the_sheath

Suppose there was a computerized military training simulation that was essentially designed to be a no-win scenario. Let's say, in this case, it's a rescue mission in which, due to the programming implemented, any attempts at rescuing the stranded party are met with guaranteed failure. I would say "cheating" in the form of hacking into the programming to allow the situation to be winnable is not inherently wrong. In fact, I was given to understand that approaching a problem differently than how we're taught to do it is a large part of what many of us would be doing at some point.
 
Suppose, in a another situation, you were going into a field in which espionage and information gathering was key. Suppose you were taking a test to qualify for that field, and you are explicitly that getting caught cheating is an offense punishable by expulsion from the test. However, it becomes clear that the test is also designed to be impossible to complete with the knowledge level you are expected to have at that point, and that the only way to succeed is to cheat. In fact, the unspoken purpose of the exam is to test the test-takers' skills in cheating--two fake test-takers are planted in the room, but they have all the answers, and the real test-takers' task is to extract that information without being spotted. I.e.the thing being tested is not their ability to complete the exam, but their ability to stealthily gather some target information.
 
Or maybe we can take a page from that one thing that actually happened in that one class in UCLA where cheating was actually encouraged.
 
There are probably a lot of situations in which "cheating" isn't wrong, or at least falls into a gray area. It's not that hard to imagine (I mean come on, imagination is kinda part of our schtick).
 
Back to the original situation. From what I think is going on, your professor told you to study 3 chapters for the test, and the they put questions from a 4th chapter on the test, and you realize this during the test. Is it wrong / unethical to copy off a friend who knows the answer? Probably, yeah. Is your professor a dick for not telling you to study that fourth chapter? Probably. But I mean, it sounds like you knew that the questions were from another chapter when you first saw them, so I'm guessing you covered that section already in class but didn't study it. That's on you--you're responsible for material you already covered. Though if the class hadn't gotten to that material at all, it's a little greyer there.
 
But honestly, OP, get over yourself. You talk about professor "oppression" and cheating as "justice", but in the end, what you're doing only benefits you. If you really cared about "justice", your solution would benefit everyone taking the test. Like complaining to the professor to have the questions not count toward the grade. What you're suggesting isn't just immoral, it's petty and selfish. It's clearly about you, your grade, your GPA, and what you think you're entitled to.

Wait, I thought the standard was like 10 schools?
 
And don't grad schools require 3 recommendation letters each? You're looking at 42 letters there. I don't think it's that big of a deal to ask a professor to write letters of rec for 14 schools (unless that professor hates you or doesn't know you or something), since they'd likely recycle the same letter 14 times, just changing the names around. Filling out the letter submission form, though, I hear is a pain in the ass. I heard this from one of my rec writers. But it's not like you're asking them to write 14 uniquely tailored letters.
 
Just give your professors as much time as possible, and be aware of anything that would prevent you from getting that letter (e.g. they're flaky or really super busy all the time forever)

Is this the part of the topic where we confuse "being direct" and "being directly hostile"?
 
I mean yeah, I know full well that calling people out could be seen as wrong. That does not make call-outs wrong. To make someone feel ashamed for doing something that is actually bad (passive aggression) is not wrong at all.
 
And if you wanted to avoid direct interactions/conflict, and passive aggression resulted in direct interaction and conflict, and you have reason to believe it would continue to result in direct interaction and conflict, why would you increase the amount of passive aggression? I mean, logically that's likely to just increase direct interaction and conflict.
 
For the record, I am very passive aggressive when I want to generate conflict. I've been given to understand that's a prerequisite of being an adult. And it is waaaay more socially acceptable.

Hi there fellow male!
 
My experience with roommates of a different gender are exactly the same as every experience I've had living with a roommate of the same gender, surprisingly. The only difference is that she sometimes locks the door to change in the room. But I'm pretty sure I have done that and many male roommates would do the same whenever we have locks. It turns out that women are people with individuality and agency and varying personalities. Shocker, I know.
 
You know how they say that girls tend to be cleaner than guys? HA. Yeah, that stereotype could not be further from the truth. From what I've seen it varies. Currently I live with... less than hygenic girls. Then awhile back I had a psuedo-roommate (a roommate's significant other who was also a good friend of mine who stayed over at our place more than she did at her own) who was fairly clean, fun to hang out with, and I had no issues with (she was my friend, after all). Then I've also had female roommates that were in the same apartment number, but different rooms. Also fine. When my roommates were more or less strangers, we generally kept to ourselves and within our social circles, no matter what gender. I found female roommates easier to talk to, but mostly because of my own personal tastes. There were varying levels of PDA/significant other-ship for either gender, but not much of a difference, really between genders. For both girls and guys, it varied between never really seeing the significant other and occasional to frequent sex, where I would sometimes be sexiled.
 
My parents warned me when I told them I would have female roommates that they might falsely accuse me of sexual assault, but I think that's kinda bullshit (and a harmful assumption, given how unlikely people who are actually sexually assaulted end up being believed). For me, roommates of either the male or female gender turn out to be decent people with their own lives who are only sometimes casually racist or sexist. But that's from my personal experience (did not include non-cisgendered experiences because I do not have any, but I expect it to be more or less the same).

Horse head at the foot of the bed. 

I think it means the applicant was going to send the department poop from Hell.

Yeah screw the man!

Dang, this post is a lot of wasted effort.

Because apparently this is how the show is written:
 
Or:
 
It's not actually funny. The joke is "haha look at these losers". I find that boring.  I don't actually see anything related to myself as an "academic" so I think you mean STEM Academics. I could care less -- though I was raised by an original wave D&D player, it incidentally, has little to do with "academia" for me. I was raised in nerd/geek culture but I still find much of it detestable (see: San Diego Comicon refuses to admit there is a sexual harassment problem at Cons) We're also expected to laugh when a woman wanders into a comic book shop "is she lost?" instead of realizing this is not weird or unusual and also not a joke. We're expected to laugh when things that look like gay advances are played out between male characters - we're supposed to find "predatory lesbian advances" funny (between Penny and Amy). We're supposed to laugh at "quirky" qualities that remind us of Aspergers. It's not funny. It's sexist, it's ableist, it's homophobic, it's racist. This is old and tired and boring.   
I think this just implies you were going to refuse all counter-arguments from the beginning. "stereotypes have a purpose". 
 
Yes! They do serve a purpose in our culture -- for anyone out there studying human behavior, sociology, media studies, humanities & what have you, we know this. Even a quick wikipedia will tell you what that purpose is!:
 
Stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination are understood as related but different concepts.[8][9][10][11] Stereotypes are regarded as the most cognitive component and often occurs without conscious awareness, whereas prejudice is the affective component of stereotyping and discrimination is the behavioral component of prejudicial reactions.[8][9][12] In this tripartite view of intergroup attitudes, stereotypes reflect expectations and beliefs about the characteristics of members of groups perceived as different from one's own, prejudice represents the emotional response, and discrimination refers to actions.[8][9]
Although related, the three concepts can exist independently of each other.[9][13] According to Daniel Katz and Kenneth Braly, stereotyping leads to racial prejudice when people emotionally react to the name of a group, ascribe characteristics to members of that group, and then evaluate those characteristics.[10]
Possible prejudicial effects of stereotypes[3] are:
Justification of ill-founded prejudices or ignorance
Unwillingness to rethink one's attitudes and behavior towards stereotyped groups
Preventing some people of stereotyped groups from entering or succeeding in activities or fields[14]
 
 
 
huh. Who would have thought, right? You mean like how women don't enter STEM fields at the same rates as men do? Weird, right? Our Media and culture couldn't POOOOSSSIBLY affect this phenomenon, right?
 
The audience laughs at Penny because Penny (a woman) is the joke. That's it. The crux of the humor regarding Penny is she's a funny dumb girl who doesn't "get" nerd culture. 
 
And I'm sick and tired of bad, lazy writing which alienates me. It has nothing to do with feeling misrepresented as a nerd and everything to do with a lack of basic human decency and respect towards being a woman in the "nerd" culture. Other sitcoms exist. I pretend TBBT doesn't. 

Oh boo hoo.
 
Stereotypes have a purpose, there are many stereotypes that are true and many generalizations that one could make about any group of people. Academics are often geeks and nerds, it's the truth, suck it up. Yes, the show is over-exaggerated but it's a comedy show on cable TV, it's not setting out to be a realistic portrayal of life, it's just playing on common stereotypes which can be funny - it's okay to laugh at yourself once in a while. Also, I think it is one of the better-written sitcoms on cable TV right now (which is not saying much cause sitcoms suck pretty bad nowadays).
 
And I'm not sure how much you've watched the show, but they make the audience laugh at Penny as well. Penny's role is not necessarily to be the 'normal' one, her role is contrasted with the main 'geeky' characters and the show makes just as much fun of her as they do of the geeks.
 
If anything, the 'normal' non-academic people that I know who watch the show love the academic characters and think that the show has made 'geeky' cool. It seems like academics are the only ones angry about being called geeks, but it is what you make it.

Wait... You mean, I, an aspiring mathematician, have individuality and agency?! Well, who knew.

No seriously though, we probably, for the most part, like math. So you can go off of that?

I guess my best advice would be too treat us like human beings instead of some kind of monolithic hive mind, I.e. Treat us like we have individuality and don't have "stuff we like to do in general". Get to know us, basically.

What do they expect of us? To complete graduate studies. It's a bribe. TAKE IT.

Thanks, I have done research. I realize many non-Ivy AAU schools are superior in political science to some Ivy schools.  As per my previous post, I was suggesting broad categories for purposes of benchmarking only, not as a literal enunciation and exhaustive ordering of how I classify every program in America. I suppose, though, grad school message boards are not unlike the ESPN forums. If you say the Pac 12 sucks at football, USC fans will start yelling about their championships. So that's on me. And, again, I apologize for everyone who was scandalized. 
 
(For those who are likely to be offended in the future when you come across this thread; please just assume that whatever your school is that I think it is the best school in the world for political science and my post was referring to everyplace except your university.)

We are the Math. We will add your biological and intellectual distinctiveness to our own. Your research will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.

It seems like you and person A will never converge

We're the adults now and we get to decide what that means. Screw expectations.

Wait... You mean, I, an aspiring mathematician, have individuality and agency?! Well, who knew.

No seriously though, we probably, for the most part, like math. So you can go off of that?

I guess my best advice would be too treat us like human beings instead of some kind of monolithic hive mind, I.e. Treat us like we have individuality and don't have "stuff we like to do in general". Get to know us, basically.

Wait... You mean, I, an aspiring mathematician, have individuality and agency?! Well, who knew.

No seriously though, we probably, for the most part, like math. So you can go off of that?

I guess my best advice would be too treat us like human beings instead of some kind of monolithic hive mind, I.e. Treat us like we have individuality and don't have "stuff we like to do in general". Get to know us, basically.

Wait... You mean, I, an aspiring mathematician, have individuality and agency?! Well, who knew.

No seriously though, we probably, for the most part, like math. So you can go off of that?

I guess my best advice would be too treat us like human beings instead of some kind of monolithic hive mind, I.e. Treat us like we have individuality and don't have "stuff we like to do in general". Get to know us, basically.

It's April 15th, folks! How we all doin'?

We're the adults now and we get to decide what that means. Screw expectations.

It would be like Three's Company, but with schools instead of women

Hi there fellow male!
 
My experience with roommates of a different gender are exactly the same as every experience I've had living with a roommate of the same gender, surprisingly. The only difference is that she sometimes locks the door to change in the room. But I'm pretty sure I have done that and many male roommates would do the same whenever we have locks. It turns out that women are people with individuality and agency and varying personalities. Shocker, I know.
 
You know how they say that girls tend to be cleaner than guys? HA. Yeah, that stereotype could not be further from the truth. From what I've seen it varies. Currently I live with... less than hygenic girls. Then awhile back I had a psuedo-roommate (a roommate's significant other who was also a good friend of mine who stayed over at our place more than she did at her own) who was fairly clean, fun to hang out with, and I had no issues with (she was my friend, after all). Then I've also had female roommates that were in the same apartment number, but different rooms. Also fine. When my roommates were more or less strangers, we generally kept to ourselves and within our social circles, no matter what gender. I found female roommates easier to talk to, but mostly because of my own personal tastes. There were varying levels of PDA/significant other-ship for either gender, but not much of a difference, really between genders. For both girls and guys, it varied between never really seeing the significant other and occasional to frequent sex, where I would sometimes be sexiled.
 
My parents warned me when I told them I would have female roommates that they might falsely accuse me of sexual assault, but I think that's kinda bullshit (and a harmful assumption, given how unlikely people who are actually sexually assaulted end up being believed). For me, roommates of either the male or female gender turn out to be decent people with their own lives who are only sometimes casually racist or sexist. But that's from my personal experience (did not include non-cisgendered experiences because I do not have any, but I expect it to be more or less the same).

Ladies, I wouldn't suggest it. As a fellow guy, let me just say we are all creeps and you'll constantly get hit on. I'll "forget" to put on a towel after a shower and blame it on not being used to having roommates. 

Hi there fellow male!
 
My experience with roommates of a different gender are exactly the same as every experience I've had living with a roommate of the same gender, surprisingly. The only difference is that she sometimes locks the door to change in the room. But I'm pretty sure I have done that and many male roommates would do the same whenever we have locks. It turns out that women are people with individuality and agency and varying personalities. Shocker, I know.
 
You know how they say that girls tend to be cleaner than guys? HA. Yeah, that stereotype could not be further from the truth. From what I've seen it varies. Currently I live with... less than hygenic girls. Then awhile back I had a psuedo-roommate (a roommate's significant other who was also a good friend of mine who stayed over at our place more than she did at her own) who was fairly clean, fun to hang out with, and I had no issues with (she was my friend, after all). Then I've also had female roommates that were in the same apartment number, but different rooms. Also fine. When my roommates were more or less strangers, we generally kept to ourselves and within our social circles, no matter what gender. I found female roommates easier to talk to, but mostly because of my own personal tastes. There were varying levels of PDA/significant other-ship for either gender, but not much of a difference, really between genders. For both girls and guys, it varied between never really seeing the significant other and occasional to frequent sex, where I would sometimes be sexiled.
 
My parents warned me when I told them I would have female roommates that they might falsely accuse me of sexual assault, but I think that's kinda bullshit (and a harmful assumption, given how unlikely people who are actually sexually assaulted end up being believed). For me, roommates of either the male or female gender turn out to be decent people with their own lives who are only sometimes casually racist or sexist. But that's from my personal experience (did not include non-cisgendered experiences because I do not have any, but I expect it to be more or less the same).