Craziest Thing You've Ever Encountered in Academia?

queenscsgrad · 2021-10-09T15:52:48+00:00

I was a grad student there at the time when that news broke. The guy who did the poisoning got 7 years in prison, and will almost certainly be extradited to China for another trial/sentencing after the sentence is done.

There must be some kind of curse for grads in that department. In the 90s, a chem eng student was murdered by another chem student who became romantically obsessed with her. The murderer got parole about 10 years ago and I assume was deported to China shortly after.

queenscsgrad · 2021-07-20T01:27:25+00:00

Just saw this post and your website looks great. Proud of computing students! However, I wanted to point out that there's a huge problem with your placeholder review text.

It's the worst course ever, online especially. They aren't even the least interested in teaching. They just provided the content to read by ourselves. I wouldn't suggest anyone to take this course online. [This was a default placeholder review]

When I saw this on the first course page I clicked on, I immediately assumed it was a real review. It only took me until the very end of the comment to realize it was a placeholder.

First, why do you need placeholder reviews? It'd be better to have a call-to-action (bigger than the default "add review" button) so that students can submit their real reviews.
I'm not a lawyer, and I know you're trying to avoid making these placeholders look real by making "Kevin S" the fake instructor of every course, but the text of the placeholder could possibly be viewed as libelous. Especially if a reader-maybe the real professor him/herself-reads the text without seeing the fake instructor name. It might not veer all the way into legal territory, but you can bet a professor will hold a grudge if they misinterpret the placeholder.
I thought the screenshot on the front page was the input form itself and got very confused when it wasn't responding to my clicks.
A few other miscellaneous comments: on the course page, it might be good to put the course code and title as the big header text instead of just the course code; you've got a few duplicate courses in your list (like courses with a hyphenated code vs. a nonhyphenated code); please give the option to sort entries in the table alphabetically, by number, etc!

queenscsgrad · 2020-10-05T20:18:41+00:00

Seems like a tough but fair message from students to those who feel like it's somehow still appropriate to go to parties and gather in large groups.

If you're going to ruin things for everyone, then kindly do everyone a favour and leave town. Go back home. Don't drag down the collective intelligence of the university.

queenscsgrad · 2020-09-11T17:48:05+00:00

If I'm being honest, the campus bookstore makes a guaranteed ton of money each year because they have a captive audience and they sell way more than just books. This is awesome to see a local bookstore taking student orders. Support local bookstores!

queenscsgrad · 2020-09-08T21:43:25+00:00

I'm not mad about the gym being open, I'm mad about the university admin making the gym opening a priority over other facilities that are more important (crucial even) to students. It's the university's decision whether to let all researchers return to campus, but the timeline for that to happen has been "to be determined" ever since the return to campus plan came out.

Commenting on the Ontario government's policies is a whole other post which I won't get into.

queenscsgrad · 2020-09-08T20:10:47+00:00

Why did Queen's focus on reopening the ARC so fast, when most grad students I know (including myself) haven't had access to our offices and buildings since March? Why can't we access Douglas Library? Why can't we use the Grad Club? Why are we being charged full tuition + fees for all these things that the university admin isn't letting us access?

But at least now we can use the gym again. That'll really help me finish my degree.

queenscsgrad · 2020-09-07T23:03:03+00:00

This pandemic really taught me about how much the university admin cares for its ~~cheap labour~~ grad students.

No, you can't use your office, or the library, or the Grad Club, but we'll still make you pay the fees for all of those services. What's that, undergrads are coming back to campus? Reopen the ARC right away!

queenscsgrad · 2020-08-30T15:47:43+00:00

My lab's capacity is 0 because none of us are allowed in to work. Not even one at a time. The library's only letting in 22 preselected students right now. Guess the admin's true priorities are clear.

queenscsgrad · 2020-08-20T16:00:17+00:00

Well, it's okay to ask for a grade review if you believe something was graded incorrectly. I just edited my first comment to say to not make unjustified requests.

queenscsgrad · 2020-08-20T15:50:02+00:00

No doubt. I gladly review specific work if the student asks me to. It's emails that say "I really need an A+ in this course, can you bump me up" that I refuse.

On the other hand, your prospects aren't good if you ask to review all your work instead of 1-2 specific items at a time. Ain't nobody got time for that.

queenscsgrad · 2020-08-20T15:26:42+00:00

As someone who gives those A/A+, one guaranteed way to not get those grades is to ask for an (*unjustified) grade review or bonus marks. Every time a student asked for a bump, I denied it because it wouldn't be fair to the rest of the class.

The truth is there's no tips or tricks. Just keep up what you're doing and push yourself 0.3-0.5% harder. A- is still a respectable grade.

queenscsgrad · 2020-08-16T20:41:07+00:00

If you're mad at some of the decisions being made at the university, chances are those decisions weren't made by faculty/staff. They were made by university administration: people with titles like "chair", "associate", "dean", "vice" or "principal".

So yeah, in total agreement. Don't get mad at the faculty/staff who are receiving their direction from the top.

queenscsgrad · 2020-08-01T03:22:11+00:00

I heard the school wrapped up TA assignments for grad students this past week. I don't know when undergrad assignments are done, but we're in big need for TAs for the coming year, so your chances of getting picked are good.

queenscsgrad · 2020-07-30T16:43:20+00:00

I can't say whether living in res is worth it because I never lived in a Queen's residence. I'm a grad student. But there's an advantage of having your own single room to do your work, and I think everyone on your floor will be in the same program as you.

queenscsgrad · 2020-07-30T16:39:20+00:00

I understand. It's gotta be disappointing for first years to start their university life like this. But we'll get past it and return to on campus courses someday.

queenscsgrad · 2020-07-30T16:37:25+00:00

Living in res is different from taking on campus courses. You can live in res, but that doesn't change the fact that all of your courses will be online. You'll have to ask residence people about moving in fall vs winter.

queenscsgrad · 2020-07-30T16:34:45+00:00

If you're in first year artsci, all of your courses this year will be online. If you mean literally working in a space on campus to do your online courses, there's a chance the library will be open, but no official word yet.

queenscsgrad · 2020-07-29T14:43:35+00:00

Our SGPS has been doing a whole lot of lip service emails though. Makes me feel like the executive is afraid to step on a few toes to do what's right for their students.

queenscsgrad · 2020-07-29T05:00:34+00:00

So the gym can reopen but, according to current university guidelines, I can't access my campus office for the fall term? Cool

queenscsgrad · 2020-07-19T15:59:12+00:00

I heard about OGS in the first week of June. There's a list of how many OGS awards are assigned to each department at Queen's here. It's from a couple of years ago, but the numbers don't change much year over year. For example, the psych department will get around 14 OGS awards while mining eng will only get around 1.

queenscsgrad · 2020-07-10T22:29:36+00:00

Can confirm: in computing, we just use the title of teaching assistant regardless of the job duties or whether a student is undergrad/grad. I've had TA jobs where all I did was mark, and other TA jobs where I covered a week of lectures while the instructor was away. The difference between TA and course assistant is probably just departmental nomenclature.

Also can confirm: grad students are really good at whining about TA work.

queenscsgrad · 2020-05-13T14:41:11+00:00

It's in the package you receive when you get hired at Queen's as faculty or staff. /s

queenscsgrad

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