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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

#631

Post by s1artibartfast »

croemer wrote: post #556

His (presumed) dad commented this on LinkedIn: > I have seen all the emails now and it's as bad as described. I thought there might be some hyperbole but the "University Registrar and Chief Officer of Enrollment Information Services" is clearly saying "work with us to build this for free or you're not graduating". They even specify that he needs to set up the meeting "well before registration opens on February 13th f…

It is hard to take the student's post as anything but feigned innocence at how this solution could be viewed as registration tampering & abuse. I can imagine ignorance before the school reacted, but failing to grasp their position after receiving a expulsion threat shows either a major deficit of cognitive empathy or dishonesty.

This makes me skeptical of any follow-on claims or discussion.

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

#632

Post by digging »

Aurornis wrote: post #415
joecool1029 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Thanks for speaking up. The internet talks about getting a lawyer like it’s a magic (and free) button you press to resolve a situation. It’s not, and in some cases it can turn your problem into a more expensive and protracted different problem if you’re not careful. I’d be especially cautious around a University that has already proven itself to have bureaucratic people who will turn small issues into threats of expu…

It is usually free and kind of magical to talk to a lawyer, though.

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

#634

Post by s1artibartfast »

digging wrote: post #629
s1artibartfast wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people are also reacting to presumption that [hiring ones son[ is a [negative] mark on integrity or honestly. Many (most?) people don't draw that as a logical conclusion.

What does `this` refer to in your comment? If "hiring his son," I don't think anybody is indicating that it is a mark of integrity or honesty.

Thanks, I edited to clear that up. Yes, I meant hiring his son. I think loliander was explicitly claiming that it impacts their honesty and credibility.

>I'm suggesting that this father may have engaged in nepotism once before, which makes me question his integrity.

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

#635

Post by s1artibartfast »

lolinder wrote: post #586
kelnos wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that the (presumed) father would be heavily invested in his kid, regardless of whether or not he gave him a job while he was in HS. Certainly we should look at someone else's (especially a relative's) corroboration of the story with some skepticism; ideally we could see the emails themselves. But really, OP should contact a lawyer ASAP.

Right, but I do think that the fact that he gave his son a job in high school makes his testimony even more unreliable than a typical parental relationship. Maybe the kid really is that good, but it's more likely that the dad was willing to sacrifice a bit of his company's time to support his son. That's not a decision that every father would make—not even every supportive father—so I think it's relevant here.

Seems like a normal and expected parental relationship to me. I would be suspect of the fathers that didn't do so.

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

#636

Post by JohnMakin »

brewdad wrote: post #195
jimt1234 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you need an account to register for classes? Can't you just register in-person like I did back when we roamed the earth with dinosaurs?

At UW? No. You must log in at exactly 6am (preferably 5:58) on your registration day. Have your planned schedule in hand with all class codes and multiple backups. Assuming the system doesn't crash repeatedly, all of the required and/or popular classes will be full by 6:05. Rinse. Repeat for the entire 2 weeks of registration.

This is pretty much how it works at every school I've ever attended. It ended up driving me towards "hacking" by writing a bunch of scripts to register as fast as possible, taught me some basic networking in the challenges I faced while doing that, and occasionally grabbed me a seat in a class I normally wouldn't have. However, I think a lot of other students in CS were also doing similar, because it would never make sense how stuff could fill as fast as they did. As a result, sometimes I would have to beg to be allowed to take a graduate level course to fill a requirement, just because it had seats. Ended up working out for me, as one of those graduate professors ended up offering me a job in my 2nd to last quarter, but I wouldn't be surprised if such overloaded systems just brutally sabotage people's entire education.

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

#637

Post by polotics »

antoinebalaine wrote: post #534
polotics wrote: post #383

Amidst all of the talk about the reported coercion attempt, which is bad, may I also ask something about the bait and switch: so you paid a lot of money to attend a given university and then even though your grades and everything else would in theory allow you to follow a class you can be blocked because of resource constraints that are not advertised as something you would have to contend with when you paid the big…

Isn't this the case in most universities?

In most of the world once you signed up and got admitted at an university it is for a specific program, and the defined set of courses for the program you are on is set, some first year medical-school lecture-halls can get very crowded and even nasty, but you're still in.

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

#638

Post by loeg »

craftman210 wrote: post #368
loeg wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can definitely bang out all the major requirements in 2 years if you don't need any gen ed classes (e.g. community college or other transfer credits). ~18 class-quarters of requirements, 3 classes/quarter => 6 quarters. Possibly as short as 4-5 quarters if you can manage a higher courseload.

Note: this isn't true for some universities that limit transfer/AP credits. I remember some of my classmates not taking their AP tests senior year of high school because of it.

We're specifically talking about UW CSE here.

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

#639

Post by mmooss »

dekhn wrote: post #548
phibz wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their response on face value doesn't make sense. But if I had to guess, you inadvertently made someone in the registrar's office look bad. They probably had to answer to "why didn't you think of this?" If that is the case then it makes a lot more sense and is retaliatory behavior. You can't undo their insecurity and loss of face. Therefore you should not expect a reasonable response. Act accordingly. Educate yourself…

Yeah, let me give some perspective here. There's somebody in the registrar's office whose job is to be responsible for the production process of registration. They are minimally staffed and given just enough resources to run that process. Likely at some point their leadership told them they had to make an API so that they could integrate with other systems. Due to poor funding and lack of skills, just doing that is a…

You write as if you've had some experience .... Still, the IT team should have reached out to the student - it's a university and they especially should be good and dealing with inexperienced, well-meaning students - and straightened it out: Hey, this is a great idea; it will also need this and this and something like this to work with these other systems and handle the load on registration day.

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

#640

Post by darkhorse222 »

tantalor wrote: post #609
Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until they post evidence, legal counsel comments on it, or its reported by a news agency its a bit moot. I personally would have gone full nuclear and posted all evidence to put pressure on the school already by now. If I'm already defacto expelled I'd have nothing to lose by putting this on blast. Its weird that he hasn't posted anything given the retaliation he is receiving, hence why its hard to take completely se…

This is an internet discussion forum; everything is moot.

"Only a fool would take anything here as fact"
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