Cougar Gold is delicious. But `food halo', oy.
One ate rather enough [insert fancy university name here] food when one was in residence, and it wasn't so great as to mérite un détour.
Back when I still was a sugar slave, I concluded that the Cornell dairy was OK, but only at best the fourth best ice cream produced in the vicinity.
I don't like a beef gap with WSU, though. Also if the Palouse is producing anything it should be bison instead of the horrific high yield wheat it is inflicting on an already shattered world.
The Nolan Ryan branded steaks are pretty good. Also, the Don Shula's steakhouse that used to be in the LAX Sheraton was fucking miraculous, truly a wonderful place.
I think that's the top tier of celebrity endorsed steak products.
I suppose I should note my gratitude for the rude plenty of ice cream available at the ol' alma mater. Thanks, mother of that guy who died on that boat!
||
A guy in my lab is trying to organize an all-dude's weekend in Vermont to go on a tasting tour of various breweries and also play drinking games back at the condo and lounge in the hot tub and so on. He just emailed out a very detailed draft itinerary. I should go, right? I won't come back having joined a frat or masonic thing or whatever, presumably, right?
|>
Not even the courtesy of a NTTAWWT, huh?
Hey, lots of famous people were Masons.
You realize you're going to have to liveblog it, of course.
Yes, go and report back, young Anthrosifologist.
If the itinerary includes "dinner," be prepared to make out.
So, if I hand calculated the probability of something based on the coefficients of a logistic regression model and I got a probability of 1.15, should I check my work or figure I have a really strong model?
The idea of a kinda-work-related "all-dude's weekend" seems mildly problematic to me, but maybe that's just because there are so few women in my field I'd be hyper-wary of anything that seemed exclusionary.
15: in my field we do not have that problem. I think the "all dude's weekend" may boil down (for this guy) to "my wife doesn't want to go", but it's still amusingly bro-ish. On the other hand he also invited a non-trivially flamboyant gay guy from a different lab, so it's not that kind of bro-ish. Is it? I don't really know how these things work. Halford?
Is 18 what happened to the probabilities in 14?
And after all rumor in certain parts of the world has it I did much more problematic things at conferences.
I can get the computer to give me the probability. It's .73. I just have no idea what I'm supposed to exponentiate to get that.
17 -- it's probably just that his wife doesn't want to go, and that he wants to get really really really blackout shitfaced instead of the just mild level of shitfacedness that might be appropriate around the ladies. Also the bro code forbids talking about the trip if its just mildly pleasant and relaxing.
8: You'll wake up in a bathtub full of Smirnoff with "Welcome to the World of ICE" scrawled on the bathroom mirror in lipstick.
Speaking of bro events, my all male Tuff Mudder team decided to rent a house that sleeps 6 for a group of 15 because "sleeping bags" and "we'll be too drunk that night to care anyway." I am not 22! I support everyone's right to come up with awesome gay porn scenarios, but not when it leaves me sleeping on the floor next to some dudes vomit! I enjoy both Tuff Mudder racing and a firm but comfortable mattress!
Bro, too bad you can't go on beer weekends cuz carbs. We have a hot tub and I think everybody gets a bedroom.
a firm but comfortable mattress!
Good for you! So many gay porn producers ignore this crucial detail.
Remember to liveblog the hot tub parts in particular detail.
|| It's getting more likely I'll be able to go to DC for Memorial Day weekend. You all have time to cancel. |>
I wonder if Prussian soldier would have been more careful about being kicked by horses if they knew just how widely those records would circulate and for how long.
I would imagine they were being as careful as they could. Being kicked by a horse sounds very unpleasant.
They didn't count the regular kicks, only the ones that killed a Prussian.
Being fatally kicked sounds even more unpleasant, so I think my comment stands.
25: ha! My TM team captain has just sorted out hotel rooms for the night before the race, on the basis that a 0800 start for the race sounds bad enough without us having to get up at 0500 and drive for miles and miles first. Enjoy your sleeping bag, Halford.
29: Yay!
I have two facebook friends doing the local Tuff Mudder (or at least following it on fb so updates show up where I can see them) and one is the accoplished musician who was raised in an Old Order Mennonite family and still lives in a very simple, peaceful way, but with beer and computers instead of just the farm world. He might not actually have been the person I'd have dubbed least likely to be involved with TM, but he's high on that list and it's sort of fascinating me.
re: horse kicking
My grandfather (allegedly) got court-martialled for poleaxing a horse with a shovel after it kicked him in the head. He had a visible mark in his hair-line where it dented his skull. IIRC he also had a scar somewhere from being bitten by a regimental monkey.
37: Sounds like something out of the McAuslan stories.
re: 38
Yeah. I had the story from my Dad. He, my grandfather, definitely had the scar, though. He spent 20+ years in India and elsewhere as a career soldier, so he had a mine of stories. Some possibly a bit 'tall', some not.
39: I wasn't doubting the story... just imagining his platoon commander on the Monday morning. "Right, sergeant. Who is it? Private nattarGcM again? What animal is it this time?"
37: Regimental Monkey is my new nickname for my penis.
re: 40
Heh. The story, as I had it, was that one of the senior officers had a horse that was particularly vicious and prone to kicking and biting. Various lower ranks had been on the receiving end of its attentions, and when it kicked my grandfather, nearly killing him, he apparently climbed unsteadily to his feet, blood streaming, picked up the shovel and cracked it square between the eyes. Knocking the horse unconscious. Cue the court-martial.
IIRC, he, nattarGcM ended WWII as a Sergeant-Major, and then he was in the Indian army for a couple of years post-Independence (as they kept various non-coms on to help manage the transition).
still lives in a very simple, peaceful way, but with beer and computers instead of just the farm world.
New mouseover?
42: jesus. On the other hand, story like that, they probably promoted him to sergeant-major on the spot.
So with the horse that's a clear win by KO for the rojaM-tnaegraS, but did the monkey get the decision, or was it DQ'd, or were there more rounds afterwards?
On topic, I've eaten at an Oxford college that had some kind of sponsorship deal with a provider of beef sausages and other meat products. In the foyer to the banqueting hall they left a stack of flyers that emphasised, with pictures, the lushness of the grass on which their sausages were raised. (It was meditating on these that I first achieved awareness of the tendency of food manufacturers to treat the actual manufacturing process as a well-hidden black box in their advertising. E.g. on a TV ad for cider you might see a tractor driving into an unthreatening-looking building with apples, then another driving out with bottles. Or you see the potatoes come out of the ground, then they cut straight to a plate of chips. The machines for cleaning and cutting up industrial quantities of potatoes are probably both interesting and awesome, but boasting about them apparently doesn't sell chips. More depressingly, that isn't really a surprise. And of course, it's particularly absurd to expect sausages to be advertised with pictures of the big, shiny abattoir - that's just the example that sparked the train of thought.)
My main reason for de-lurking, though, (since, for all my regard for the thread, it isn't doing anything productive) is to ask a question. I'm a student on a masters course at a uni in continental Europe. There are breadth requirements that I'd previously ignored in choosing courses, and I could still meet them but it would mean taking a course I'm neither interested in nor suited for at the expense of one I mostly and wholly am respectively. As far as I know, no-one here has experience of uni administration in Europe, but I can't think of any other source of advice I can trust. Do you think the examiners will notice if I don't meet the breadth requirements? Do you think they'll care, i.e. not award me the degree, even if they notice? And do you think employers/grad schools will care if I don't get the degree but can show I've done as much work as anyone who did?
I can't imagine that the answer isn't yes on all counts, but hope to hear that I'm wrong. (In ways that involve poleaxing livestock, maybe?)
I'm not in a position to know so this isn't exactly a source of advice you can trust but I'm with Charley on this. Yes on all counts. It sucks and I sympathize having been there before.
46: I think you either ought to take the boring course and fulfill the letter of the requirements or petition to be allowed out of them. Just winging it is a great way to get royally screwed by the petty tyrants who do things like measure the margins on theses.
Yeah, christ, check the boxes. College is actually primarily teaching you box-checking.
My UK 'masters' would certainly not have let you graduate without meeting the breadth requirements. I ended up doing more than the required number of courses as one course I'd planned to do got dropped, and I had to switch my options around and do an extra one. So, in my limited experience, ignoring the breadth requirements will get you hosed. That's UK, though, not continental Europe.
Depending on where in continental europe, you may be able to bribe someone.
That's UK, though, not continental Europe.
If anything, I'd expect continental Europe, at least northern Europe, to be even more box-checky. That was certainly my uncle's experience doing a doctorate in Germany.
Thanks for all your thoughts (though I'm not entirely convinced 47 isn't addressed to 45). On the basis that academic-managerial culture is fairly uniform worldwide, I should probably accept that the answers to my first two questions are both 'yes', but I'm still interested in the third. If I can really show I've got the same education as an MA, who cares if I also have the two letters or not? I should add that I already have one masters degree, so it's not like I'd be ineligible for positions that demand one.
No, I was responding to you. My personal experience is US, and old, and spousal experience is Germany, also old. But I don't think any of the leopards have changed any spots: my son is currently attending my alma mater, and if anything, the computer age has made everything more rigid.
It may be that for some particular position your lack of this MA won't be a disqualification. So if there's no one applying for the position who went ahead and checked the boxes right, well, then you'd be golden. The notion that you'd be explaining, either in writing or in an interview, that the bureaucratic requirements of doing the last bit of box checking were beneath you, since you really did already learn all the important stuff would seem to be a huge red flag. HR, for example, is all about the box checking.
If you have some kind of story about how you'll be stuffing money into their pockets in some way that some ordinary person who went through the bureaucratic process cannot possibly do, maybe you've got something. People like having money stuffed in their pockets when it's a sure thing. But a corner cutter claiming to be adequate? Not so much.
Put it this way: it seems enormously more likely that you'll eventually regret not having taken a course and not getting the MA than you will taking the course and ... being bored for a few hours a week?
Not that you can predict your future emotional state, of course. Who knows, the course might be so boring that its a transformative experience and completely ALTERS YOUR MIND.
The machines for cleaning and cutting up industrial quantities of potatoes are probably both interesting and awesome, but boasting about them apparently doesn't sell chips.
My father, in one episode of his odd career, spent a while brokering factories -- I vaguely recall that a two-ton-a-day potato chip factory could be installed anywhere in the world for $2e6, plus customs and land. It was a brilliant view overall of how nations were moving around a Ricardian surface; I think he sold one kind of bike factory from China to Kenya and another from Germany to China.
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Catalogo Jim, I agree that you probably need to take the boring breadth course, unless you think it will destroy your grades so badly that you still won't get the MA. Unlikely. Pity it's one you don't like; I've usually managed to use breadth requirements as a handy excuse.
This isn't meant as advice, but i bluffed my way through a similar requirement for my undergrad degree -- when transferring from MIT to Chicago, some of my MIT credits wouldn't count toward the Chicago breadth requirements for stupid reasons, and I would have had to take an additional year-long course I'd already take to satisfy the requirement. I brought it up with my advisor, who was useless, and he didn't either tell me how to formally get a waiver or say "absolutely not, you're not graduating without taking the extra course." He just waffled. So I filled out the graduation forms as if the MIT credits counted, he signed off on them without commenting, and they graduated me.
But I really wouldn't count on that sort of thing working.
@56&55: I don't want to sound like I'd contemplate ignoring the requirements just to avoid a bit of boredom, or to accord with my self-image as a maverick corner-cutter, or to demonstrate I'm above the rules. When I say the course doesn't suit me, it's because it involves group work with strangers whose first language isn't English, all of which I find very hard (as in both difficult and painful to the spirit), and public speaking, which I don't experience as hard but which, with distance, I can recognise myself to be quite bad at. I've also missed enough classes for other reasons that I'd have to grovel to the lecturer and hope he doesn't penalise me, intentionally or unconsciously. The fact that the subject doesn't interest me is probably a bit of a red herring. (Perhaps I should have laid out more of the details before, but I didn't want to post a really massive comment, and the planned aside on food had already expanded to surprising length.)
Also, I wouldn't tell anyone I missed the requirement in order to avoid one course - I'd just say I got confused and made a mistake. I'm not sure that would actually be a lie, since it is actually very unclear which courses are allowed to count towards what, and I missed earlier opportunities to meet the requirements for that reason. It is kind of deceitful, but not in a bad or dangerous way (and besides, mavericks like me are above honesty).
@58: Given the above, it is possible that I could get a notably low grade. I could still get the degree with that one low grade, but isn't it possible that a clean sweep of high grades and no degree (on a technicality) looks better than almost all high grades, one substantially lower one, and a degree?
@59: I don't think I get to fill in the paperwork myself, but if I do then I will be glad to count on this kind advice. Out of curiosity, why were you making the switch?
Communication with possibly intelligent people whose English is lousy should be a required course at all universities. I say get into the course. Maybe no need to grovel, can you say that you hadn't realized that this valuable course was a requirement for you because confusing document from U?
Not having all requirements is much more serious than a slightly lower grade, you will be interacting with computer programs before you interact with people. Grades are so variable from one U to another that I'd be surprised if institutional decisions were made on that basis. Do positions for jobs you want require the MS in the new field, ever? Because you won't get those jobs without this unpleasant but useful class.
My Canadian institution was very strict about breadth requirements and my field has some jobs that are quite strict about the professional masters and some that aren't - exceptions generally run along the lines of Ph.Ds looking for specialist jobs at research institutions and people with computer science backgrounds doing computer science types of things.
With the professional masters requirement satisfied, though, places took seriously the coursework I did towards a history Ph.D. even though I didn't get a history Ph.D. (but I did get an MA, which checks off that box when it's asked for).
Also, while I can't say I'd be eager to do more group work assignments, I found that doing a bunch of public speaking for classes really improved my public speaking. I wouldn't be in the job I have now without that.
61.1.1. And moreover, the point of breadth requirements is to make you do some stuff you aren't good at. You might get better! Public speaking is a handy skill and a risky weakness.
60: Unlikely that failing to finish with a high GPA looks better than finishing. But see if you can substitute a course that is more to your interest
isn't it possible that a clean sweep of high grades and no degree (on a technicality) looks better than almost all high grades, one substantially lower one, and a degree?
To whom? It is fairly rare, in adult life, to present others with a full transcript of one's coursework.
It is fairly rare, in adult life, to present others with a full transcript of one's coursework.
I keep trying at Applebee's but no discount yet.
Catalogo Jim, are you applying for a PhD program after this? Otherwise I can't imagine why you having one low grade would matter in any way whatsoever. As rfts said.
I technically didn't meet the degree requirements for my undergrad degree but that was because the requirements were profoundly stupid, and I just kind of sat silently while the undergrad-teaching-head-dude lectured me about how I shouldn't disregard the rules until he eventually talked himself into saying it was fine. I had met the degree requirements in another department anyway, so I wasn't worried.
But the way I broke the rules was by taking the graduate versions of required undergrad courses, so that experience probably doesn't generalize to shirking the requirements entirely.
I feel like this is an entirely straightforward answer, though maybe I'm thinking about US schools. There is likely someone part of whose job is to make sure everyone took all their required classes and it's a bad idea to bank on them maybe not caring just this once. And you really don't want to be in the position of explaining "see I did all the work of getting an MA but didn't actually get it" because most of the time, someone else took the boring class and got the MA and when you're sorting applications, it's a pretty easy cut to make.
This is a slightly embarrassing story but relevant: I was at a summer program and noticed that, though we were only there for eight weeks, we had access to the counseling center. I had never been in therapy and didn't really get how it worked and thought "hey, I'm about to go to grad school and I'm uncertain about practically everything in my life...maybe I can go in for a tune-up." And at some point I've explained this and am enumerating some of my problems in life and I say "and I'm bad at jumping through hoops" and the counselor kind of drops the blank screen and looks at me a little incredulously and says "and you're going to graduate school?"
Since pretty much everyone is telling me the same thing, which I already knew to be sensible, I'll talk to the lecturer tomorrow. Thanks to everyone who replied. The following points are just about explaining myself.
"Communication with possibly intelligent people whose English is lousy..." is probably the worst thing in the world! I like language (well, the English language) a lot and I hadn't realised how much I'd miss being able to feel at home in it, making and picking up jokes and subtle inferences with friends, nor quite how nightmarish it would be to lose that sense of naturalness. It's like everyone, including me, is an android performing uncanny, not-quite-right mimicry of human beings - we can say things to each other, but we can't *talk together*.
"Public speaking is a handy skill and a risky weakness." I don't think I could improve much at it in this case, because it's only a one-off presentation. The problem I always have is with the content, rather than the actual speaking - when you write, you can go back and improve the writing after reflecting on it, and when in a conversion you can use the feedback you're getting from your partner, but when speaking to a group you don't get the benefit of either reflection or feedback. I tend to end up being very unfocused, because in real time it's hard to tell what's most important and what explanations work best.
"It is fairly rare, in adult life, to present others with a full transcript of one's coursework." As Essear suggests, I was mostly think of grad applications at that point. At the same time, while I wouldn't incorporate my transcript into my CV, I was imagining that if I did claim to an employer that I had earned, but not been granted, an MA (and with uniformly high grades), I'd have to be able to subsequently back that up with more evidence (the transcript) than someone who actually had the MA, but once I'd done so I'd be even with them. For that scenario, the relevant principle is that all high grades and no degree is no worse than a degree with the nature of the grades uncertain. I actually think that ought to be true, but I can't dictate to HR departments.
"...and you're going to graduate school?" I'm already resolved that, if I get in anywhere, I will be some poor department's most infuriating grad student ever. I'm going to feed sticky buns to the undergraduates and spend my first year writing a novel. A bit of anarchy would probably be best for the mental and spiritual health of all concerned.
... and spend my first year writing a novel.
Abigail did that. Then she quit and got a job. Never looked back.
Yeah, you'll fit in here, self-handicapping person.
All practice at public speaking helps. How handy that you've outlined the parts you find troublesome; you can work on them immediately. (You get feedback from an audience. It's strong like a river. Sometimes a frozen river.)
I like language [...]making and picking up jokes and subtle inferences with friends Pish tush. This can be done in FORTRAN. It can be done in onomatopoeia and hand-waving and plaintive expressions. It can certainly be done in Business English as well as full literary English. Perhaps if you think of them as two separate languages?
I was imagining that if I did claim to an employer that I had earned, but not been granted, an MA (and with uniformly high grades), I'd have to be able to subsequently back that up with more evidence (the transcript) than someone who actually had the MA, but once I'd done so I'd be even with them.
I think this is assuming a much greater pre-existing interest in you on the part of an employer than you are at all likely to find. What seems more likely, that the prospective employer is willing to go an extra step to verify your claim, or that s/he says, Hmmm, that seems a little fishy, and tosses your CV in the trash?
(Pwned by Smearcase in 71.1, of course.)
Also, you didn't earn the MA. You failed to finish one of the required courses.
75 and 76 are right. (Harsh but true) Why should anyone give a shit about your failed MA?* I don't do that much recruiting, but I do do some, and if someone failed to complete something, I'd not expect to see it on their CV. And if the explanation was, 'I didn't do the required courses, despite knowing that they were required', I'd also think, 'Can't follow instructions, even when there's a very strong incentive to do so.'
Also, as per others, its perfectly possible to have conversations with wit and humour when speaking to people whose command of English isn't as good as one's own.
* I have one of those myself (failed undergrad degree). I don't put it on my CV.
I think an incomplete MA even with all but one course taken will tend to reflect poorly on the applicant. Bosses like people who finish things and tie a little ribbon with a bow and everything on them. This applies double to requirements that seems stupid. Who wants someone working for them who's going to try to work around requirements and expects that special exceptions be made for them? I've been in the position of supervising someone who argued against requirements of the job because they didn't make sense to him, and it was a pain in the ass having to explain everything in great detail only to be argued against as if it was in my power to tilt the world on it's axis to force it to make sense. I would not hire someone who seemed like they were coming in with that attitude.
I've been in the position of supervising someone who argued against requirements of the job because they didn't make sense to him, and it was a pain in the ass having to explain everything in great detail only to be argued against as if it was in my power to tilt the world on it's axis to force it to make sense.
Yes! It's depressing to end up sounding like a grumpy parent:
'Because I said so, right?!'
'But it's stupid.'
'Are you thinking I hadn't noticed that before?'
I've been in the position of supervising someone who argued against requirements of the job because they didn't make sense to him, and it was a pain in the ass having to explain everything in great detail only to be argued against as if it was in my power to tilt the world on it's axis to force it to make sense.
TRADITION!
TRADITION!
THE SUPERVISOR, THE STUDENT, TRADITION!
79 gets it exactly right.
On the whole, I prefer not to supervise Bartelby & co.