4 ms·

After the first lecture of my first programming course in college, I went to the Professor Tewksbury and started to tell him about a simulator I was writing to

After the first lecture of my first programming course in college, I went to the Professor Tewksbury and started to tell him about a simulator I was writing to help other students check their work. He holds up his hand to stop me speaking, says “you have an A. Don’t come to class anymore.” So, I never went to class or did any of the assigned work, instead working on the simulator in my dormroom. At the end of the term I got a failing mark. I went to Tewksbury, and he had no recollection of having told me that I shouldn’t come to class. I tried explaining myself about the simulator, and showed him. He grudgingly agreed to change my mark, seeming suspicious. Despite my attempts to work with the dept, the simulator never got used.

ttymck 3y ago
Awesome story, and a good lesson in "always get it in writing"
- datascienced 3y ago
  The concept seems weird to me. I have never been given a mark by a teacher that matters. Exams were administered by independent bodies.
  - simonbarker87 3y ago
    In the UK that’s the case through high school and college (UK definition, 16-18) but at university the exams and coursework are graded by the lecturer/professor. So that’s likely what happened here.
  - ttymck 3y ago
    Yes, academic administration is different in different countries. In the US it's especially criticized for its subjectivity, here which we have a great example of.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- exccenture 3y ago
  I used to work at Accenture back when they paid workers overtime. As engagement managers got into overage (underestimated projects, often fixed fee), they would put pressure on their workers to work overtime but not log the hours. Two law firms were already reaching out to workers ~2002 trying to form a class for a class action lawsuit. My boss came by one Friday morning and informed me i'd be onsite working all weekend and told me to "ensure not work over 40hrs" this week. This is an impossibility, I had been working late all week and was already at 45 or 50hrs for the week, and I still had Friday/Saturday/Sunday to go. So after the discussion, I sent him an email, casual, saying I've cancelled my flight back home for the weekend, confirming i'll be onsite all weekend and that I'd ensure to "only log 40hrs this week". He came by my desk furious and said if I "ever pulled a stunt like that again there would be consequences" So I re-plied to the original email, took him off, put on my personal gmail and just recounted the entire episode and sent the email again.
  - majikandy 3y ago
    I feel there is something missing in this story… what was implied by your email about cancelling your flight home the agreement to only log 40 hours? Sounds like you were just saying “affirmative”… what is the stunt he thinks you were pulling? And what is the second email about which you mention gmail and taking him off. It was a great story until that point and I want to know what happened next, I feel I’m missing something.
    - myownpetard 3y ago
      He was creating a paper trail for illegal working/billing practices.
    - datadrivenangel 3y ago
      The stunt is creating a paper trail.
    - Izkata 3y ago
      Only working 40 hours is different from only logging 40 hours, this is the important part: > they would put pressure on their workers to work overtime but not log the hours. The email was to get in writing that his boss told him to lie about how many hours he worked.
jokethrowaway 3y ago
It was obviously a joke you didn't get
- asdfman123 3y ago
  It's actually pretty unfortunate if they heard that, didn't get confirmation, and just stopped going to class.
  - bowsamic 3y ago
    Yeah it's actually a little terrifying, almost a lack of survival instinct
- coryrc 3y ago
  Not so concise, but I've done this (kinda). I did give a presentation to the class later in the semester about a practical implementation of things they worked on all semester though.
- clbrmbr 3y ago
  You may very well be right. (TBH this possibility had never crossed my mind till your comment.) I prefer to Assume Positive Intent even at the risk of being the butt of a sardonic joke.
2600guy 3y ago
During my tenure in college, had a professor that would write 10s or 100s of line of code to do things that could literally be done in one or two. Pointed this out to him a couple of times, not that I had been a dev for 15 years at this point. Everytime he squashed anything I said. Comes to end of semester project. Within 24 hours of him handing it out, myself and team handed in final solution, which absolutely worked and fulfilled all requirements. We all got a not completed at final grade. Found out later that only 3 people in the class got an A, and they were the only females in the class, everyone else got a not completed. Immediately after having a convo with the "professor" and the threat of convo with dean of students, suddenly everyone got a passing grade. What a piece of human garbage.
- calvinmorrison 3y ago
  I tried to place out of an intro-to-programming course in a back-to-school bout of scholastic achievement. I wasn't allowed to test out of it despite the coursewor being rote and that anyone with 2 seconds looking at my CV could see I did not need it. Anyway - they released the assignments on day 1. I turned them in on day 2. I still had to go to class. Stupid. My "filesystems and database design" class was basically howto use mysql. It's a shame, I was more interested in actual file system and database design Just stupid stuff like that made me drop the academic bullshit and skip into the real world.
  - drekipus 3y ago
    Stuff like this makes me angry. I had similar experiences in uni. I grew up very poor, so finishing uni was like, an achievement I had to do, but I learnt C++ and HL2 modding and other computer stuff back in highschool. My uni experience was 7 years of hell (multiple gap years to go do real work before coming back). Getting stuff like "pseudocode can't have an equal sign in it, so NC" on assignments. "Even if you finish all the assignments you must attend every tutorial or you pass" Ive told many academics to go to hell. I'm not paid to be there like they are. My grades go from "barely passed" to "high distinction" like a rollercoaster each year. - and yet, I still really wanted to like uni. I do still want to like it, it's just a shame about the academics
  - 3y ago
WideCharr 3y ago
Was this at Stevens Tech? I had a Prof Tewksbury there that would have done something just like this.
- clbrmbr 3y ago
  The very same! It was the intro to compsci for engineers that paired with the robot project… c 2007. Another kind of sad Tewks story is, once I went to see him in his office, and I witnessed him giving a grad student and early edition copy of a Claude Shanon tome. Clearly was intended as a nice gift. The grad student didn’t get it, and Tewks had to explain who Shanon was to a EE PhD candidate. I wanted to jump up and down and get his attention but I was just that pesky undergraduate with some scheme to get a free A… Anyways he was a Bell Labs guy and full of lore and wisdom, but I would have loved to have known him as a younger man. Same with Harold Stalwen. I did have the great honor of taking courses with Roger Pinkham and Norman J Morgenstein Horing who despite both being in their 80s were possessed of incredible intellect and didactic powers. Pinkham in particular was the closest I’ve ever come to meeting Gandalf.

ttymck 3y ago

Awesome story, and a good lesson in "always get it in writing"

datascienced 3y ago
The concept seems weird to me. I have never been given a mark by a teacher that matters. Exams were administered by independent bodies.
- simonbarker87 3y ago
  In the UK that’s the case through high school and college (UK definition, 16-18) but at university the exams and coursework are graded by the lecturer/professor. So that’s likely what happened here.
- ttymck 3y ago
  Yes, academic administration is different in different countries. In the US it's especially criticized for its subjectivity, here which we have a great example of.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
exccenture 3y ago
I used to work at Accenture back when they paid workers overtime. As engagement managers got into overage (underestimated projects, often fixed fee), they would put pressure on their workers to work overtime but not log the hours. Two law firms were already reaching out to workers ~2002 trying to form a class for a class action lawsuit. My boss came by one Friday morning and informed me i'd be onsite working all weekend and told me to "ensure not work over 40hrs" this week. This is an impossibility, I had been working late all week and was already at 45 or 50hrs for the week, and I still had Friday/Saturday/Sunday to go. So after the discussion, I sent him an email, casual, saying I've cancelled my flight back home for the weekend, confirming i'll be onsite all weekend and that I'd ensure to "only log 40hrs this week". He came by my desk furious and said if I "ever pulled a stunt like that again there would be consequences" So I re-plied to the original email, took him off, put on my personal gmail and just recounted the entire episode and sent the email again.
- majikandy 3y ago
  I feel there is something missing in this story… what was implied by your email about cancelling your flight home the agreement to only log 40 hours? Sounds like you were just saying “affirmative”… what is the stunt he thinks you were pulling? And what is the second email about which you mention gmail and taking him off. It was a great story until that point and I want to know what happened next, I feel I’m missing something.
  - myownpetard 3y ago
    He was creating a paper trail for illegal working/billing practices.
  - datadrivenangel 3y ago
    The stunt is creating a paper trail.
  - Izkata 3y ago
    Only working 40 hours is different from only logging 40 hours, this is the important part: > they would put pressure on their workers to work overtime but not log the hours. The email was to get in writing that his boss told him to lie about how many hours he worked.

jokethrowaway 3y ago

It was obviously a joke you didn't get

asdfman123 3y ago
It's actually pretty unfortunate if they heard that, didn't get confirmation, and just stopped going to class.
- bowsamic 3y ago
  Yeah it's actually a little terrifying, almost a lack of survival instinct
coryrc 3y ago
Not so concise, but I've done this (kinda). I did give a presentation to the class later in the semester about a practical implementation of things they worked on all semester though.
clbrmbr 3y ago
You may very well be right. (TBH this possibility had never crossed my mind till your comment.) I prefer to Assume Positive Intent even at the risk of being the butt of a sardonic joke.

2600guy 3y ago

During my tenure in college, had a professor that would write 10s or 100s of line of code to do things that could literally be done in one or two. Pointed this out to him a couple of times, not that I had been a dev for 15 years at this point. Everytime he squashed anything I said. Comes to end of semester project. Within 24 hours of him handing it out, myself and team handed in final solution, which absolutely worked and fulfilled all requirements. We all got a not completed at final grade. Found out later that only 3 people in the class got an A, and they were the only females in the class, everyone else got a not completed. Immediately after having a convo with the "professor" and the threat of convo with dean of students, suddenly everyone got a passing grade. What a piece of human garbage.

calvinmorrison 3y ago
I tried to place out of an intro-to-programming course in a back-to-school bout of scholastic achievement. I wasn't allowed to test out of it despite the coursewor being rote and that anyone with 2 seconds looking at my CV could see I did not need it. Anyway - they released the assignments on day 1. I turned them in on day 2. I still had to go to class. Stupid. My "filesystems and database design" class was basically howto use mysql. It's a shame, I was more interested in actual file system and database design Just stupid stuff like that made me drop the academic bullshit and skip into the real world.
- drekipus 3y ago
  Stuff like this makes me angry. I had similar experiences in uni. I grew up very poor, so finishing uni was like, an achievement I had to do, but I learnt C++ and HL2 modding and other computer stuff back in highschool. My uni experience was 7 years of hell (multiple gap years to go do real work before coming back). Getting stuff like "pseudocode can't have an equal sign in it, so NC" on assignments. "Even if you finish all the assignments you must attend every tutorial or you pass" Ive told many academics to go to hell. I'm not paid to be there like they are. My grades go from "barely passed" to "high distinction" like a rollercoaster each year. - and yet, I still really wanted to like uni. I do still want to like it, it's just a shame about the academics
- 3y ago

WideCharr 3y ago

Was this at Stevens Tech? I had a Prof Tewksbury there that would have done something just like this.

clbrmbr 3y ago
The very same! It was the intro to compsci for engineers that paired with the robot project… c 2007. Another kind of sad Tewks story is, once I went to see him in his office, and I witnessed him giving a grad student and early edition copy of a Claude Shanon tome. Clearly was intended as a nice gift. The grad student didn’t get it, and Tewks had to explain who Shanon was to a EE PhD candidate. I wanted to jump up and down and get his attention but I was just that pesky undergraduate with some scheme to get a free A… Anyways he was a Bell Labs guy and full of lore and wisdom, but I would have loved to have known him as a younger man. Same with Harold Stalwen. I did have the great honor of taking courses with Roger Pinkham and Norman J Morgenstein Horing who despite both being in their 80s were possessed of incredible intellect and didactic powers. Pinkham in particular was the closest I’ve ever come to meeting Gandalf.