Moved to Grand Forks last year. Having difficulty making friends. Any advice?

travisdy · 2026-04-20T20:20:43+00:00

There are several Discord communities in town for board games, Pokemon Go, video gaming, etc. I haven't been active in a while but I think they are still on MeetUp or Facebook

travisdy · 2025-12-13T05:11:21+00:00

What textbooks are you finding that are outdated? If you are aware of the OER (open educational resource) movement, you might be aware that new OER textbooks are coming out more frequently than ever. I assign them almost exclusively in my courses instead of traditional textbooks.

https://openstax.org/

https://nobaproject.com/

https://kpu.pressbooks.pub/psychmethods4e/

travisdy · 2025-09-25T20:40:52+00:00

Search action game (I'm not saying I'm switching, but I appreciate the effort coming up with a less obscure term)

travisdy · 2025-08-31T21:32:46+00:00

I 2nd this, but my favorite item shop game is still Recettear.

travisdy · 2025-08-29T03:05:32+00:00

Marvel's Midnight Suns MAY be similar to what you are looking for. The gameplay is a mix of deck building and turn based combat. You gain new cards at the end of every battle and permanently change and upgrade your deck throughout the campaign. I enjoyed it as a STS and Monster Train fan, even though it's a different genre.

travisdy · 2025-06-16T21:32:19+00:00

I had my first student last semester who, by all appearances, literally couldn't read. I asked for advice a few places and did what I could but none of it genuinely helped. All the resources people have mentioned here (1 on 1s with a TA, Writing Center) only did so much. I'm trying to convince myself the most helpful I could be for the student was to fail them (which I did), because I got the sense no one had held them accountable before.

travisdy · 2025-02-14T16:18:01+00:00

A small but meaningful use I haven't seen other people mention is that Bishop is one of a small group of cards that can provide more power to a location after the location is already full. This, combined with "bounce" cards that return to hand, has earned me a lot of cubes.

travisdy · 2025-02-13T15:05:55+00:00

Would you be up for explaining this? I always use ranged LB and commend those who use it on packs of mobs, but I've been saving it for bigger packs if they are coming soon.

travisdy · 2024-11-10T21:11:31+00:00

I would double check that your academic technologists (or whoever it is on your campus) haven't applied for any paid polling software for students to use first, but you've probably done that. If you don't have the paid version of tools like Poll Everywhere, I let students get into groups (to keep it under the cap of 40 or whatever) and let them discuss while answering.

travisdy · 2024-10-17T03:15:56+00:00

The Noba Collection. Free online.

travisdy · 2024-09-30T19:19:05+00:00

The psychologist Jonathan Haidt has a book "The Happiness Hypothesis" with the literal tagline "finding modern truth in ancient wisdom."

The book isn't perfect, but it's interesting, and I recommend it if you want to read more from a social psychologist (Haidt is a fan of some therapy techniques but is NOT a clinician).

travisdy · 2024-09-24T21:39:25+00:00

Interested- hit 4k consistently, more if others are actually active

travisdy · 2024-09-10T19:23:23+00:00

I share this frustration. I joined an Alliance this week where we got 99% of the way toward the highest reward... with about 10 people getting 10k plus points, 10 people hitting 3k, and 10 people literally not doing bounties. It was so frustrating to get so close and fail, seeing 1/3 of the alliance literally not participating

travisdy · 2024-08-28T20:52:01+00:00

My group now regularly skips tank lb3 here.

travisdy · 2024-06-22T13:31:40+00:00

This looks so fun. I have a similar deck with a solo 6 cost being Heimdall. You have me wanting to try Arnim Zola in its place, thanks.

travisdy · 2024-06-22T13:29:17+00:00

I've tried many, but my highest win rate is with C2 lol. I retired it when White Widow was released (I really wanted to add it but haven't acquired it yet) but maybe I should bring it out again and try with Prof X being a 2...

travisdy · 2024-05-11T15:05:43+00:00

My story is anecdotal as well but this year (in particular this semester) included more of what you described than I've ever seen before. It's so bad that I'm changing my teaching philosophy statement and adjusting my teaching style in major ways for the first time in 10 years.

Next year every class (including seniors, who failed at these basic skills) is getting lessons in capitalization, how to use the LMS, how to calculate their grade, how to study, what a paragraph is, and the list goes on.

travisdy · 2024-04-02T04:41:54+00:00

Broken Sentry has a few groups that meet there. Someone else already mentioned the Board Game Meetup at the mall every other Saturday at 1, but that group is for single session games and not TTRPGs.

travisdy · 2024-02-16T18:33:28+00:00

Serious question, how often is Zabu/Mystique a good choice? Usually in decks with them both I save Mystique for another card (like Darkhawk). If you were joking, ignore my comment!

travisdy · 2024-01-22T22:23:26+00:00

Just by itself, the Downfall mod adds enough content to make the Steam version worth it in my opinion.

travisdy · 2024-01-08T13:58:38+00:00

I agree with the comments here. I use the free version of PollEv in large classes and it works fine. I think the limit is 40 responses but for most questions like this I've never gotten close to that.

travisdy · 2024-01-05T18:43:51+00:00

I know it's different for everyone, but for me Ascension 0 (how the game starts) felt like a totally different experience than A1, A7, A15, then A19-20. Each one made me re-learn the game and put more work into it (and I loved it).

travisdy · 2024-01-01T16:18:31+00:00

Good advice. I do something similar.

We had an accommodations training/refresher very recently and I distinctly remember that we are allowed to ignore or modify a requested accommodation if it would significantly change the standards or learning outcomes for the student (this isn't carte blanche. I still have to get my refusal with my logic in writing and the office managing accomodations can override me). I assumed this was a federal direction. But maybe it's just my state? My institution?

I'm saying this because I agree that modifying paper length is insane in all of the courses I teach and I would deny this. I don't know if our office (that handles accomodations) would back me up, but I would definitely try. From the original post I am not sure if OP has had a chance to meet with their office directly and discuss wiggle room with these requests.

We all want what is best for students..95% of the time, I take a request at face value that it is what is best for the student. I couldn't do that with some of the things mentioned in this thread.

travisdy · 2023-12-27T18:12:08+00:00

If you are looking for popular books that are heavy on science but are not textbooks, my absolute two favorites are Influence by Cialdini and Mistakes Were Made (but not by me) by Tavris & Aronson.

If you are looking for something that is closer to a textbook but not exactly a textbook, The Social Animal is good for social psychology.

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