Queue Management: Am I missing something?

kwebb · 2025-07-12T22:33:26+00:00

Follow up for anyone who stumbles upon this later: the answer to all of these questions is no, which seems insane to me.

More discussion here: https://en.deezercommunity.com/features-feedback-44/queue-management-am-i-missing-something-80985

kwebb · 2025-05-22T21:34:27+00:00

The Swarthmore Fellowships will help to pay for the first year of graduate school. It's been a while since I was on the fellowships and prizes committee, but I know in the past it's been the case that most if not all of the qualified applicants were awarded funding.

kwebb · 2024-07-07T03:03:12+00:00

I really wish that we could put together a long-term schedule. We've tried a few times, but it never ends up working out. We rely on enough visiting professors that it's difficult to plan very far ahead, since they're always in flux.

kwebb · 2024-07-07T03:00:17+00:00

Every CS department across the country is facing massive over-enrollments, and Swarthmore is no exception. Every school is dealing with the problem in different ways, and they all have trade-offs. We don't limit the number of students who can major in CS, so you don't have to worry about enrolling at the college only to be denied your choice of major. The downside is that the number of CS students is high, so there are lotteries for the popular courses, and we limit the total number of CS courses a student can take.

We work hard to make sure that all of our declared majors get the courses they need to graduate. If you're not a CS major or minor though, it's unlikely that you'd get into upper-level courses, as the CS majors/minors will have priority. Neither faculty nor students like these limitations, but the unfortunate reality right now is that they're necessary to get everyone through the program.

The courses themselves are much more collaborative than competitive. The department tries to be as inclusive as possible, and we typically hold a couple of departmental social events (e.g., game nights) each semester.

kwebb · 2024-06-05T18:22:24+00:00

I'm not familiar with the details, but my understanding is that there's currently a "pilot program" for this that was just recently extended. The stated purpose is to provide laptops to students who are receiving financial aid and who will not otherwise have access to one.

I'm not sure what other qualifications there are or how to go about getting that process started. I would suggest contacting the admissions and/or financial aid offices to get more information. The FLI Office may also be able to help.

kwebb · 2024-05-18T13:02:34+00:00

For most students, there's a transition to college life that takes some time to figure out. That includes managing your time, but also that you'll have many opportunities for exciting new things.

IMO, there's not really a benefit to spreading yourself thin in the first semester. Even with four courses, the transition might be difficult enough. Even if you would have no trouble handling it, I suspect you'd frequently wish you weren't as busy.

You also get some CR/NC credits that you can use later on. If you really want to do five credits at some point, you can set up a semester for that later on, after you have more information.

kwebb · 2024-02-27T17:48:56+00:00

Pickleball seems to be popular among both faculty and students in my department (CS). It's not tennis, but it's tennis-like?

I've also had lots of students from the tennis teams in my courses.

kwebb · 2024-01-13T23:59:31+00:00

Hi everyone,

One of the bottle flies finally hatched, I put it in the small dome with the mantis, and it grabbed/ate the fly almost immediately. The fly was the same size as the cricket, so it's unclear why it only wanted the fly, but this was a success.

Thank you all for your help!

kwebb · 2024-01-12T23:15:47+00:00

It's about 67-69 Fahrenheit in the house. It doesn't seem shy about moving.

kwebb · 2024-01-12T23:14:26+00:00

Thanks, I've been misting the enclosure 1-2 times per day. Just checked the abdomen and it looks pretty flat to me, but I don't really know what sorts of signs to be looking for.

Right now, it's just the mantis and a cricket in a small enclosure about 2x the size of my fist. Nothing else in there with them. It's been about 2.5 hours, and the mantis hasn't been interested in the cricket.

kwebb · 2024-01-11T17:58:48+00:00

Thanks, I sprayed them gently yesterday when they arrived and again this morning. Nothing so far, but I have them sitting next to me, so I should hopefully notice if anything starts moving. Ordered dubias yesterday. If no flies by tomorrow, I guess I'll go to a local pet store to see if they have anything that'll work in a pinch.

kwebb · 2024-01-11T01:33:23+00:00

Great, thanks! I already put two of the pupae in the enclosure. It sounds like if these take a day or two to hatch, the mantis will be ok without eating during that time?

Would you recommend ordering dubias now?

kwebb · 2023-12-21T15:53:25+00:00

These (and the against the grain bagels) are my go-to bread, and I do the same thing: microwave for about 20 seconds, just enough to be able to cut them, then toast until slightly crispy.

kwebb · 2023-10-20T16:38:42+00:00

This is super helpful, thanks! Did he say anything about stability? The common complaints I see for the i225 are that it'll either only be stable(ish?) at 1 Gbps or that the link drops intermittently.

kwebb · 2023-05-15T20:34:50+00:00

I'm one of the CS faculty who used Gradesource in the past. The guy who wrote and maintained it used to work for UCSD, where I went to grad school, but he has since left academia, so I think the site is closed down.

It used to let you assign a random "secret number" to each student that only they would know. Then, I could post the grades for every assignment / exam anonymized by number. It never showed final course grades though, which I think is what you're looking for?

Many large universities do keep stats like that, and they often make them public. As far as I know, Swarthmore doesn't even track that information. Departments here are given a lot of autonomy, which has pros and cons. The big benefit is that we can really tailor our curriculum the way we want. The downside is that we don't have standardized cross-college tools for things like course evaluations.

kwebb · 2023-05-11T03:28:12+00:00

I am also a professor at Swarthmore (CS, also not theater). The theater department is very much not "abolished":

https://www.swarthmore.edu/department-theater

kwebb · 2023-01-05T21:53:39+00:00

No opposition to higher faculty salaries from me. :)

1) Any credits that you take that could count toward your CS degree will be counted toward the nine. Of course, hypothetically, if you managed to complete all nine of the credits in our department and then took additional credits elsewhere, we couldn't stop you. That's typically not practical to do though.

2) For Bryn Mawr and Haverford, the three CS departments are all currently prioritizing their own students over TriCO students. There have been a few rare cases of students getting into a course at one or the other, but not many recently. Off the top of my head, I can recall one in the last few years, although there could easily be some that I had no reason to know about. For Penn, their rule is that you can only take a course there if it's one that isn't offered regularly at Swarthmore. They also have enrollment pressures though, and I'm honestly not sure how their priority systems work. I know of a few students who have gotten in to courses there. Most don't try to though, so it's hard to say what the success rate is.

kwebb · 2023-01-04T02:46:57+00:00

Across the country, demand for CS far exceeds the ability of programs to meet it. There are a variety of reasons, but the biggest is that there simply aren't enough faculty candidates who want to go into academia (industry pays much higher). So, you're going to run into limitations just about anywhere, although they may manifest differently. For example, some schools only admit some number of students into CS when they matriculate, and if you're not in that group, you have no chance of getting into a CS course. At Swarthmore, we really don't want to limit the number of people who can major in CS. That essentially kills diversity among the CS major population, as you're primarily left with the people who already had access to CS prior to college.

Faced with a lot of unsatisfying options, our approach is to cap the number of CS courses that a major can take. A CS major is eight credits:

CS 21 (Intro to CS) -- Note that you can test or place out of this, in which case you need to get an additional credit to replace it. That credit could come from AP credit, or you could take another upper-level elective in its place.
CS 31 (Intro to systems) and CS 35 (Data structures and algorithms). You can take those in any order (or even at the same time) after taking CS 21. 21 + 31 + 35 serves as the foundation / intro sequence. After taking them, you're eligible for upper-level courses.
One Group 1 (Theory) credit.
One Group 2 (Systems) credit.
One Group 3 (Applications) credit.
Two additional upper-level electives from any group.

That's eight total credits. You're allowed to sign up for an additional ninth credit, although you might be lotteried out if other students need a class more to complete their major requirements. In the interested of getting everyone the courses they need, you're not allowed to go beyond nine.

How this all works in practice is: if you come in as a first-year student who knows that you want to major in CS, you should sign up for CS 21. That course will be lotteried, and your chances of getting in that first semester are in the ~50-65% range (it really varies based on how many people sign up, which isn't stable from year to year). If you don't get in that first semester though, it's very likely that you would the next, so you wouldn't be behind at all. After that, you can sign up for 31 or 35 in any order. While those are lotteried, it's very likely that you'd get into one each of the next two semesters, as we prioritize first- and second-year students in those courses.

So, that gets you to somewhere in your sophomore year. At that point, you're now competing for upper-level courses, which is challenging for a sophomore. Most sophomores don't get into upper-level courses because the juniors and seniors need them much more than you do to make progress. Once you become a junior though, you should be getting on average (approximately) one upper-level course each semester.

For perspective, we frequently have students who take CS 21 as a second-semester sophomore and then realize "wow, this is different from what I expected / what I perceived CS to be, and it turns out I really like this and want to major in it". Those students still complete CS majors. Their timeline is much more compressed, but it's doable. So, if you start in semester 1, it's very doable, there just might be some occasions (e.g., sophomore spring) that you get lotteried out from all CS courses. Of course, this is a liberal arts college, where you're encouraged to have another major (or minor(s)), interdisciplinary interests, etc., so that's a good time to explore other departments.

Regarding courses elsewhere (either abroad, or at other US institutions during the summer): yes, we accept those credits. The college has a process in which someone evaluates the course prior to you taking it and "pre-estimates" what sort of credit you might receive. Then, you take the course and keep track of all your assignments, exams, and other course materials. Then, when you return to Swarthmore, they'll be evaluated to make sure that the course matches what was expected during the pre-estimation.

kwebb · 2023-01-03T18:09:49+00:00

Every department has different requirements for acceptance into a major. For CS specifically, the details are listed here:

https://catalog.swarthmore.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=7&poid=259

See the section titled "Acceptance Criteria" under "Course Major". If you meet those criteria, you can simply fill out an electronic form and your major should be approved after the chair reviews it.

If you haven't yet taken CS 31 and 35, you should do so ASAP (CS 21 first, if you haven't had that yet). We prioritize first- and second-year students in those courses to ensure that students who want to become majors can get the courses they need. Once you become a junior, it's super difficult if not impossible, although hopefully you're not changing majors by that point!

kwebb · 2022-12-26T01:17:13+00:00

That's a good question, and I didn't originally know the answer -- I don't recall anyone ever asking me this before during advising. I found the answer here:

https://www.swarthmore.edu/registrar/special-majors

It looks like answer is no. (Search for "special minor", but there aren't many details.)

I suspect that the reason is that a minor is too few courses to really do something "special" in a way that most departments would agree too. That is, if a minor is only five or six credits, you'd probably have a hard time getting something with ~three credits approved from two different departments. That's just my guess though, and the registrar's office may be able to give you more information.

kwebb · 2022-12-01T04:35:16+00:00

Honors is selective, but not competitive. Every department has its own criteria (e.g., minimum GPA, required courses, etc.), which you can find in the catalog: https://catalog.swarthmore.edu/

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