Academia Ghetto Thread

[Eater of Clowns]

SWEET MERCIFUL FUCK THIS IS INSUFFERABLE HOW HAVE YOU NOT KILLED THIS MAN

[Vanadium Gryllz]

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:

BOOM! 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.

Wow. Well at least his opening lines set the tone for the entire email. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Right? He's kind of fucking incredible.

One of the other guys in the group knows someone who was in the group this guy was mysteriously "unable" to present with, and has asked him why, exactly, he didn't present with them.

None of us are really sure who he is or what he looks like. Total mystery.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

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

Yes. You would, wouldn't you?

At this point, nobody is posting. I am probably going to make slides that meet the specifications myself, just to make sure that gets done.

[Cain]

I think it's a TA, trolling you all. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I think it's a TA, trolling you all.

Hahahaha, it would be pretty funny if we were being graded on how we handle a troll in our group!

Shit, that would make an awesome psychological experiment.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Additional pointless drama has ensued.

This thing is worth maybe 2% of our grade. At this point I have checked out completely.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Ha. Hahahaha.

I hate being a TA. There's one girl who can't seem to print her homework, OR to email it to us. She has so many excuses all the time and I just don't fucking care, I wish she would stop telling me her excuses because it's not going to improve her grade. After 2 months of class you can't figure out how to save a Word file, use the school computers, print, or email files? This is not my problem. How the fuck are you even in an upper-division class, anyway?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I just got asked to TA again next term.

It kind of makes me want to slit my wrists, but I'm considering it. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Also HI GUYS IT'S FINALS.

[Junkenstein]

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

Please tell me it's a white background.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

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

Please tell me it's a white background.

Oh my god, I didn't even notice that.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I talked to a professor today who wants to introduce me to another professor who runs a LAB FULL OF SNAKES OH MY GOD YOU GUYS she researches the endocrine system in SNAKES.

I so want to go work in that lab. Fuck neuroimaging, dude, SNAKES.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I want to do SCIENCE in a SNAKE LAB.

[Junkenstein]

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

Please tell me it's a white background.

Oh my god, I didn't even notice that.

I just don't understand this at all. It's "Make X slides (1 each) here's all the info on a plate". It's fucking busywork. Slides are black and white. No bullshit no clip art convey info. It surely takes a cretin to fuck this up and surely multiple revisions of the fucking slide format are not required.

I'm actually annoyed for you. Tell him total strangers think he's a gibbering fucking clown and I wouldn't trust him not to shit himself in public. Literally, not metaphorically and not through ill health. Make that quite clear if you would.

Tell the fucker I'm speaking for justice for the 8/11.