And now what did you do TODAY?

[HeadphoneAddict]

So I walk into the lab with a graphing calculator. TA says I can't use it for the exam even though we have been using them all year. I show her there is nothing on the calc. All the memory on the calc is free. These sheeple are so stupid that they follow rules blindly without giving in any thought to reason or rationality. I didn't want to argue and time was running so I ran back to my car and came back in 15 minutes with my scientific calculator which was not acceptable because it solved definite integrals. Then I lost my cool. The test has nothing to do with calculus. It is fucking organic chemistry. But it is the fucking departmental policy to only allow scientific calculators even though thats exactly what it says on the top of my scientific calculator. I waste another 20 minutes to go to the bookstore and buy a shitty calculator, come back and find my TA being an enormous thundercunt - "its been too long. you need permission from the director to continue the exam." i go to the director and explain all this. she reports me to the dean for academic dishonesty for trying to use a calculator that i was not allowed to use and for claiming to have done graduate work in math. obviously no one in the history of the fucking academia has ever gotten a phd in math and then pursued another discipline.

i go to the dean. he recognizes me from the 3.5 years i spent on his floor doing math. tells me he will call the director and i can take the exam. i go back. the director sends me back to the ta. ta gives me the test with only an hour for a 2.5 hour test. the test wasn't hard but with essentially 15 pages of information to be written, time was the decisive factor and i wasn't able to finish.

no where in the syllabus are graphing calculators outlawed. and even if they are i don't see why i was not allowed to use my scientific calculator. at this stage should i go back to the dean and tell him that i wasn't allowed to take the test in the 2.5 hours. trying to figure out if i deserve an honest second chance here or if i am being unreasonable.

Well, you should just go postal with an AK47; but since that won't help you through this I would just complain to the dean that you weren't given the full 2.5 hours for the test, and that their requirements for calculators should be clearly posted in the future.

[CarlSeibert]

Going to the dean sounds like a good idea to me because it might leave scar tissue on the ta. But that's just me. I'm not exactly a role model )

[morphsci]

probably too advanced material for them, perhaps try inferior dynamics.

Hardy har har, Alice.

[Grahame]

slide rules?

Log tables on a Stick? as one of my old maths teachers called them.

[crappyjones123]

the calculator wasn't needed as a safety net as is quite frequent with students these days. calculations needed to be done with numbers out to 4 decimal places which are tedious to say the least.

no ak 47s.

like jim, i allowed students to use all the resources he mentioned. if the student knows what he is doing, he won't need any help from a "resource." if the student doesn't know whats going on, the books and computers will only waste time so it works out quite well.

i wrote an email to the dean, who has been exceptionally kind to me in the past, explaining the days events including as many direct quotes from the ta and the director as i could remember. waiting for his reply.

thanks for the help all.

[cobra_kai]

I think that is the best thing you could have done. Worst case the dean says he/she can't do anything, best case you get to retake the exam and maybe the TA gets slapped down a little.

Out of curiosity what was your research area for your PhD in math?

[swt61]

Keep us posted Crappy.

[Dreadhead]

Yeah, good luck.

I'm not sure what's going to happen for you because you'd technically require a whole new exam and that's probably not going to happen.

On another note, I have never spoken to a dean in all my years as a student, I shook his had once at an awards ceremony. I only met one once when I was a professor.

[Beefy]

On another note, I have never spoken to a dean in all my years as a student, I shook his had once at an awards ceremony. I only met one once when I was a professor.

I've met several Faculty Deans and two VP's during my postdoc. Meeting the University President next week. Being involved in campus 'politics' is a great way to meet high-up people - even if they completely ignore you.

Crappy, before you contact anybody else, you should make *absolutely* sure that you haven't broken any rules. Check and recheck the calendar, the course requirements, university legislation etc. to make sure that this course doesn't have any specific laws. You don't want to inadvertently end up wasting the Dean's time.

And even if you haven't done anything wrong, tread carefully, and don't hit things too hard. The extra marks you may gain might not be worth all the people you are going to piss off.

Edited February 24, 2012 by Beefy

[crappyjones123]

The deans office was one door down from mine. We both were there on weekends. He welcomed students to go in and speak with him directly rather than dropping off paper work requiring his signature. So at a least in the math dept he knew all the grad students who took an extra 5 minutes to make small talk. I never shook his hand though. He never washed his hands after using the facilities

Beefy that thought did cross my mind and this would be the second time in all my years as a student when I went to the dean with a problem. I've always done the indian thing of keeping quiet and taking it but this was just a blatant circle jerk IMO.

Cobra I started off trying to determine limits on parameters for exploiting arbitrage opportunities between us and Indian currencies given current limitations on hardware for high frequency trading. Was only able to come up with something reasonable for var. got bored of that kinda quickly so then looked at how the assumptions would change if we started removing bottlenecks in the Hft process. For instance everything that is done in practice would change if the latency for incoming financial data were 2ms for all firms regardless of how far they were from the exchange or what kind of connectivity they had. Further assumptions had to be made but I found a few saddle points. Some assumptions led to complete nonsense as expected. Others allowed the model to stabilize after running for a few days. Got into some good financial engineering programs but it wasn't something I enjoyed or wanted to do anymore.

[jvlgato]

slide rules?

Abacus?

Good luck, CJ. Let us know what happens. I can see not allowing calculators for a math test, but for chemistry or biology? If you're smart enough to figure out how to program the thing to actually help you, you're smart enough to do well on the test. Seems like with all the time it would take figuring out how to use the calculator for chemistry, you'd be better off just studying.

[luvdunhill]

at least the Dean wasn't your dad. Talk about awkward.

[Absorbine_Sr]

Abacus?

Good luck, CJ. Let us know what happens. I can see not allowing calculators for a math test, but for chemistry or biology? If you're smart enough to figure out how to program the thing to actually help you, you're smart enough to do well on the test. Seems like with all the time it would take figuring out how to use the calculator for chemistry, you'd be better off just studying.

And I'm pretty sure that if you find work in the chemistry or biology fields, you'll be allowed to use calculators....

[morphsci]

Or maybe even a computer (gasp!).

[crappyjones123]

the funniest part is that her excuse for being such a pain the ass is that the rigor we are put through now is going to prepare us for research later on. research where you can't talk to the person standing next to you, can only use a particular kind of scientific calculator, must NOT use a computer, must write ONLY in black ballpoint pen in special notebooks that have the professors name on them.

i lost 12 points out of 50 for running out of tape in the middle of the lab and not being able to borrow some from my neighbor and as a result not being able to tape in the 6 print outs from lab analysis into the notebook. -1 for each of the 6 pages not taped in and -1 for all the references made to the crap that wasn't taped in.

the very last lab before the midterm, i was docked 10.5 out of 50 for not using "enough tape" and making flipping pages tedious for the ta.

I've done a wee bit of research, albeit not in a lab setting, but never have i heard or come across such draconian and arbitrary bullshit. you grown up people that have jobs and stuff - do you have to face such crap?

[skullguise]

you grown up people that have jobs and stuff - do you have to face such crap?

Only if you're responsible for the TPS reports......

[luvdunhill]

Yes. I work at a 350,000 employee company. You have to respect the tape.

[tyrion]

Intermission at Jane Monheit with Gail. Valentines day gift for me.

[cetoole]

I occasionally get yelled at by one of our CAD guys for using tape.

[Salt Peanuts]

Not technically what I did today, but more what happened. We'd been trying to adopt a dog for a while now and yesterday, we get an e-mail from a local dog rescue place saying that our adoption application for a dog was approved. We make an appointment for meet & greet at the dog's foster family for Saturday with the plan that if it goes well, she would be coming home with us. Today, my wife goes out to a local pet supply store to grab few things to bring with us on Saturday. When she gets home, there's an e-mail from the rescue place saying the foster family has decided to adopt the dog. So now we're back to square one on the dog adoption process.

[skullguise]

Bummer, Haj, sorry to ehar that.....

Mike, NICE Valetine's gift! Hope you enjoy!

[Wmcmanus]

Crappy, that's some fucked up shit you're dealing with. I've been following along, not really knowing exactly what to say. Sounds like that TA is a complete nut case, and needs to get laid. Maybe you'll be just the right man for that job...

[Dreadhead]

My god that TA and or professor sounds bat shit crazy. Docking points for too much tape?

[jvlgato]

Mike, how was Jane? I totally have a crush on her. Plus I really love her voice! Did she ask about me?

CJ, your ta's attitude is total bullshit. Sorry to say it, but unfortunately, yes, I have dealt with that type of arbitrary bullshit numerous times in my career. It was the primary attitude in most of the pre-med classes, and most of the med school classes in my day. It was the source of my biggest pains and failures in my training. I even failed one clinical rotation because one 2nd year resident hated me and single handedly was able to fail me with one bad evaluation. It was thought to filter out the weak and encourage only the best, but it also encouraged a lousy bedside manner and the biggest of asshats into the field. Fortunately, that attitude (I thought) has mostly changed. It's still around, but mostly discourage now. Even in my hospital, where I have seen that attitude a lot in the past, I see less and less of those types of people, and more and more of nice, interesting, and collaborative people. I know it's on purpose, because I've read articles about the need change how we recruit and train doctors. And sat in meetings where we discuss this or that person being smart, but what an ass ... I wouldn't want to work with that, lets not hire that person. I have even seen that type of person be demoted or fired!

So, to answer your question, yes you will see that throughout your training and your real life, but hopefully less and less over time. Did you hear back from your Dean?

[tyrion]

Jane was very good. I got to hear her do Somewhere Over the Rainbow which was all I needed to hear. Gail even enjoyed it, which surprised me. Sorry to disappoint but she is married to the drummer, has a kid and needs to drop a few but her voice is pretty amazing. She was also pretty entertaining between songs, a funny lady.