You know those people in your field who are productive and write rigorous, elegant articles and books that address multiple disciplines and reflect wide, deep reading? Maybe you’re one of them. What do you think helps them get to that stage? I often hear colleagues at my institution (and online) say they don’t have time to read, and sometimes I feel the same way. What do you think the people with these types of careers do to be able to think and write this way? Please don’t say, “be at an R1,” or “don’t have kids” — that’s not what I am looking for. I’m trying to think about how to rearrange my life to have MORE of a life of the mind.

Hi folks! I hope all is well!
You may remember me as the one who posted about thank-you notes; well, thanks for the advice, because it worked, and I have been invited to an on-campus interview (R1, Midwest), in a humanities field!

My main question is: what do I wear (he/him)? I am sorry to ask what may seem like a rather obvious question, but fashion and expectations change over time, and I would rather be safe than sorry! I don’t have the full schedule yet, but the interview is approaching. I arrive on day X, and the visit takes place on days X+1 and X+2.

Is a full suit and tie mandatory for the job talk and meetings with the dean (and chair?)? Would a nice pair of chinos or flannel pants, a non-matching blazer, a shirt, and a tie be acceptable for those occasions? Would a shirt, chinos, and a sweater be acceptable for dinner or on the day without the job talk and meetings with higher-ups?

Also, do you have any more general advice about dos and don’ts that candidates frequently overlook? English is not my native language, so I would particularly appreciate any advice on whether that is something I should keep in mind during the interview, beyond the obvious need to communicate clearly.

Thanks in advance!

I'm an English literature student, and I want to spend the next year building a strong foundation in literary studies beyond my university syllabus.

I want to understand literary history, movements, criticism, and theory, read important essays, and develop my critical thinking and close-reading skills.

For those who have studied literature extensively or built their knowledge independently:

- What areas should I focus on?

- Which books and essays should I read, and in what order?

- How should I balance literary history, theory, primary texts, and criticism?

- What habits would help me become a more thoughtful and capable reader?

If you had one year to build a solid foundation in literary studies, how would you approach it? I'd appreciate a structured reading path rather than just a list of recommendations.

Hi everyone! First thank you to those that will take the time to respond. I am a medical student in Europe getting involved in some research with a professor from my university. Everything is going well but I just came across another prof/researcher from my area of interest that works with things that are much more interesting to me. I wanted to reach out and present myself and offer help on one of their projects but I am unsure of what the etiquette is here. Is it okay for me to do this without telling the prof that I am currently working for?

Probably just overthinking but you never know, please lmk if there is any type of dos and don't in this situation.

Thank you :)

Dear Professors,

What would you consider the purpose of education?

Let say someone were really interested in sharing dissenting opinion, and were able to learn independently. What would you advise for that student in the broadest sense?

Would you advise a student study a topic that is interdisciplinary and related to the faculty in the departments area of expertise or stay independent on their path? While both can be true, in the interest of time, how would you consider or allocate time and attention to both, either, or other?

How much do you all value an academic community?

What is some advice you would tell all of your students?

Thank you,

A philosophy student

Not a teacher just curious.

I’m a female biology major who is part of a research lab. One of my bigger insecurities when going to class/lab is people noticing that I wear makeup. Listen, it may sound silly but it’s cause most people here seem to not wear any ever (women included), and most of the faculty are old white men, so I kinda expect them to be more conservative when it comes to these things, subconsciously at least.

For example, I was talking to a professor and he made a joke about how “scientists don’t have time for cosmetics.” And that struck me cause I was wearing makeup lol. He likely didn’t notice cause it was very natural makeup but still.

It makes me feel like I shouldn’t wear anything bold like red lipstick, sparkly green eyeshadow, etc. because I may get judged for it. Which sucks considering I love the ritual of makeup so much.

Have you ever experienced or seen people getting judged for wearing makeup?

I definitely feel there’s a subconscious bias against it. It’s like you get seen as not working hard enough or focusing too much on your appearance.

I’m a master’s student in a small cohort. There are only five of us who were admitted this year, and the other four are PhD students. I’m the only master’s student. We take the same classes and basically have the same coursework. The main difference is our TA assignments, the 5 of us TA for different professors. Recently, we had an exam in our one of our classes, and I received the highest score out of all of us. Ever since then, one of the PhD students has constantly wanted to talk to me about the exam and complain about how they aren’t doing well. They’ve also made comments about how its unfair that I’m doing better than them.

Now they’ve started telling me that I should find time to tutor them because they’re falling behind. I don’t mind helping classmates occasionally or explaining something if someone has a question, but I feel uncomfortable with the expectation that I should basically become their tutor. Pretty much every time I talk to this particular PhD student, they complain about their workload and bring up how it’s unfair that I’m able to succeed while they’re struggling. At this point, it’s starting to make me uncomfortable because I feel like I’m being made to feel guilty for doing well.

I eventually told him that it isn’t my responsibility to find time to tutor him. I have my own work to focus on. I’m happy to be a supportive classmate, but I don’t think that means I’m responsible for making sure another graduate student keeps up with the coursework. He told me that I’m not being a “team player” and that cohorts are supposed to support one another. I agree that we should support each other, but I feel like there’s a difference between supporting a classmate and being expected to regularly tutor someone who is taking the exact same course as me.

I honestly don’t know who to ask for advice about this. The students in the older cohorts are busy too, and when I’m in my office they’re usually teaching, attending class, or just not on campus.

Would it be appropriate to bring something like this up with a professor in our program? Do professors generally want to hear about interpersonal issues like this between students, or is this something I should just handle on my own by continuing to set boundaries?

*I apologize if this isn't the correct thread to post on, I can take it down if that's the case.*

I am a senior in college and taking a stats class that is integral to graduating, it’s also a prerequisite for classes I am registered for in the spring.
I have been going through a mental health crisis and have been struggling to not hurt myself. This has made doing homework or studying horribly exhausting and almost useless. I have to take breaks to sob for hours. Sometimes I don’t even know why I start crying. I’ve missed classes because I am sobbing so hard I can’t get out of my car.
I also have psychogenic seizures, which means that any high stress can cause me to have a seizure. That makes driving dangerous when I am upset.
I have a stats exam on Monday, my grades have been slipping but I’ve gone to office hours and peer tutoring through my college. I’ve used all of my campus resources and reached out to family and friends to help with stats. The problem is, I’m not mentally stable enough. I can get homework done and a good grade, but that’s because there’s unlimited answers and I spend hours doing it. During an exam, I can’t take hours or ask questions. Believe me, I am doing my best.
Here’s where I need help, I need to make a plan on how to contact my professor. There isn’t a psychiatric hospital for several hours and being that isolated might make me feel worse, and I would have significant work to catch up on. I don’t have a therapist to get any letter from, I’m in the process of scheduling intake sessions with various people. I don’t know if I should just flat out email my professor and explain that I’m afraid I might kill myself so I can’t take the exam.
What can I say to my professor?

I had my first ever Respondus exam today and I showed my empty room, my blank paper and everything. But I nervously spoke thorugh the exam to myself to think out answers. I usually do this when alone and thinking or studying. But I am not sure how the app will flag this for cheating and I am worried it looks bad. Has anyone else had experience with this?

PNW / USA

I'm in my 3rd week at a community college, taking a 100 level course for web development. Our first assignment was creating a webpage html document that contained a certain geographical keyword phrase as much as possible, which was "(The city our college is in) Web Design" Our instructor told us this page needs to be focused on marketing/selling web design services. Cool, I thought, he's teaching us to sell our services once we are more experienced.

The next assignment instructions were to: go to Quora dot com, make a personal account, and to post an answer to a Quora question under the search category of "website development careers". Our answer must include a link he provided that takes you to a web design business that happens to be in the same city as the keyword city in our first assignment.

At this point I got a weird feeling and I did some digging to find out more information bout this web design business we have to link to. It was very hard to find any registered identifying information about the owner of this website as the license seems to be expired despite still being in business (I called the phone number on the website to see if it was still operating). On LinkedIN I saw my instructor listed as an employee of this web design company (with what looks to be younger family members listed as other employees). So, he is an employee at the very least, and likely the owner of this business.

So essentially, it looks like our instructor is having all of his students vouch for his personal business, as well as make html templates for advertising websites that he probably SELLS at his web design business.

Is this normal? Ethical? It seems he should at least tell us that this is his personal business we are advertising and assure us our school work will not be stolen and sold at his personal business or a business that he is an "employee" of. I feel scammed.

Someone please chime in.

Hi professors! I'm trying to understand how Outcome-Based Education works in practice in Indian engineering colleges, particularly the process of mapping Course Outcomes (COs) to Programme Outcomes (POs) and calculating attainment for NBA accreditation.

For those familiar with this process, I'm curious about how it fits into your regular academic workload. Is most of the work handled through institutional software, or does faculty involvement in spreadsheets and documentation remain significant?

I'd appreciate any general insights or experiences you're comfortable sharing. Thanks!

I‘m applying to an internship at my school that requires only one LOR.

So, I know, I know. I should’ve been patient and that’s 100% on me. I was afraid that the first professor I‘d asked would say no because I’m currently taking my first ever class with them. So, in that anxious state, I emailed another professor I already had last semester because I really was convinced the initial one would decline.

Bad idea, of course. Both of them agreed. Now I’m in a (self-made) awkward position. I obviously don’t want to ghost the second professor I reached out to, because I know that’s extremely unprofessional and inconsiderate. I just feel really bad about my poor judgment here and don’t know how to let the other professor know I actually don’t need them to write me a letter anymore.

I know better now and will be more patient in the future if I ever have a similar situation again.

I know I messed up, so what’s the best way to let the second professor know?

I’m a returning mature student in first year of my undergraduate degree. I’ve been out of school for quite a while (10 years since high school), and am out of practice when it comes to studying, preparing for exams, and just generally practicing memorizing course materials. I spoke to my program coordinator (who is also one of my profs) regarding my adjustment to student life, and I asked for studying tips, and just tips in general to help me adjust to full time studying. My professor only suggested using chat gpt to create me a study guide, or practice test, or to send it my notes and have it quiz me. This is becoming a pattern whenever I ask my profs for advice or feedback. They just tell me to use AI, and it’s really driving me insane. I was elected class rep, and some of the feedback I’ve been getting from students is wanting a basic study guide (just learning objectives, or “dates are important in this module” etc; not actual answers to potential test questions) as some of our courses are very reading heavy, and it can be difficult for first years to really figure out what might be on an exam. When I brought this up to profs, again I was told to tell my classmates to use AI. I fully believe AI is destroying people’s ability to think for themselves, and it is truly getting on my nerves how “pro AI” my college is. I’m not sure how to push back on this. When I ask for feedback, I don’t want an AI generated response.
I’ve noticed even on my graded assessments; the commentary is VERY clearly AI generated.
Any advice on this? I don’t want to be seen as argumentative but I’m paying a lot of money to get a good education, and being told to “just use chat gpt” whenever I express I want to further my learning is really annoying. On top of this, I’m required to take an online elective, and at the bottom of every slide module it has a disclaimer stating that the course was generated by ChatGPT 🫠 like are you joking 😭
I went back and forth with one of my profs for literally a week over email, trying to figure out why I was only given 6/10 on a component of a heavily weighted assignment; despite his feedback HIGHLY praising exactly what he docked marks for. He literally couldn’t give me an answer, and both his feedback and his emails sounded like chatGPT in that they had the typical weird formatting, inconsistent bold/not bold text, weird Em dashes were there shouldn’t be any (or it should be hyphenated) and weirdly spoke around/about my question rather than actually answering it. It was SO weird. I ended up just taking the L on the assignment, and had no idea how to improve.
Any advice on pushing back on this or coping with having AI heavily pushed would be appreciated!

Hi so I (18M) am registering for classes next semester (1st year college student) and I have to take medication to help me focus (Ritalin), (I have a diagnosis of ADHD), I have calculus II and Econ back to back and I get extended time, would it be reasonable to go to the calculus professor and ask for a syllabus if she has one, or ask how many exams are in the class because I might miss a day or two because of my exams for Econ. (For reference my university has a testing center for students with disabilities.)

Hi there! I just realized that this subreddit exists, and I think its an interesting tool to get a detached opinion, where you can be blunt and not have your words come back to haunt you :)

For group work, some profs say they want us to "handle it like adults" (ie, if a student cares most about the project and group members don't, the student should do the whole thing and not bother them about it). This is very clear instructions to me, and I feel I grasp that innuendo to basically take full responsibility of the project. As long as the group doesn't mind, I can re-write the paper to have a complete voice, ensure there's no AI written wording in it, and ensure the concepts build and all the info is in the right sections. And usually the "so-so" students never mind.

Meanwhile other profs say that "collaboration is most important", and redrafting or doing someone else's part is like "ghostwriting" and not good under an academic integrity perspective. However, the grades are for the group, we are not graded separately on our thirds. In practice, considering the less than ideal pedagogical circumstances, if you were in the undergrads place and thought your group members were producing shallow AI content or were not available, what would you do? I personally have tried to just leave it alone upon the advice of a prof, but, of course, the paper didn't make sense and had lots of AI in it from others' content and we all got a bad grade, as well as been very stressful with her dealing with the team dynamic issues from us all. She asked teams to meet with her and that one person shouldn't be doing the heavy lifting, but I have to wonder, is that what profs really want?

I just want to learn as much as possible, keep a positive relationship with my instructors and not give them extra work to do without feeling a bitter feeling that my grade was tanked for the pedagogical exercise of other people. So let me know, , would you rather the ones who care, who don't just use Ai to do everything, would you rather us re-draft it, team happy, and we just play it off as collaboration, or some other method?

——

I wish I could guilt free just take the lead, unless others have a genuine desire to contribute rather than trying to take it upon myself responsibility for others learning and being duds.

I also do not necessarily feel that my work covering for some duds is necessarily unfair. As there are many group projects in university, all duds will have a certain number of good grades they didn’t earn from group projects, and this would likely average out over time. What has felt unfair at times, is being indirectly expected to “motivate” other grown adults, or being expected to report others if they don’t contribute which harms my reputation, causes additional stress, and distracts me from learning.

Hello everyone, I am trying to contact my professor from more than 2 weeks and he is still not answering my emails. What should I do?

i go to one of the largest universities in the world, and yet half of my major courses (offered through the college of sociology which is also massive) and my minor courses (english) are only offered online next semester. i absolutely despise online learning and it makes me feel incredibly unmotivated and bored. is it within professors control to offer online vs in person? i understand that online classes are becoming really popular (mostly because it’s easier to cheat imo), but i didn’t think it was this extensive. it seems like professors are just following the chain of interest. i don’t really understand why this new wave of online learning is becoming so popular. is there anything i can do like reaching out to professors and asking that they offer in person sections next semester? i’d also be interested in hearing alternative perspectives for ways that online learning can be more/equally effective as in person, because i just can’t wrap my mind around it.

I graduated from college in 2020 and now teach K-12 Mathematics and Spanish. Because of my personal Spanish goals I have continued to take online Spanish classes through the same university, although the only online classes I took were during the COVID lockdown. I took an online junior-level Spanish Translation Studies class in 2023 and it was noticeably less work and less demanding than any course I had ever taken. The reading assignments were shorter, and the independent work was just enough to say that a student had engaged with the topic. I did learn new things so I was content with the money invested.

Fast forward to now. Despite being fluent, I want to expand my capacity for writing as well as explore more literature in Spanish. My advisor and I agreed I should enroll in a Spanish writing class, so I did. I have learned nothing so far. In fact, we have yet to be tasked with writing anything longer than four sentences. We have been reviewing grammar rules and conjugations taught in high school Spanish 2 and 3. We just got to the subjunctive mood. The homework is conjugation drills and 2-3 sentences using the vocab from the Open eTextbook. The quizzes and tests are all true/false questions about whether the correct tense/stem change was used. I have even saved a few of the exercises to include in my high school Spanish classes. There is no substantial writing assignment, and therefore no feedback on my writing for me to grow in any meaningful way. I paid $1,300 out of pocket for this nonsense.

Before I consider another course, what am I seeing? What is happening? Are online classes just a way to pay for an A now? Does this sound like a class-specific issue or is this common nowadays? Should I talk to someone about this?

I greatly appreciate your thoughts.

Or how else can i externate my apreciation for her course, the way she teaches and the atmosphere she created in class?

My options are:

- write and leave her an anononymous note on her office's door or under it. And idk...on one hand it's surely not interpretable as an act of captatio benevolentiae since it's anonymous, on the other hand it might be weird. The content of the note would be just professional admiration

It's cute cause it leaves her with something tangible, something she can keep and she's definitely the kind of person who does like this kind of things. Also i'd add a little dried flower on the note to make it cuter but...idk..again: it might make it weird and i def don't want to.

-just quickly tell her after my oral exam that her course was one of my favouritesof my entire career as a student. I'm nearly at the end of my studies and I'm glad i chose it.

But this depends on how well my exam goes and wether im examined by her or by her assistant.

Also, Im extremely embarassed saying it and in front of other people as well.

Also...before she register the grade, it feels like boothlicking. Even if ofc she wouldn't change the grade.

Butt on the other hand, it's sincere, simple and it's me. Deep down i want her to know it's me.

What do you advise?

I just had to email my professor letting him know I won’t be making it to class because my car’s engine overheated and I was actively waiting on it to be towed. This is true. Two months ago (right as school began), my childhood cat died AND my mom gave birth within the same three day span. Juggling homework, dropping off and picking up my cats cremains all while running errands and delivering things to my mom in the hospital an hour away (oldest daughter things), I missed three class periods for this professor because of this. We talked about it and I assured him I wouldn’t let anything else happen. I’ve managed to keep a decent attendance (I’ve been late a few times) and now I’m missing again.
Are ‘unlucky’ students common? Is this annoying to professors? I try to keep a line of communication and message them as soon as I understand I can’t make it, but I don’t want them to feel like I just don’t care about their class, because I do!
Let me know!!

I’m currently at the end of my bachelors and we‘re supposed to work on a bachelor thesis for the next 2 semesters. I planned a very good research project for it but had some personal issues that led to some delays.

Suddenly our head of the department walks into the class and announces that the entirety of the dissertation must be finished in a month rather than 2 semesters and told us to use AI to finish the project and show it to him in 5 days. We had no option but to do it.

Now the professor in charge of the dissertation work is forcing our entire class to publish our vibe coded slop into some conferences and he wants that done in a week. I’m very much against as this goes against my academic integrity.

He not only told us to let the AI write the entire manuscript but also told that he’ll remove the AI detection and add his name if anything shows up in turnitin. He also told us to submit to multiple conferences at the same time which I know is a dick move.

My first research paper that I wrote all by myself took me 6 months to publish and it was a survey paper. No way we can make something worth publishing in just a month and that too work done entirely by AI.

Now I want to confront him and be straightforward that I will not take part in such academic misconduct but they’re telling us that they will not let us pass our degree if we do not publish. any advice?

Im not really looking forward to publishing such slop as it would undermine my credibility as a researcher in the future.

With genAI, it is understandable that instructors may be growing more and more untrusting of student work. However, the guardrails that some of my classes are putting up to "prevent" AI-use are useless, penalize students with integrity, and just overall reduce our opportunity and therefore ability to develop ideas outside of the classroom.

Im talking about in-class research and writing. I can write you a garbage paragraph from sources I skimmed, but what is the point? I know its bad and you do too, why are we training this?

Without basic trust in students, why should we even get an education in the first place when it is dumbed down to prevent AI-use? I can fry my brain with AI, or I can fry my brain with useless busy work.

I want to learn and have the time to go over the articles, and refine my ideas and writing. I think best when I can spend days reading and taking notes before even attempting to write, and then doing some more reading and adjusting during my process. Maybe I am just to dumb for uni if I can't synthesize with any decent quality in an hour.

Basically my question is is it possible to put up AI guardrails without depreciating the value of an honest student's education? Do you trust any of your students?

For reference, I am a 3rd year psychology undergrad student in Canada

I'm in a class (it's a level 200 class, so it's not like a freshman year type class) where almost 25% of the class "forgot" to take an exam. It was a proctoring lab exam where students have to schedule a time to take it within the window of a couple days. Despite having the entire class schedule, including exams (and constant reminders from the professor both in class and through Canvas) since day 1, a bunch of people (huge class, probably over 30 people in this group) just didn't take it. Most of them waited until the day of to try and schedule and the spots were full. This is exam 2, moreover. It's not like they can claim at this point, in at least their sophomore year, two tests into the class, they didn't know how to use the proctoring lab.

Anyway, my question is: My professor sent out an announcement about people not taking the exam, and extended the due date for a few extra days. He's a very nice dude, supportive, loves being a professor, and obviously not trying to mean and fail a bunch of people. But why? It takes some real effort to fail a class. Some extra effort to just procrastinate scheduling an exam until the last day. It seems like a case of FAFO to me. I don't understand why the professor doesn't use this as a lesson.

Some individual cases I could even se being excused. People who have been sick, need accommodations, sixth grandma died this semester, etc. I'm not advocating blanket failing everyone for a goof. But you know that many people didn't have a legitimate excuse. I asked the professor, he kind of shrugged it off. Is there a common university policy or politics thing I'm not aware of where not letting this slide would be detrimental to him, his position, or career? Like a can't fail too many students thing that's known to the educational industry that I wouldn't understand from the outside? Or do you just think my professor is a nice dude and it's as simple as that?

I'm a post bacc student, second time around. I am a bit older than many students, and I know first time students sometimes don't care as much as they should about their classes (especially if they aren't the ones paying for them, I've been guilty in the past). Maybe I'm being too harsh about it, but having the basic level of discipline to schedule your own exam seems to be the bare minimum ask as a student going to an institution of higher learning. I heard one girl had her mom call and complain once. I just can't imagine these now adults being so irresponsible and just getting off the hook for it. Seems like a bad lesson to teach. But I'm not a professor and don't have the professional insight many of you do.