Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service • Hacker News Board

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#281

Post by whacim » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 4:14 AM UTC

kweinber wrote: post #170

This is an economics problem and this teacher should work with their Econ department to change the rules for course auditing and increase reputational costs to disincentive this behavior. A few options: 1) Make auditing those classes more expensive by limiting the total number of courses a student can audit, or capping the number of students that can audit those courses. 2) Make auditing a remote-only class option. 3…

It is difficult to suggest solutions without knowing exactly what the course is, but designing a class project to develop a solution for an analogous problem might be a solution.

Assign the students a project to filter out students with ulterior motives from a theoretical class. The engineers will then be forced to produce a solution for the problem of their own creation while subtly alerting other students that not everyone enrolled in the course is there for the same reason.

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#282

Post by operatingthetan » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 4:14 AM UTC

jimbob45 wrote: post #233

hsn915 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That will not lead to a drop in fertility. Infact, that's exactly how high fertility societies operate. At least the Islamic ones, like Afghanistan for example, where the population doubled since 2001. Fertility has been dropping since the 80s, long before anything to do with wokeism or meetoo or whatever.

Fertility has been dropping since the 80s, long before anything to do with wokeism or meetoo or whatever. So nobody was woke in the 80s? Feminism and homosexuality just sprang up out of nowhere in 2010?

Further proof nobody has a firm definition of what 'woke' is.

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#283

Post by boppo1 » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 4:14 AM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #242

nhchris wrote: post #43

> This might be hard, as no unwanted advances are taking place. We simply have students excelling at the course, and drawing-in a crowd. I should've been more clear with my "leching" comment. Still, it seems harassing in nature. It seems increasingly that society demands a world where dating only happens during designated and approved dating times and venues, and outside those strictly delimited places, men are to be…

> It seems increasingly that society demands a world where dating only happens during designated and approved dating times and venues Isn't that the definition of "dating" though? If you're not at a previously designated "date" you're not really dating, you're just hanging out as friends. You can still try to show off good qualities that would hopefully raise the other person's interest. Sometimes people who hang out…

I think the post you're responding to meant 'courtship' instead of 'dating'.

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#284

Post by zozbot234 » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 4:15 AM UTC

jhanschoo wrote: post #198

I'm appalled that so many other commenters don't see an issue with such behavior in class: > number of female students have approached me, noting they are disgusted and uncomfortable with the amount of leching taking place > It's also demoralizing several of them, since we routinely have cases where a young man is leading open labs as if they're a teacher themselves (in order to "wow" their female classmates, offer "…

I think you're right about this. The male auditors are overdoing the whole showboating thing in a way that creates a bad experience for the rest of the students, and probably doesn't really help their romantic prospects either. Sensible women want to get to know friends in a gradual, natural fashion and perhaps be a little wowed in non-obvious ways. No one wants to be advertised to with "FREE private tutoring sessions, limited offer!" That alone is incredibly obnoxious.

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#285

Post by wilsonnb3 » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 4:15 AM UTC

bruce511 wrote: post #207

elil17 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s disrespectful because it ignores the fact that the women are not there to date, but to learn. The men are getting in their way by showing off and offering disingenuous tutoring.

I feel like (as an old person) trying to tell youngsters how to behave at college, seems, well likely to fall in deaf ears. But I'm not sure your point holds water. If women want to date, they can. If they don't want to then they don't have to. These other students hold no power, assign no grades, and so on. Perhaps the root issue is the demoralization of some not being offered dates or extra tutoring? But it's hard…

> These other students hold no power

A key point is that these students do have power because they already know the coursework. That is the whole reason that they chose these specific classes.

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#286

Post by murrkat » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 4:15 AM UTC

joe-collins wrote: post #278

murrkat wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there not a chance one of the young men offering open labs or tutoring might, in fact, be intelligent, enthusiastic about the sciences and decent ?

If they're so intelligent and decent, why are they relying on such disturbing tactics to meet women in the first place?

Begging the question.

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#287

Post by ShredKazoo » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 4:15 AM UTC

texaslonghorn5 wrote: post #257

ShredKazoo wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you know the material, that gives you the power to offer tutoring sessions, which is power over people who don't know the material. >dating your student as a TA is questionable TAs are paid employees who often grade student papers. Seems like a very different situation.

if you take a class purely to offer tutoring to less advanced students for the purpose of looking impressive, finding dates, etc., then you are taking advantage of this power dynamic sure this is different but if the advanced students are engineering situations where they are leading lab sessions then it's not that different

>if you take a class purely to offer tutoring to less advanced students for the purpose of looking impressive, finding dates, etc., then you are taking advantage of this power dynamic

Sure, and if I pay a fast food worker to make me a burger, I'm taking advantage of the "power dynamic" of me having more money than they do.

>sure this is different but if the advanced students are engineering situations where they are leading lab sessions then it's not that different

I think the right response for the professor in this situation is

1. Don't reduce the amount of help that would normally be offered to students in the class. That way there's still someone getting paid to lead lab sessions.

2. Pull aside the seniors and say to them: "I know what you're doing, and I'm ok with it, as long as you help everyone who asks for help, including people you're not interested in. If you're making the students you're not interested in feel terrible, I'm going to announce what you're doing to the entire class."

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#288

Post by ZephyrBlu » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 4:15 AM UTC

ImaCake wrote: post #261

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking a class, participating in labs and offering tutoring purely to find a partner is an extremely high effort attempt from a man. Men try less respectful and far more thinly veiled attempts on women all the time. > Isn't it totally distracting to you if someone you're not attracted in is looking at you and commenting on you and trying to "help" you? And what if they are attractive?

Why does the amount of effort make things better? By the same measure we would say spying on someone with binoculars is more acceptable than stalking their facebook page.

Effort is generally a pretty good proxy for respect. If this isn't a respectful attempt, can you explain what is a respectful attempt?

You go to a class, offer to help a girl and then at some point later (End of the class, etc) you ask for her number. If she says no at any point you leave her alone. What's disrespectful about that if you're genuinely helping her?

Of course if you're leering and won't leave a girl alone that's disrespectful, but taking a class and offering help to attractive girls isn't inherently disrespectful.

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#289

Post by Dalewyn » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 4:16 AM UTC

onepointsixC wrote: post #213

Dalewyn wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me clarify: You don't pork out during your academic day; you get acquainted during the day to get the ball rolling, and then proceed with the porking once you've punched out and are now spending your private time.

So what, you're hoping that potential love interests just stagnate like you and don't date and find other partners? No. This is highly unrealistic of normal young men and women.

It's one thing to become familiar and make friends with people around you, that's just the natural order of society.

It's completely another to pork yourself out in environments and situations unfit or not intended for such purposes. You ostensibly go to class to learn, not (eventually) fuck.

Re: Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

#290

Post by climb_stealth » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 4:16 AM UTC

shusaku wrote: post #122

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #13

I still have clear recollection of the 50:1 men-to-women ratio in my CS2xx classes and higher. Your odds weren't good if you were hoping to meet Mrs. Right. I imagine things have gotten better since. Still, seems like a fairly high effort low outcome place to meet someone who is likely not even receptive to advances in that context. Do colleges not offer many other opportunities for people to meet outside of class in…

When I was in college I think the thing to do was to take the ballroom dancing class if you wanted to meet Mr./Mrs. Right. I agree that taking an introductory science class is overthinking things…

Hah, in my time at a technical uni it felt like everyone had the idea to take Spanish classes. Because women love Spanish, right? And surely that's what they do with their free time, right?

Cue the start of the Spanish course with 18 guys and 2 girls in it. Not sure how it progressed but I dropped it again after that one semester. I have a feeling many of the other guys did the same.