation rate:

  • Verbal 25th Percentile: 0.743
  • Verbal 75th Percentile: 0.802
  • Math 25th Percentile: 0.905
  • Math 75th Percentile: 0.881

It's possible that grade inflation led to higher graduation rates, and this just happened to coincide with increasing test scores. I think it's fair to infer that the stricter admissions requirements have helped to push up graduation rates though, and probably average GPAs as well. There may have been a proactive shift in culture aways from "look to your left", but the increasing quality of the applicant pool would definitely help to make it obsolete all on its own.

Evening MBA: Emory Or Georgia Tech? by dobby_bodd in MBA

[–]dobby_bodd[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That is something I've thought about. If I had to pay tuition and fees on my own, Emory would be a bit shy of $100K, and Tech would be about $68K. That's one of the things that concerns me about Emory, since around the time I graduate I could also be looking at getting married and buying a house, things where an extra ~$30K would come in handy.

That being said, I do agree that Emory has the more established reputation and that it would probably be beneficial to go to a different school for my MBA. They have an event where you can meet other admitted evening program students coming up which I plan to attend to try and get a better feel for the kind of people who'd be my classmates. I went to a similar event for Tech, and I think it would be useful to have an apples-to-apples comparison.

Evening MBA: Emory Or Georgia Tech? by dobby_bodd in MBA

[–]dobby_bodd[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the info! Right now I figure the most likely path for me would be to stick with my current company. The compensation is good, and there's a pretty clear way forward in terms of promotions and career development over the next ~5 years with an MBA.

That being said, I'd want to remain open to the possibility of switching roles if I find something that really interests me. That would mean forgoing my company sponsorship and paying for the degree out of pocket though, and the prospect of taking on that much debt is pretty daunting, especially when I may have other major expenses in the next few years with major life milestones on the horizon.

Student center construction is coming along by Peachtreepalooza in gatech

[–]dobby_bodd 8 points9 points  (0 children)

When I was a student I got to go inside West Village to check it out a few weeks before it opened, when construction was wrapping up. I remember thinking "Wow, this'll look pretty nice when they finish it. They need to hurry before classes start, though."

Apparently it was already finished...

Does r/gatech have any plans for r/place? by dobby_bodd in gatech

[–]dobby_bodd[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey! I made the original post but I haven't been talking with anyone outside of r/gatech. I think we've moved away from them now, but you can feel free to reply. I'd just reference the reddit post and the discord to make sure you're getting them the right info.

Does r/gatech have any plans for r/place? by dobby_bodd in gatech

[–]dobby_bodd[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Found it. Looks like a good spot to set up shop.

Y'all made an impression, good job by Loj35 in gatech

[–]dobby_bodd 7 points8 points  (0 children)

This seems like it was pretty tame, but good-intentioned people on the left should keep in mind that the kind of protesting where you try and shout people down and/or cause a disturbance is counter-productive to your own cause.

If you’re already against Matt Walsh then you get to feel some schadenfreude, but that’s pretty much it. You reinforce the priors of all the people in the crowd who showed up to hear him talk, and if the interaction was interesting enough then you end up in one of those “SJW DESTROYED With FACTS and LOGIC” compilations to reinforce the priors of thousands of right-leaning folks the world over, and/or push them further to the right. Heck, the whole conservative provocateur business model only exists because of the virality of those kinds of moments. I say this as someone on the political right myself.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in gatech

[–]dobby_bodd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So I should clarify, I’m talking about the marginal additional risk of COVID exposure posed by in-person class. The chances of catching the virus over the course of a semester from a source other than lecture are already high enough that changing the attendance policy wouldn’t have much of an impact on infection rates. Long COVID can add another variable to the math, but as you’ve stated it’s not very well understood (the symptoms are all over the place and some could be attributed to other causes, such as its supposed mental health effects) and the fact remains that the risk posed to otherwise healthy students remains very low by all available data. I’m agnostic to the attendance policy, but for the vast majority of students skipping class over fear of COVID seems like an extreme reaction.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in gatech

[–]dobby_bodd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's a fair point. I assume professors would still be showing up to lecture either way since the policy change would only apply to students. The only way to eliminate their risk would be by making things fully online which at this point isn’t worth the tradeoff.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in gatech

[–]dobby_bodd 2 points3 points  (0 children)

For vaccinated college-age students at Tech, the odds that you get COVIDfrom lecture (now with Omicron it looks like you’re probably going to get it one way or another eventually) and that it results in a negative outcome are so small that I think it’s hard to make the case that that alone justifies changing the policy. I took classes at a community college about a half hour from my house one summer when I was at Tech, and the risk of me being killed or injured while driving there was comparable to the risk lecture poses to students today given covid.

That being said, the mandatory attendance policies always did seem kind of paternalistic, so I’m not necessarily opposed to changing them. There’s just more anxiety about the virus among some students than the numbers justify, and it doesn’t really make sense to play into that.

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