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Academia Ghetto Thread

Started by Mesozoic Mister Nigel, September 05, 2014, 05:51:06 PM

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Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Cain on February 20, 2015, 01:59:59 PM
Looking foward to my next set of essays...I'm currently leaning towards "Competing analyses of al-Qaeda give rise to competing counter-terrorism responses – Discuss".  Theories on Al-Qaeda?  Sure, I can name 4 different ones off the top of my head.  Hell, I can name an author who gives 4 in the intro to his book, and I'm not including him in that first count.  I mean, we all know it'll basically come down to Sageman versus Hoffman and "bunch of guys" versus "clandestine cells commanded from the Khyber Pass", but getting there will at least not want to make me tear my teeth out in frustration.

This sounds REALLY interesting.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Cain

Here's a quick primer on their feud

http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2008/06/10/Sageman-vs-Hoffman-The-new-war-of-ideas.aspx?COLLCC=741964328&

I lean more towards Sageman's analysis, though I think AQ Central still plays a role (a vastly reduced role).

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

The grad student who is teaching our Advanced Neuro class for a whole two weeks is doing the typical grad student thing of "I'll give them a taste of what grad school is like, it'll be good for them!" with complete disregard for two facts: in grad school they only take two classes at a time, while most undergrads are taking four, and also with complete disregard that none of us have the background to understand the studies she's having us review. Five studies in one week, all about using a drug to inhibit an enzyme that deacetylates histone tails to enhance memory formation, to various effects. I barely comprehend them... and I'm the only biology major in the class, these make no sense at all to the psych majors. Panic ensues. The best part? Group presentations. Ten people have one week to review five papers and prepare a presentation on one of them.

This is sure to go well.  :lulz:
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Cain

Yeah...there are reasons undergrads do not get the full grad student experience.  I mean, c'mon, it's University.  It's fair to assume at least some fairly intelligent people had a had in designing the appropriate levels of work for various different degree types.

Sounds like typical "Imma super smart grad student" syndrome.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Cain on February 20, 2015, 02:31:03 PM
Here's a quick primer on their feud

http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2008/06/10/Sageman-vs-Hoffman-The-new-war-of-ideas.aspx?COLLCC=741964328&

I lean more towards Sageman's analysis, though I think AQ Central still plays a role (a vastly reduced role).

Oh, academic feuds! :lol: Always amusing. Both of them should read Katherine Schultz's book.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Cain on February 20, 2015, 02:43:37 PM
Yeah...there are reasons undergrads do not get the full grad student experience.  I mean, c'mon, it's University.  It's fair to assume at least some fairly intelligent people had a had in designing the appropriate levels of work for various different degree types.

Sounds like typical "Imma super smart grad student" syndrome.

It is exactly that.

Combined with an apparent complete lack of comprehension that in grad school you actually have the background for interpreting papers like the five she's thrown at us, whereas these undergrad students, including myself... well, we don't. I am literally the most equipped person in the class to interpret these papers because of my biology background, and fortunately I read a book on epigenetics on my own time last year, but PSU doesn't teach epigenetics and this class is oriented toward psych majors, most of whom have never heard of histones, acetylation, methylathion, ubiquitination, etc.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

I wrote a proposal for the NIH that is apparently actually going to be presented to the NIH.

If they implement it, I will have done something actually useful with my life.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Other than that, I went to Eugene, and now I am too damn tired to do anything but watch videos.

Good news: my handlers will almost certainly extend my funding for my last couple of terms even though they claim not to generally extend funding for double majors.

I am really looking forward to only taking 3 classes a term from here on out.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

I'm totally procrastinating my summaries and critiques. Mostly because I'm so full of resentment at having to do them. But I have to finish by noon, which is PLENTY of time if I start now.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Soooo

A guy who was for mysterious reasons "unable to present" with his group was added to ours, and he is a FUCKING INSANE DRAMA WHORE and now the whole thing has blown up into crazy.

It's not like it's a big deal presentation or anything. It's super simple and straightforward.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

This guy is a full on nutjob though. And this one girl... well, she seems completely unable to comprehend that "title page and figures ONLY" means "Title page and figures ONLY".
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Vanadium Gryllz

Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 25, 2015, 03:55:39 AM
Soooo

A guy who was for mysterious reasons "unable to present" with his group was added to ours, and he is a FUCKING INSANE DRAMA WHORE and now the whole thing has blown up into crazy.


Sounds like a fun story. Care to elaborate?
"I was fine until my skin came off.  I'm never going to South Attelboro again."

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Xaz on February 25, 2015, 09:41:30 AM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on February 25, 2015, 03:55:39 AM
Soooo

A guy who was for mysterious reasons "unable to present" with his group was added to ours, and he is a FUCKING INSANE DRAMA WHORE and now the whole thing has blown up into crazy.


Sounds like a fun story. Care to elaborate?

I considered posting the emails with the names edited out, but it's such a raft of nutjobbery that I don't know if it would even make sense without all the backstory, which is really really boring.

Short version is this: We have to do a quick group presentation of a research paper someone else wrote. There were ten people in the group. I started a group email chain for us to discuss our doings. One girl posted a slide presentation that was way over the top, and I pointed out that the instructions say we need a title page and figures ONLY, and also the instructor said in class, slides should only include a title page and figures from the paper. Several people agree. Girl revises slides, removing the tacky background and cartoon graphics but leaving boxes and bullet points. Everyone ignores it, probably assuming we could clean it up later.

Things are proceeding. Some of us meet after class, discuss things in the email thread. We get to a point where all we need to do is decide the order in which we are presenting.

Yesterday some guy gets added to our group. He, the slide girl, and one other person met in the library, and afterward new guy sends out this email:

QuoteHello Group,

The three of us that showed up for collaboration on our group presentation ((student names redacted)) elected to make some executive decisions.

Given the amount of time we had to work, and our lack of workers, we choose to use the outstanding original set of slides so as to optimize the time we had.

Those of us whom expressed preference on a specific section to cover have been assigned to that portion of the presentation. Those whom did not express preference have been assigned a slide/topic to cover so as to move the group forward towards individual preparation.

Intro - (student name redacted)
Materials - (student name redacted)
Methods - (student name redacted)
Figure 1 - (student name redacted)
Figure 2 - (student name redacted)
Figure 3 - (student name redacted)
Figure 4 - (student name redacted)
Figure 5 - (student name redacted)
Conclusions - (student name redacted)
Critiques – (student names redacted)

It is up to individual responsibility to prepare a 1 minute (cannot exceed 2min) speech that summarize the slide topic. Not just reading the text we have, but supplementing it. You can also feel free to edit the text in the slide(s) you are assigned. Ideally the text serves the visual learners in the class to give a foundation understanding of the slide; it need not be comprehensive of all of what you will say during your speech time.

Please do not edit any other aspect of the presentation such as color, background or lack of animations. The time for aesthetic input has ended; we now need to move towards content refinement and preparedness for Friday.

Some slides are obviously more complete than others. The three of us ran out of time to complete the slides due to other pending responsibilities. If you do edit your slide(s) please email back to this chain a power point file OF JUST THE EDITED SLIDE(S) and Anne-Marie will integrate this into our final presentation file.

Please submit any slide edits by Wednesday Night/Thursday morning so (student name redacted) has time to compile them without it disrupting her schedule as she has already contributed significantly to our collective success.

Work Hard, Go Team!

Attached were the original slides. Note that we had discussed the slides as a group, and decided not to use them because they did not follow the explicit directions given by the instructor.

The slides, in fact, other than containing the figures from the paper, aren't supposed to be the focus of the presentation at all.

It gets better (worse) but I don't know if I have time to finish the story.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

I have four minutes.

So the rest of it goes like this: I ask whether there is a reason we are not following the instructions. Several other people chime in to agree that we need to follow the instructions. MUCH BUTTHURT ENSUES, along with the pronouncement that the people who "actually showed up to the meeting" were the people who should get to make decisions. A couple of people complain to the instructor. New guy posts this flaming wall of tl;dr douchebaggery:

QuoteBOOM! POW! BANG! CRASH! SHAZAAM!. . .okay sorry, I was having a retro batman moment as I read the email thread, sound effects and all.

Wow, epic. Okay psych majors, lets figure this out.

RE: Blurry Pictures - I agree that the figure pics are kinda blurry, I didn't want to spend group time stretching each picture or trying to re-cut and paste. Each person with a figure slide can re-copy the picture from the PDF of the article and try and make it work better. The blurriness is a conjunction of auto stretch to fit that PowerPoint does and the low base resolution of the image from the PDF. We can address the former but not the later.

RE: Text Being Off - If you open this file straight from the email it will be all whacked out. You need to download the file and open it either in PowerPoint or OpenOffice.

RE: Color Scheme - We changed the text color to a very readable off white.

RE: How Will It Look On the Big Screen - I work at OIT here on campus and my team's conference room has a large projector. I will test out the PowerPoint on that screen tomorrow between class and work to see how it looks. I will report back to the group either way. We don't need to stress about it until then as changing background/color scheme is really easy. It is the generation of the content that takes a bit more time. In reality, 90% of this project is making damn sure we each know our sections and collectively understand the material presented in the study. Fielding questions is something the other groups/members in previous presentations were hit or miss with. Lets look confident and sharp!

RE: Specific Instructions - we followed the instructions listed in the document "Syllabus for My Classes". Here is a cut and paste of the language:

*******
Presentation
In groups of 10 you will present 1 of 5 papers that explore the role of epigenetic modulators in learning and memory paradigms. You will have half an hour to go over the introduction, methods, results, and discussion. The intro should be brief. You should focus most of your time describing the methods, results, and discussion. Figures should be arranged in a power point presentation (nothing fancy, just copy and paste the figures) so that we can go through the results as a class. . .
*******
->Our reading of this, in the larger context of (Instructor's) very informal writing style and obvious 'wiggle room' and consistence use of humor, was as follows:
1) A brief introduction in a 30 min presentation should be no more than a few minutes. Slide 1 names the article and group, Slide 2 presents the question and aim of the study, and Slide 3 provides an understanding of the mechanisms of Alzheimer's Disease that this chemical may address. These 3 slides should fit the bill for 'brief introduction'. The remaining time is all methods, results, discussion etc. so we cover the 'focus' aspect of the instructions.

2) With regards to the figure slides, aside from the stretch issue, we agreed that some text along with it will help serve the visual learners whilst the speeches serve the auditory learners. Moreover, all of our figures are actually numerous figures combined and so some labeling beyond the figure itself seemed useful. This does decrease the overall size of the figure with respect to what the class will see but as they are already blurry this may not be a bad thing. Moreover, the figures themselves are all bar graphs, aside from 5c, so there isn't much detail miss out on.

3) I can't find a mention of 'only a title page', is there a set of instructions I/we today were in ignorance of? It seemed to us that some none 'figure only' slides in the materials. methods and behavioral procedure slides would add some vibrancy to the presentation. The presentations so far felt very sterile. I agree that the figure slides should not be over the top, but the bells and whistles earlier for the folks discussing intro, materials, methods etc. is an opportunity to engage our audience with visual cues, humor (mighty mouse) and cuteness (did you see that the two mice cuddling have a teddy bear!). Christie and Bill are constantly cracking jokes so this is in alignment with their pedagogical approach. Moreover, at this point in the term with how hard this class has been the collective could probably use some softheartedness. It doesn't detract from the legitimacy of our presentation, only our candor and knowledge can do that, it does convey to the audience an acknowledgement of their humanness and the shared stressful context we are all operating within.

Taking a pause for some Compassion and Ownership:
I'll be frank, the three of us that showed had some frustration about being 3/11. Was that vented aggressively? No. . .but it wasn't processed and released either. Don't worry, we didn't bad talk or anything, but we did kinda share stories of past group projects that were less than ideal. We weren't making a comparison, but the contextual association alone is probably unfair in an objective assessment. Compassion both ways between the 3/11 and the 8/11 is ultimately what we all want. This class is stressing us all out, let alone other classes, work, family, romance, life, the universe and everything else. . .damn this human shit is hard. Lets all support each other and make sure this is something we can be proud of. We don't need to tear done or passively omit the hard work of others, we also don't need to create more work than is needed for others: the middle path is what we need to collectively choose which is work with what we got as efficiently and effectively as possible. Was the candor of the first email sent out today laying a hard line, you bet. The point was to catapult us from creating to concluding this project.

Clarifications of What Comes Next
The instructions were rushed as 1 of us had to get to work and the other 2 needed to get the critiques done by 5. We spent a great deal of our time aggregating all of the information, reviewing the study to ensure accuracy in what slides we had and deciding on what the least amount of work moving forward would be for everybody.

The instructions were a little unclear. Let me try and improve and please feel free to ask for more clarification.

1) Look at the list in the first email and review the slide associated with you.
2) Some slides need the figure picture fixed, some are done, some are empty, some are partially complete. It is what it is. Anyone that needs help or wants some feedback on their ideas of editing/creating their slide please email the group; we are here to support each other. The slides gotta get done though.
2a) In particular the methods/behavioral procedure need some visioning and creation of text and visual aides.
2b) The 'conclusions' and 'critiques' sections don't necessarily need a slide. . .but why not? I mean, it doesn't take that long to make them. A picture, some text, bam, we look better than other groups.
3) Have about a minute of prepped speech for your section. In general folks with say more than they intend so we can error towards being succinct.

Work Smart, Go Team!

About ten minutes later, instructor lays the smack down.

New guy has been quiet ever since. Slide girl is crying about how everyone is mean and disrespectful.

Fuck alla this.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


LMNO

You'd think that once the instructor lays a smackdown, all of this should stop immediately.