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I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

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Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#461

Post by ecshafer »

fullofbees wrote: post #433

It is wild to me that the bulk of responses here seem to take how this is being described by the poster at face value. As well as the question of interfering with registration, he has also gone about this in a way that causes reputational damage (& UW have probably caused their own, but that's not necessarily relevant here), which I cant imagine they'll take that kindly either. But I work in a public university in th…

The insanity, authoritarian impulse and incompetence of American University admins is very easy to believe for anyone who has interacted with them.

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#462

Post by rtkwe »

machiaweliczny wrote: post #457

IMO it should be ranked order and random assignment

Ranked base on what though? The other issue is registration doesn't always open for everyone all at once. Often you get earlier registration if you're in your final year(s) so you can take more specialized classes or fill in general education gaps that you might have put off.

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#463

Post by alistairSH »

I'm so thankful my university (UVA) didn't have these registration problems. Granted, I graduated in '99, so they might now. But I never had any difficulty getting into required classes. At worst, an email to the prof got me a waiver, and IIRC, I only had to do that once.

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#464

Post by cdurth »

croemer wrote: post #445
prophesi wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

56 commits, +273,244, -7,270 LOC vs 46 commits, +478, -94 LOC I think it's safe to say it was mostly him.

Don't get fooled by LOCs. Out of the 273k LOC added, all but 20k, that is 253k are just from the boilerplate auto-generated copy/paste initialization code: https://github.com/JDKaim/HuskySwap/commit/e9f0df0d5a221b3c7... Sure he probably did most of the coding, but it's still weird to talk all about I and not mention the other 5 in a single word when they _did_ contribute. Maybe they did testing or other things that a…

Not just random biloilerplate/framework code either. A framework his dad created. So with this logic his dad did the majority of the project.

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#465

Post by TheCoelacanth »

sneak wrote: post #306
School-Cotton wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems reasonable to at least attempt to resolve the situation by emailing someone higher up than whichever random bureaucrat put a hold on his account before immediately jumping to hiring lawyers.

The lawyer emails someone higher up, otherwise the higher up will simply smash the hammer harder to protect against liability. Showing up without representation here is a mark of unseriousness. Adult businesspeople always have lawyers do the fighting for them; if you don’t it says more about you than the fight.

Not necessarily. The more damage you do to someone, the higher the potential liability. Smart business people usually know that de-escalating is often the best choice.

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#466

Post by pc86 »

gonzobonzo wrote: post #270
asdffdasy wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's almost like universities are about controlling an artificial limited access to knowledge than about knowledge uh.

That's what bothers me the most about this. The reason this is even an issue in the first place is because universities are aren't adequately providing what the students want. So you want to study, say, engineering. First you have to apply and get admitted to the university, and many people aren't admitted. The acceptance rate I can find for UW is 54% in-state, 46% out of state. Then the university tells you that if…

Having admissions is an objective good though. Yes there's some gatekeeping aspects to it. But smart people want to be around smart people. I went to a school that I got into easily and if I could change one thing that I did in HS I would apply to more schools and try to go to the one that I barely got into.

Study other things is good too. I went to a liberal arts school for this. I studied politics, chemistry, computer science, Chinese language, South African history, Russian literature. Of course me knowing how to count to ten in Mandarin or being able to talk about the influences of Dostoevsky never helped me get a job but being well-rounded is an objectively Good Thing. I don't think you should have 60 credits of gen eds but a semester or two worth of non-STEM classes over 2-3 years is not going to hurt anyone.

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#467

Post by pc86 »

lupire wrote: post #439
gonzobonzo wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what bothers me the most about this. The reason this is even an issue in the first place is because universities are aren't adequately providing what the students want. So you want to study, say, engineering. First you have to apply and get admitted to the university, and many people aren't admitted. The acceptance rate I can find for UW is 54% in-state, 46% out of state. Then the university tells you that if…

It's not the university's fault that the taxpayers refuse to fund a larger school. Edit per reply: $1M/yr for the President is less than $50/student/year. Not funding more classes for students.

The president of UW makes $912,000 a year. They have plenty of money, they're just not allocating it on the things they should be.

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#468

Post by _yb2s »

Spivak wrote: post #432
_yb2s wrote: post #410

This does not add up- this is your last term but you’ve only been there a year and a half? The university, who presumably has a professional engineering team making these systems is trying to blackmail an undergrad to reproduce something for free that they also wanted shut down? And you’re marketing this on linkedin in the context of asking for job offers?

Probably a transfer, but lol at professional engineering team. Zero chance. The resignation system is probably outsourced to at best some edu-tech company and at worst is basically the most cursed Sharepoint site that's ever existed.

I’m an academic and my institution does all such things in house with a real engineering team in the IT department- as well as a UI and visual design team. PIs can also pay them to develop sites for their own labs, etc. This is pretty standard across half a dozen universities I've worked at.

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#469

Post by caseysoftware »

GrantMoyer wrote: post #88
jdkaim wrote: post #7

Update: I immediately took down my class project site after receiving yesterday’s ultimatum. I still don’t think the simple demo site violated the letter or spirit of the registration rules, but I took it down because I always want to operate in good faith. They followed up today to thank me for doing it, but also indicated that they were putting a hold on my account anyway. As a result, I am not going to be able to…

> I am not planning to get a lawyer involved as I have faith that UW leadership will make it right in the end. All evidence so far indicates they will not make it right, but instead they may make it even worse. Your faith is wildly misplaced. Seriously, talk to a lawyer. Keep in mind, just because you seek advice from a lawyer doesn't mean you need to take legal action against the school. Talking to a lawyer is not a…

^ This.

You need a trusted advisor on your side who can look at it with a calm mind and perspective on what is normal, acceptable, and legal. You're young and have been slapped around, seemingly inappropriately.

If you were in physical pain, you'd talk to a doctor to assess and get recommendations before treatment. Do the same here.

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#470

Post by novaleaf »

joecool1029 wrote: post #325
GrantMoyer wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am not planning to get a lawyer involved as I have faith that UW leadership will make it right in the end. All evidence so far indicates they will not make it right, but instead they may make it even worse. Your faith is wildly misplaced. Seriously, talk to a lawyer. Keep in mind, just because you seek advice from a lawyer doesn't mean you need to take legal action against the school. Talking to a lawyer is not a…

Unlike most of the other commenters I have personal experience fighting a college administration in court. It was a massive time waste and I came out losing a years of my academic career where they lost nothing (money is absolutely not a factor for a large university, nor is stalling court proceedings to waste your life). I'm not even allowed to elaborate deeply on what it was about, the settlement for putting it beh…

"You can beat the rap, but not the ride".

I am still dealing with a case with a 3 letter agency, going on 6 years now. "Bureaucratic violence" is a thing.

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