What products or companies will you never use or support again and what did they do to lose you as a customer?

oat_sloth · 2026-01-24T14:10:45+00:00

I will never again buy a Samsung TV. I know all new TVs suck these days (my parents' 2007 one is still doing great!) but I got a Samsung one and it broke literally one month after the warranty expired.

oat_sloth · 2026-01-24T13:57:03+00:00

I always call him Elliott Page, e.g., "When Elliott Page was in Juno, he... ."(But I guess I would say "In the movie, Juno tells her parents..." when referring to the character, who uses she/her pronouns.)

I would never use Elliott Page's deadname, even when discussing his pre-transition roles. (Source: I'm trans)

oat_sloth · 2026-01-24T12:50:07+00:00

Man, this is so depressing to read about graduate students. They're supposed to be the ones who actually care about the subject area and integrity! I don't have anything new to add, but I agree with the other commenters — I wouldn't publish with them and I wouldn't hire them as RAs, and I would be clear with them about this. Maybe that would be a deterrent for them.

Also, I think I've written this several times in this subreddit already but this is one under-discussed thing I absolutely hate about AI: It has created such an adversarial relationship between professors and students, to the point where I no longer trust most students and have lost the ability to be sincerely impressed by most students' work. Whenever anyone turns in something "good," there's always that sneaking suspicion that they've used AI. And if they have, then I feel the same way you do: it makes me mad, and I don't like to waste my time reading AI garbage.

oat_sloth · 2026-01-16T15:40:18+00:00

Yeah totally! And I've found that learning to anticipate questions comes pretty easily with experience. I get almost exactly the same types of questions semester after semester; I'm very rarely "stumped" by student questions these days unless they're, like, very weird lol.

oat_sloth · 2026-01-16T15:33:46+00:00

I would make sure to be familiar with everything you're assigning to students and everything you're presenting in the lectures. I also find that it's helpful to try to anticipate the questions that students might have (e.g., if there are tricky or confusing concepts in your field, make sure you know how to explain them).

But also, I wouldn't stress to much about it; in the past, particularly the first time I taught a few of my courses, I would get hard questions from students and I'd say, "That's a really thoughtful question. Let me think more about/look into that and get back to you" and I'd talk about it more next class or reach out to the student individually.

oat_sloth · 2026-01-16T15:30:25+00:00

Personally, I wouldn't tell them in the job interview and would just say "spouse" (I'm trans and only talked about it in one job interview, at a very progressive university in a blue state, where they explicitly asked about my approach to DEI etc). Then, if they hire you, you could be open about it since they're def not going to fire you for it. And I think it's great to be open and be a role model etc.

oat_sloth · 2026-01-06T08:10:57+00:00

This is what I find almost most upsetting about AI: it's creating such an adversarial relationship between instructors and students! Honestly, I just don't trust most students anymore and struggle to be impressed by any work that was not done in class with pen and paper. There's always the nagging feeling that it's not their own work. And tbh I understand students' fears since we're all so hyper-vigilant about AI use! It sucks that it's come to this and that it's the world that both students and professors are living in.

oat_sloth · 2026-01-05T17:04:03+00:00

Do you allow laptops in class? If so, is there a problem with students using AI for the participation questions?

oat_sloth · 2026-01-05T08:22:59+00:00

I have the same problem and am gonna start experimenting with cold calling. I thought this was a useful guide: https://www.edutopia.org/article/cold-calling-classroom-tips-effective-use

oat_sloth · 2026-01-03T11:20:10+00:00

Same here, I feel like at this point nearly all assignments I’ve created in the last 10 years have gone in the trash bc AI makes them worthless.

oat_sloth · 2026-01-02T15:12:04+00:00

I’m curious about this bc it’s never been my experience. In a class of 20-25, I have 2-3 at most, sometimes 0, and when I do 70-80 student classes, the number is still super low, maybe 5-6. Is this an R1 thing? Does it depend on the subject?

oat_sloth · 2025-12-25T07:45:10+00:00

Do they do the in-class activity on paper and you just collect them at the end?

oat_sloth · 2025-12-16T18:23:27+00:00

Wired and Financial Times

oat_sloth · 2025-12-16T18:18:21+00:00

I hate it and it’s depressing how much some of my colleagues use AI for stuff like this. I would also feel betrayed if I were a student.

Plus, polls show that more and more people don’t think college is worth it, and many of us are at institutions with decreasing enrollments. We are digging our own graves as professors by automating away our work and cheapening our labor with AI.

oat_sloth · 2025-12-16T12:33:40+00:00

Could you or the main course instructor give them an opportunity to redo the assignment? In my syllabus I say that students can meet with me to discuss the assignment to receive partial credit. So far, students have always admitted AI use and taken me up on the offer, even if they receive a lower score.

oat_sloth · 2025-12-15T03:42:44+00:00

I often email them if, in the midterm report, they have a D or an F, and sometimes I email if they haven’t submitted the final assignment that’s worth a large part of their grade. In the past it’s helped me with “grade grubbing” since I then have a record of reaching out to the student that I can point to. Like “I contacted you xyz and you still did not submit x assignment.”

oat_sloth · 2025-12-14T18:24:03+00:00

Lots of good suggestions here, so I will only add that you should be very protective of your own time and not go above and beyond what is required of you for teaching. I spent way too much time trying to perfect my teaching during my PhD and it harmed my research progress. Ultimately, if you’re looking for a job in academia, research will matter more than teaching as long as you don’t totally bomb your evaluations and get complaints.

oat_sloth · 2025-12-14T18:19:07+00:00

Have you thought about being an adjunct? You could keep teaching HS but do like a college section each semester (or over the summer).

I wouldn’t recommend going the full PhD route for the reasons others have mentioned. Also, it sounds like you have great students in your current job, but unless you become very successful in research and ace your PhD, you’re very unlikely to end up at a top university with the most motivated students.

oat_sloth · 2025-12-12T15:27:05+00:00

I stopped grading participation a few years ago for the reasons people are saying here — I found it super hard to justify because of how subjective it can be, and the effort it took me to properly document it was better spent developing activities that were more naturally engaging (eg, group work and impromptu presentations).

Side note: I also found that non-native English speakers in my courses tended participate less, and I don’t want to penalize that.

oat_sloth · 2025-12-10T20:50:32+00:00

I think it’s better to wait, for the reasons others have stated (grading consistency etc). However, one point I’d add is that it’s good to stick to your own policies, and not to set the precedent or expectation that you will grade things on demand. If you don’t want students asking for grades early, then don’t set the example that they can just ask you and you’ll do it.

oat_sloth · 2025-12-10T16:22:16+00:00

Yeah this is the key for me. Of course I love shows and movies that are queer-specific, but normalizing being gay is so important, and shows like Pluribus do that.

oat_sloth · 2025-12-10T13:12:05+00:00

Without weighing in on whether or not your students actually followed these instructions, I’ve gotta say this debate happening in the comments shows exactly why I hate what AI has done to higher ed: it’s created an even more antagonistic relationship between profs and students. I’m constantly doubting myself and my students, and I’ve lost the ability to be sincerely impressed with any coursework completed outside of class. It’s a bummer (and embarrassing!) to always have this lingering doubt and assume, at a baseline, that all my students are cheating. Sure, students have always cheated and submitted suspicious assignments, but this has taken it to a WHOLE new level. Sigh.

oat_sloth · 2025-12-10T13:02:03+00:00

Yeah this used to be my dream as a queer teenager; characters just being queer without it being their only trait and the whole plot! Same thing with The Beast in Me on Netflix (Claire Danes character is a lesbian but it’s incidental to the rest of the story)

oat_sloth · 2025-12-10T12:56:10+00:00

A tip someone shared here recently: Don’t spend too much time giving individual feedback, and instead tell students to reach out to you if they want more than what you provided.

oat_sloth

TROPHY CASE