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[MaximumZero]

Take the 110% asshole/good grade route. From what I gathered when I was in school, teachers largely prefer that you actually do the work in question and to hell with everyone else.

[Baffler]

Take the 110% asshole/good grade route. From what I gathered when I was in school, teachers largely prefer that you actually do the work in question and to hell with everyone else.

Yeah, you're right. It's not fun being "that guy" but I suppose what they think of me doesn't really matter all that much. Chances are they won't even look at what I wrote anyway.

[nenjin]

Hated those discussion boards. After years of doing forums, the quality of your average college student's comment was rank money piss by comparison. So I'd just zone out the discussions, essentially write a 3 or 4 paragraph essay and be done with it. Always seemed to do the trick.

[i2amroy]

Hated those discussion boards. After years of doing forums, the quality of your average college student's comment was rank money piss by comparison. So I'd just zone out the discussions, essentially write a 3 or 4 paragraph essay and be done with it. Always seemed to do the trick.

Yeah seriously. It's like, what the hell are people thinking? I recently ended up responding to a post that basically boiled down to "my life's goal is to get kicked by a cow because I wonder if it hurts". It's moronic.

On that note here are one of my class's, "response board" required topics:

• State your name, seven random things about yourself, and something you hope to get out of the course.
• Think about an activity in which you consider yourself to be an expert.  It could be virtually anything, including a skill set, a hobby, a profession, etc.  How did you go from being a novice to being an expert at that activity? What strategies, techniques, or behaviors did you use to achieve this level of ability? What sort of short-term and  long-term goals were part of this learning process? Could these techniques be applied to other areas of your life?
• In 150 words or less, describe the science classes you have taken in both high school and in college.  How did they compare to other classes you were taking at the time?  How did the teachers compare?  In what ways did the courses challenge you?  Do you expect to face those same challenges in this course?  Why or why not?
• Think back over everything we have covered in the course since the start of the semester.  What were the easier topics or concepts for you to grasp?  What were the harder ones?  Why do you think that is?  Did you do anything different when learning the "easy" topics than when learning the "hard" ones?  Are there strategies you have learned to employ (or avoid) when covering a new topic?

And we're supposed to "respond to other students' posts"?!? How the hell am I supposed to make any sort of meaningful response with topics that require answers like "I think I'm an expert at mini-golf"? It's like "well gee, I never thought about mini golf, maybe I should try that so I could become an expert too".

[Frumple]

... I like that third one, though.

"In order: Inferior to wikipedia. Painfully less financed. Teachers largely didn't want to be there. Challenged me to not virulently hate science. I hope not, but expect to be disappointed. All responses informed by repeated exposure."

Though what do if you don't consider yourself an expert at anything?

[mastahcheese]

• In 150 words or less, describe the science classes you have taken in both high school and in college.  How did they compare to other classes you were taking at the time?  How did the teachers compare?  In what ways did the courses challenge you?  Do you expect to face those same challenges in this course?  Why or why not?

They had to add the word limit to the one thing you could honestly get really wordy over.

Figures.

[SealyStar]

In one of my (successful) college applications, I had to provide three essays. One was hard to get long enough (it talked about your sense of community, and I'm a loser), but the other two were serious challenges to fit into the 500-word limit. I know the feeling.

The worst experience I ever had with shortening an excessively-long essay was in 11th grade AP Literature. I wrote an eight-page dissection of... something about The Great Gatsby (I have since lost the essay in a hard drive crash). The teacher gave it a B- and explained that it was a good paper but too long and rambling. Fortunately, we got to revise our essays and get them regraded later in the term, and I got an A the second time around after painstakingly cutting out anything not relevant to the thesis to get down to five pages.

[Frumple]

Math thread? Is no shame in asking for help, nor in making mistakes and whatnot. They happen, and often a second (or third, etc.) head helps spot 'em.

[PyroDesu]

In one of my (successful) college applications, I had to provide three essays. One was hard to get long enough (it talked about your sense of community, and I'm a loser), but the other two were serious challenges to fit into the 500-word limit. I know the feeling.

The worst experience I ever had with shortening an excessively-long essay was in 11th grade AP Literature. I wrote an eight-page dissection of... something about The Great Gatsby (I have since lost the essay in a hard drive crash). The teacher gave it a B- and explained that it was a good paper but too long and rambling. Fortunately, we got to revise our essays and get them regraded later in the term, and I got an A the second time around after painstakingly cutting out anything not relevant to the thesis to get down to five pages.

And here I have the opposite problem. I have a hard time with English classes because I'm too succinct.

[Baffler]

And here I have the opposite problem. I have a hard time with English classes because I'm too succinct.

Same here. I can manage a short essay but no matter how relevant or numerous my points may be I always feel like I'm rambling if I write enough, which usually ends up falling just shy of the minimum length. So I end up padding my papers by repeating myself and adding verbosity until I hit the minimum page/word count, and then get called out on it and lose points.

[Lightningfalcon]

I hate word limits of any kind.  Now, if the word limit is there to prevent us from being overly short, or form being overly wrong, I can understand.  But if most of my time is taken up by trying to change the length of an essay, instead of, I don't know, actually making the answer better, then the quality of said essay is going to decrease drastically.  All my best essays were ones in which I didn't have word limits, since I didn't have to get stressed over said word limit.  Like this one I'm working on right now for the honors program at a college I got accepted to.  Minimum 200, max of 750, and the length they expect is around 400.  That I can do easily. 

[SealyStar]

In one of my (successful) college applications, I had to provide three essays. One was hard to get long enough (it talked about your sense of community, and I'm a loser), but the other two were serious challenges to fit into the 500-word limit. I know the feeling.

The worst experience I ever had with shortening an excessively-long essay was in 11th grade AP Literature. I wrote an eight-page dissection of... something about The Great Gatsby (I have since lost the essay in a hard drive crash). The teacher gave it a B- and explained that it was a good paper but too long and rambling. Fortunately, we got to revise our essays and get them regraded later in the term, and I got an A the second time around after painstakingly cutting out anything not relevant to the thesis to get down to five pages.

And here I have the opposite problem. I have a hard time with English classes because I'm too succinct.

Oh, I've had that problem too. It directly reflects how well I've thought out the topic. A good one lets me keep going and going, whereas one that doesn't hold up as much as I expected is hard to keep going with, such as my assertion that Aeneas represents Homer's efforts to portray the Trojans as people too even though they're the enemy because I forget what I argued.

But I got an A on the essay anyway.

[nenjin]

I often find if you start with a preface and give a brief overview of what you're going to talk about, the rest goes over a lot better even if it's a little ramble-y. Those kinds of intro paragraphs can be hard to fit within a set word count though. I dunno, after a certain point, asking for reductionism in writing is kinda silly. Judging people on a very small amount of text starts to become unfair. The most defensible statements are the smallest and least ambiguous. And also the least interesting.

[highmax28]

A little late with this, but I finished my class and I saw a guy laughing at a game in the area I usually sit at. I take a look and its a pretty cool looking game, and I ended up grabbing his chair and he got pissed off, so I let off. I later asked what his name was, but I know people said it, so I asked by saying "I don't think I got your name, what was it?" and his response was "I didn't fucking give it out" and gives me this look that reads "fuck off" all over it. Then, after a bit, I bumped into his chair on accident since I was turning to talk to someone else and the guy turns around, gives me this death stare and threatens to kick me in the balls if I touch his chair again.

First of all, that was rude and uncalled for. Secondly WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!? If you really wanted to fucking hit someone over fucking bumping into your chair, then try me! I don't care if I have to do 3 more months in fucking rehab again because I assaulted a guy who's just over the age of a minor because he's being a fucking goof and wants to hit me. Seriously, I can't tell if he's just being a dick to me because I bumped into his chair, he's just a fucking goof, or if he's fucking showing off to his girlfriend who I'm pretty sure is a fucking whore. Seriously, either you're really comfortable with your body if you let EVERYONE grab your tits (not just her boyfriend) or just really fucking horny all the time.

Seriously, there are many times out of rehab where I want to punch people and I have to resort to coming on this thread where I'm pretty sure everyone is volatile and hostile since the only reason you come on this thread is to rage. I'm getting aggravated so easily now its not even funny, and its because stupid shit like this happens! And it drives me up the fucking wall! I'm trying to be friendlier, more respectful of people and more open, but when you got THIS and then people constantly bugging me about things that can wait five minutes it drives you batty!

Thats another rage I have right now:

I have four people on skype right now, one of which isn't even involved in this in the slightest except for the fact he writes fanfics about this, who CONSISTENTLY bug me to update this D&D game I'm running right now and ask me questions that are supposed to be asked in game or say they'll take certain things or do certain actions and not only ask me for my input, but tell me to post it. And once again, one of them isn't even involved and he's all over this campaign like whipped cream on my waffles I had earlier. Seriously, this guy asked what a magical item did, meanwhile I already posted it (and he's following this thread btw) and then he ignores me and asks again. I tell him and then he continues to ask like 5 more questions on the damn subject like "why is that useful?" "who's the samurai?" "I thought he was a wizard though?" and a bunch of other questions THAT I'M NEVER GIVEN THE CHANCE TO ANSWER BEFORE HIM AND THE OTHER GUYS BOMBARD ME WITH OTHER THINGS THAT ARE COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT! Like seriously, no one gives a fuck that you're getting laid and the rest of us aren't. No, you don't have to ask about the women in my life (which there aren't really any aside from friends that I barely talk to), and FOR FUCK SAKES, STOP ASKING ME ABOUT THE MENTAL STATE OF MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY! YOU'RE A FUCKING 16/17 YEAR OLD KID WHO ACTS LIKE YOU'RE 40 AND YOU EXPECT EVERYONE TO FUCKING BOW DOWN TO YOU BECAUSE YOU CAUSED SOMEONE TO ALMOST KILL THEMSELVES. GOOD FUCKING JOB YOU FUCKING ARSEFACE! I'm just really getting sick of DMing because of this bullshit and I may stop going on skype if this keeps up. Seriously, that last guy I was ranting about is deliberately trying to get under my skin to piss me off. Its working, but not in the way he wants it to. I'm about THIS close to relapsing (in this case, losing my shit on someone, be it they deserve it or not (though venting/ranting the shit on my mind and my feelings doesn't count)).

Seriously, all these things made me feel angry, hurt, left out, rejected, harassed, overwhelmed, annoyed, violated, frustrated, and even worried. Seriously, just that one guy I ranted about there is enough to cause me a lot of mental stress, and I'm VERY tempted to not only block him on skype, but kill him in D&D so I don't have to deal with his shit anymore.

This is seriosuly how I am in a nutshell with this guy:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[KingofstarrySkies]

It's alright, man. We understand. I hope. 

Also that gif made me smile, so thank you.