Live data from Hacker News

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

academia.stackexchange.com

101–110 of 659 posts

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

#101
post #23

This seems like an extremely low yield way to get female attention. A male engineering student would have to take an entire class, study new material, and come up with schemes for seeming like a "chad" for the unlikely chance that the opposite gender will be impressed with him. They could spend that time building cool things. Are people really this desperate?

A 100 level math class for an engineering or other math heavy major should be easy though. A liberal arts algebra class that barely does math and spends more time talking about X and Y's feelings should be a total cakewalk if you've passed Calculus II and are taking classes on imaginary numbers and group theory. So all they'd have to do is join a study group, schedule group study time, and not even have to be all that brilliant at the math part.

If you're in college, and not interested in traditional partying (frats, loud music, beer, getting wasted; am terrible at beer pong), this is an alternative route to getting noticed doing something you're good at.

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

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wasn't my reading. It seemed like the instructor was not thrilled that her course was being audited by showboaters, who were interested in meeting/impressing women as opposed to learning.

“College students taking social classes with no intention of learning” is not exactly headline material though.

I got the sense it was an academic class, not a social class. Also, most students who take classes with no interest in learning would either skip class or keep their mouths shut. The problem here is that they're degrading the learning environment for others.

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

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women aren't dumb. They almost certainly already know what the deal is, and I doubt they'd be phased by it if they were attracted to a guy.

“If a sexy man compliments me it’s fine. If an ugly man looks at me too long it’s harassment”

Well, yeah

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

#104
post #4

Bill Gates and Paul Allen were doing something similar decades ago. According to https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35442969 (but well known before that): > Paul Allen, who would later become a co-founder of Microsoft, was a couple of years above Gates at school. Together they fixed the school scheduling software to ensure Gates was the only boy in classes of girls.

Remember, YouTube started as a dating service!

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

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

eh, there's really no good signal for women to display that says "hey, i'm open to being hit on right now" or "please don't hit on me right now"

THE DEFAULT IS "please don't hit on me right now"

in college? where it's known that a ton of meet people/discover yourself sexually/experiment/hook up, a lot? i'm not sure how realistic that is

how does anybody start talking to anybody then? somebody has to make the first move to go from stranger -> acquaintance, no?

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

#106

Am I understanding correctly that some students took the publicly published racial/gender/diversity data for the college and basically made an app advertising "here are all of the women taking college seriously and pursuing STEM courses, so you can maybe find a sugar mama?" Why would a female smart enough to pass college level STEM classes fall for that "bro" logic? How is this successful at all?

"100-level science and mathematics" classes don't really qualify as college-level. They're basically remedial high school classes.

my fault, thank you for explaining

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

#107
post #17
post #8

Don't let senior level students audit junior level classes? Why are they even there besides the reasons outlined in the problem? This is a problem with the University because they don't want to acknowledge a problem. Do they really think that's going to last? If it was my daughter who left the class because she was harassed I'd be very angry.

Why do people see this as even remotely unethical? It seems to me that it's great that plenty of younger people are getting essentially free tutoring sessions and fun friendships/relationships out of it. Unless there's sexual assault/battery being alleged here, this is both ethical and good for all the students involved!

Anything not “equally accessible to all” is antithetic evil.

It is more just for everyone to be worse off than advantage to accrue to the already advantaged.

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

#108

It's so weird to see people defend this because this seems like fairly textbook power harassment. If this was to occur at work where some managers were organizing their pods or such so that they're the only man in a group of women for the sake of dating it would clearly be seen as a problem. If the story is true, people auditing courses should be treated with a higher level of responsibility. Giving preferential trea…

>fairly textbook power harassment

I thought "power harassment" is when you have power over someone. How does auditing a course give you power over fellow students?

>the intention behind joining in the first place is what matters

What's wrong with having an intention of finding someone to marry? Suppose a woman signs up for eHarmony with the intention of meeting her future husband -- is that problematic?

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

#109
post #36

For many people, college itself is a dating service.

What else is it?

It's what you want it to be. Dating area, social network building place, source for information and tutors, source of certification, funnel to corpo jobs, etc...

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

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

eh, there's really no good signal for women to display that says "hey, i'm open to being hit on right now" or "please don't hit on me right now"

THE DEFAULT IS "please don't hit on me right now"

That’s the same perspective as all my college friends who’ve not found a partner to settle down with (~15y out).
Post reply on HN