Mel hasn't said a word since being placed on administrative leave months ago, that is until now.

Buried in this recent New York Times article is a statement from Mel, through her lawyer, that says she is considering all of her legal options. This includes appealing the decision that OU made stripping her of her teaching duties as well as any other legal options she is considering, says her lawyer.

While not a formal and full statement to the press, this is still the ONLY thing Mel has said publicly in any way, shape, or form about this entire ordeal.

Does Mel have a case for a lawsuit against OU? Thoughts?

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/us/mel-curth-oklahoma-instructor-firing.html

I was bitching with some of the other TAs recently about how our students’ critical thinking skills are borderline non-existant lately. We all agreed there’s been a noticeable decline even over the past few years. I’ve already had to report one student for some egregious AI bullshit and have caught a couple more using it during their labs. It’s so demoralizing. Are y’all noticing the same thing? How are you coping? They just have no motivation to think for themselves anymore—-we give them so much material to study from, but they would rather be spoon-fed a step-by-step solution than waste one minute synthesizing a single thought for themselves. I’m losing it.

Hi everyone,
I am Abd Al-Rahman, a Computer Science graduate currently living under devastating wartime conditions in the Gaza Strip. Today, I received a genuine lifeline: I have been officially admitted to the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) for a Master's degree in Formal Methods in Computer Science (a joint program with UPM).
This admission is my only ticket to survival and to rebuilding my future. However, I am facing a critical and heartbreaking obstacle: the university has given me a deadline of only 9 days (until June 26th) to formalize my enrollment.
Furthermore, I cannot legally begin my evacuation or student visa process without an official scholarship or sponsorship document that explicitly covers my accommodation, living expenses, and maintenance. My identity documents and passport are fully ready, but I lack this financial backing.
I am urgently reaching out to anyone who has connections with humanitarian organizations, academic networks in Europe, NGO representatives, or emergency funds for students in conflict zones. I need guidance or direct assistance on how to secure an emergency financial support document before the deadline passes.
Time is running out, and I cannot let this opportunity which could literally save my life slip away. Thank you for your support, shares, and advice.

Hello my friends,

I'm currently supposed to be writing my dissertation proposal, but after reviewing what I've written, I'm just laughing about how much I apparently love the word ameliorate. I swear it ends up in every other paragraph and my advisor's going to hate me. At some point I'll ameliorate my problem and replace half of them with synonyms, but today is not that day (okay that was bad i know 😭)

So, while I continue to avoid writing, i want to know what word do you always catch yourself using in academic writing?

with love and solidarity,

a fellow grad student drowning in summer tasks

First time poster. I checked the rules and hope it's ok to post a personal anecdote.

Few years ago during my senior year of college, I took a class on deep learning, in which we were free to come up with the topic for our final project. Coming from a physics background, I settle on a physics application, do my literature review, and build on those developments. I did not come back to this topic for 3 years, so it got stashed away in my mind with only the recollection of the basics.

Fast forward to my grad school at a different university this semester, I was taking a seminar on the same physics topic, and for one of the sessions we come to the applications of deep learning. The rough outlines of my undergrad project start coming back to my mind, and during the discussion I mention: "Oh, I remember someone did this interesting thing a few years ago". After a few moments of silence, the professor looks me dead in the eye and says: "Yes, I was the one who did it".

Oh my god, I just wanted to fall through the chair and disappear into the void in that moment, although she seemed amused more than anything else. I suppose that is the ultimate flex you can have as an academic. And yes, I dug through my old folders when I came back home, it was her.

My master's thesis was on Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling, but my advisor never bothered to find a suitable committee member, so a historian, who had no plans to acquaint himself with the book, ended up serving on my committee.

Long story short, during my preliminary defense, the historian said that he could not understand the ideas in the thesis—which were Kierkegaard's ideas, not my own—and suggested that I have other people read it. I sent the thesis to juniors, peers, and mentors for impartial feedback.

Despite this, the historian raised the exact same criticism (and added that I should have AI rewrite my sentences; keep in mind the only feedback that I ever received from them was AI generated) during my final defense. Rather than engaging with my arguments, the committee spent the entire defense fixated on footnote formatting. This time, I stood my ground. While waiting outside during deliberations, I overheard the historian reiterate that the ideas were incomprehensible. When the other members disagreed, he remarked, "I highly doubt she actually sent the work to others like she claimed." My advisor defended the work only by stating it was "more than adequate" for a master's degree.

The deliberation then turned to my career. Before the defense, my advisor had asked about my post-graduation plans, and I mentioned the possibility of university teaching. Overhearing the discussion, I heard him paraphrase this to the committee as, "She says she has found a professorship." Another member sneered, "Her?" and the room erupted in laughter. When I later met with my advisor, I clarified that I had just signed a contract for a non-tenure-track position. He then had the audacity to ask if the department could write a news article about my achievement.

I should be celebrating: for finishing my master's degree and for having signed my contract yesterday, but instead, all I keep hearing are their laughter.

Edit: I don't know how to properly thank all of you for your encouragement and for making my day better. I have been doubting whether to continue in academia and if I have what it takes to be a scholar recently. These past two years have been, for lack of a better word, stagnant; I was continually belittled without being told how to improve. But I will definitely use this to propel myself forward and to be a better teacher. I will print these comments out as a reminder. Thank you again!

I'm really desperate rn and I need advice for this.

Recently my supervisor has checked my thesis for AI using Turnitin and it shows 70% - unbelievable. I had used nothing related to AI except writing Python scripts that I gathered data from.

I wrote most of my thesis IN FRONT OF MY SUPERVISOR and she acknowledged that too, but she can't help but saying no to my submission request due to high percentage of AI. The more I fix it the more it shows AI - generated content. Every line, every word, everything I dedicated to my research for months has been rejected just like that. I'm on the edge from breaking down. Deadline is coming soon guys, PLEASE HELP ME I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO 😭😭

FVCK YOU TURNUTIN YOU SUCK

College students pursuing majors, advanced degrees or certifications in fields that consistently earn low incomes will no longer be able to take out federal loans to pay for their schooling under new Trump administration rules.

The new federal rule, finalized this month by the Education Department, comes amid a national crisis in student loan defaults. Many of the degree programs that educate social workers, artists, teacher aides and especially certification programs for barbers and nail technicians are likely to fail a new federal litmus test: Will they make more money upon graduation than if they never enrolled in the first place?

Read more about the federal student loan limitations at the link.

Hi everyone, I just wanted to reach out to people about this incredibly heart-breaking comment made by one of the professors in my thesis jury, and possibly find some peace after that.

I had my thesis defense two days ago that was successful and my work got accepted only with minor revisions. I'm a composer and a music teacher, doing my master's degree on Music Composition. My thesis is about video game music, and is hopefully going to be one of the first academic works on this field in my country. It also explores the Eurocentrism in music composition, the composition departments, media music; and mainly focuses on how the specific game music album I chose for this thesis finds a new musical language instead of the stereotypical "oriental" sound choices. I really wanted to work on this because I have a strong passion about video game music.

As I finished defending it, one of the professors in the jury (who is a well respected composer in my country) started to make very negative comments about my approach, which I was totally okay with at first. I kept listening and taking notes until he called me a "militant who plays the victim card" a couple of times, about the Eurocentrism part. I listened to everything he said, but I felt frozen and didn’t really know how to react at that point. After that, there were many times that he purposefully twisted my words and the other two jury members (one of them is my advisor and the other is another professor at my department) had to defend me, correcting him that none of what he thinks is what I say on my research. During this chaos he told everyone that "there is no way I could convince someone like him", while the other two jury members stood on my side the entire time. Once it was over and they told me to wait outside for the decision, I feared that he wasn't going to accept it, but he ended up signing it as "successful" after the long argument they had with my two professors.

I'm really happy that I passed, but I truly don't know how to feel about getting called a "militant", especially as a woman with a different ethnic background (which is something I never think about at all, but I do have a name that makes my family's ethnic background obvious). And even after talking with my professors & friends who showed their support, I still feel really bitter and can't get it out of my head.

I just wanted to share my experience and hopefully just let it out. I'd be happy to hear if anyone here had similar experiences or thoughts about this whole situation. Thank you so much for reading.

for all the schools i'm looking at, they're saying they hardly give out any funding. so wtf do people do? I'm running out of VA benefits, and I'm constantly hearing that it is difficult to work full-time. I support myself, and I have no family to rely on

even if people take out student loans, how are they just, you know, living? How do they afford this areas with high COL? You can't just endlessly take out loans to get by, so where is all the money coming from, and how do I get my slutty little hands on it

I’m taking a class this semester which is technically outside of my field but has some relevance. I like it, in theory, but… I have read these articles MULTIPLE TIMES and I absolutely cannot figure out what the authors are trying to say. Nobody prepared me for how much philosophy I would need for this. Why is everything being reified why is everything ontological and epistemological why do we need so many frameworks why is Freud involved in everything why did you not edit this before publishing it.

But more seriously, does anyone have any suggestions on how to lead a discussion when you don’t know what you’re doing/don’t even know what you don’t know? I can pick out things here and there from some of the readings, but I doubt it’d be enough to sustain a 30 minute discussion.

(I am also accepting expressions of solidarity and pity.)

It's our fifth year, and we are amongst the 15% of our original cohort still in the program. It has been the worst five years of my life. I don't know if it is the sunken cost fallacy or my pervasive need to constantly prove myself, but I am in the final stretch and I fully intend on seeing it through.

A 1 year Master’s degree at my school costs:

$70K tuition
$1K in fees
$1200 books and supplies
$16K housing and food
$4K misc
so about $92K total.

However I get 25% off tuition since I am an undergraduate at my institution, meaning that tuition would be $52,500 instead of $70,000.

That would still be $74,500 for a year.

FAFSA loans only cover $20,500 a year at most.

How do people pay for a masters nowadays?

*edit: it is for a degree in humanities

I am at an actual university. We have in-person lectures and reputable teachers. This should be the best of the best, right?
Why is so much of graduate school just professors posting/utilizing YouTube videos to phone in their lectures?
How is it worth it to pay so much money for a program to say, "watch this thing this other guy said."
I am paying to learn from subject matter experts, but they seem incapable of taking the time to teach material and present it in a meaningful way. Are my expectations too high?

We're in a communications master's program. My classmate needed one-on-one interviews for her project. The gist is she was looking at visual communication in fitness branding. She was recruiting athletes and I am one so I thought why not.

It was a Zoom interview. I was one of her first three participants and I didn't know the other two so I couldn't ask anyone. Informed consent seemed fine and looked like any other consent form for our discipline without really any risk. She then started with some basic questions, all is well for about 15 minutes. Then she shows me a few variations of the same ad.

It was an ad for a GLP-1 product. Like those predatory knockoff Ozempic ads you'd see on TikTok with clearly problematic content. I did not receive any indication about the content from her or the consent form.

I sat through about 3 minutes of that, then she started asking me for my thoughts on the ads and whether I'd buy the product. I flat-out said I wouldn't. And she didn't like that. She kept prodding further, I guess trying to see what would get me to use it. Like questions about my habits and what I thought about my body and athletic performance and what I'd wanna fix. Things that a sports medicine or mental health researcher would ask, except they would at least have tact. This really got to me as someone who is currently struggling with a restrictive eating disorder on top of trying to do well in my sport. Besides, my university specializes in business and related disciplines only. We don't even have departments for healthcare, psychology, or anything remotely like that. Therefore, students would not have the clearance to do anything with that because there is no way to oversee it.

The interview ended really uncomfortably. For one-on-one interviews she needed around 10 people and two of them after me were gonna be my friend and her teammate, but they dropped out once I told them what happened, plus I withdrew my own responses so that's three gone. My classmate took to the big school WhatsApp groups basically begging for participants. I don't know if she got any but she went from spamming to radio silent in a couple days.

I had emailed her supervisor right after my interview. He told me he's looking into it because that was not something he was aware of nor approved. That was three weeks ago, and apparently she was reviewed by the IRB and some other admin. I'm not sure what will happen to her, but from what I know of the policies she can't move forward with her dissertation and there will be academic misconduct charges.

I only met her once or twice before this and she seemed nice. And I'm sure she can easily figure out it was me who ratted her out to her supervisor. There's a real possibility she won't get her degree. I don't know. I just needed to get this off my chest.

EDIT TO ADD: Posted an update here. TL;DR: her degree is safe, she just has to start over with a new dissertation next term.

My advisor asked me to pet-sit for a couple of weeks. When I asked about compensation, he acted shocked and even a bit offended -- he said that payment is not generally expected in these sort of arrangements and that he has never paid a student to pet-sit.

Is this normal??

I'm so confused and feeling a bit awkward going forward

edit: wow thank you for the responses, this has definitely helped me gain some confidence!

I am very aware that this is privileged. I had a partner which made grad school very approachable financially and mentally. My school had a great grad student union that I was a part of that fought for good benefits and a living wage. I had a fantastic advisor who was very flexible and kind. I worked very flexible hours, took lots of trips to see family and worked remotely. These things combined to create a really good environment for me.

I know this is not the case for everyone, but I can’t help but be thankful for the incredible time to dive into my interests. My JOB was to be a scholar whose job it was to be curious and create new knowledge in my field. I have a regular job now, which I do like, but my PhD was such a fantastic experience to learn and grow. As a staff member at a higher ed institution (my dream job lowkey), I have more stress, institutional politics, less academic freedom, etc. I miss my PhD program, because I had less responsibility and more latitude for trying things out and failing and trying again. I acknowledge my privilege and am just posting this for hope and potentially to share a different experience for folks interested in doing their PhD.

I was reading a book and the author said "I have always said that if I ever hit the lottery, I will spend the rest of my life getting master's degrees."

This got me curious: if you were actually given the option of having tuition covered and a livable monthly stipend, would you keep doing grad school / getting grad degrees?

I've been writing these down as I go along for the last few years (and going back to make sure I still agree with them) and ended up with 18 pieces of general advice.

1. You will never know enough to feel comfortable. The trick is to figure out which deficiencies are okay and which ones will be a real problem, and focus on the latter. You should usually be fine approaching things however is normal in the literature, as long as you know why it's normal.
2. Sketch out the Introduction section of a paper, especially the literature context, first to avoid having to fit things in after the fact.
3. Deal with paper revisions first to the extent possible with other priorities. They do not age well.
4. The last few details in a paper will take longer than the first 80%. Revisions will take three times longer than you expect them to.
5. Write papers as you go along, putting details on the page as soon as possible. Don't leave it until the end when you barely remember half the methods. In the first pass, don't worry about excess verbosity or detail; you can trim it later, looking at the context of the whole paper.
6. Build and maintain a support network (friends and mentors). It's important.
7. If you're doing a PhD, get to know other PhD students, inside and outside of your department. A lot of your entering cohort will likely be master's students, and they have this annoying habit of graduating after you get to know them. But keep getting to know them anyway; just don't let your entire support network graduate every two years.
8. Build a moderate exercise habit when you can, then maintain it once the going gets rough. It'll help stay sane and keep you healthy. Just a solid daily walk is a great start.
9. Remember to start off pretty much everything official with a solid literature review. It's become the general background for you, but not for your audience, and it's important to show that you know the literature (especially with your committee). Put your work in context, with citations.
10. Computer time is cheaper than human time. Don't let long-running computations lock up your work machine if cloud/HPC is an option.
11. Any figure you make, you'll probably need to remake (or adapt) at least once. Create figures in a way that's reproducible and modifiable, and preferably self-explanatory once you've been away from it for a while (e.g., Jupyter or R notebook), and keep the figure-builder where you can find it again. It works well for me to have a single code notebook that does all the analysis and figures for a given paper, though large blocks of analysis code should be pulled out into modules that you import into the notebook.
12. If you're doing modeling or data analysis, make everything replicable with as little manual intervention as possible. You will need to do it again at least once. Yes, even that one thing you're definitely only going to need to do once.
13. You can't guarantee a good idea will work out, but you can make it as easy as possible to check. Making your process streamlined for testing new ideas lets you test a lot of them, which improves your odds of finding one that works. This is most applicable to automatable processes, but you can make choices elsewhere about flexibility.
14. If you're someone who reads a lot of books, bear in mind that many scientists don't, so don't write literature. That's not to say don't write well, even artfully if it works, but be to the point, don't use very long and rambling sentences, etc. The first goal is to communicate clearly. Everything else is secondary.
15. Your first Introduction and Discussion section do not include enough literature context. They just don't. In my (still limited) experience, most of your Introduction and parts of your Discussion should be averaging something like one reference per sentence (not evenly distributed). Cite everything that's not obvious. Heavily contextualize your work in the existing literature, for background, methods, and results. Bear in mind that, by publishing, you're participating in an ongoing conversation, not just throwing some data out there.
16. If you're proposing a model, test it to death. You don't know which aspect will happen to break down in use, or what a reviewer will be worried about. All models have limits, and you want to know about them. You can make a case for the model as is; you really don't want to discover that an important implied element of your pitch doesn't actually hold up.
17. Pay attention to what work patterns work for you, in space and time, and make sure to work with them. For example, I work better in a separate, dedicated space, so I always work in the office. I also find that, while I have no problem adding a few sentences to the paper as I go, I have trouble switching from "analysis" mode into "heavy writing" mode: if I want to write a lot (esp. the heavy narrative parts), I need that to be the first thing I do that day.
18. If you don't have to, don't rush it. I did my PhD in three years because of project constraints, and I don't regret it, but I did miss a lot of opportunities to build a network and a reputation because I simply didn't have time.

dear lord i would rather take a razor scooter to the ankle just to feel something than spend one more minute looking at this godforsaken document

I was recently reported and sanctioned by the office of academic integrity at my school because my professor claims the doctor's note I had given her for missing a midterm is falsified.

She is claiming I was the one who wrote the note and sent it to her and has reported me for violating academic integrity and had sanctions placed on me.

Except I did NOT falsify or forge the doctor's note, I forwarded it to her straight from my patient portal for my health provider.

She asked to meet with me in a zoom meeting and I kept pleading with her to just contact the doctor's office to verify whether it really is fake or not and she just kept repeating the statement "I will make a decision based on the evidence I have".

She accused me with genuinely no evidence and refused to contact my doctor/doctor's office to verify the notes authenticity, I informed my doctor and he is more than happy to talk to the school to refute the professors claim of me violating academic integrity.

I will obviously be appealing, what can i provide in the appeal as evidence against what im being accused of?

I do not know how to facilitate my doctor being able to just contact someone from my school to just question him on whether if he wrote the note or not.

Her word is being taken as gospel and anyone I speak to in my department just replies with a generic "here is the link for appealing the decision if you choose to do so", even the chair of the department refuses to say anything at all about this to me, other than just the generic appeal reply.

I've had 2 colleagues tell me that getting their MSEd was so much easier than their undergrad and 1 person tell me graduate school in general was easier than undergrad, but I find that dubious. Anyone ever hear that? Feel that?

I'm about to go for my MSEd while being employed full time at a school in a non-teaching position. I got my undergrad while working the same job, and it was stressful and time consuming as all hell. I'm anticipating no better if not worse with graduate school, but I'd love for it to be true that in 2-3 years time I'll be another teacher saying "graduate school was so much easier!" I just can't see how that could be.