Damn. Fine. I’m on Firefox now. Are you happy?

Oh shit, y’all weren’t kidding. This is a lot better, damn.

I know at least nine people who paid for degrees from this school that were sold as "bachelor's degrees in Computer Science" that are not worth the paper they're printed on (and I have lived with at least two of those people; Mt. Sierra got a bunch of the so-cal computer folks sucked into the scam).

I actually think that this is one of the big problems with anti-credentialism; this group of people in particular are pretty dismissive of the idea of academia and want to just get the certs they need to do the job, but because they think that all schools are bullshit it's REALLY easy for them to get pulled into a school that is ACTUALLY bullshit but says that it'll match their schedule and has lenient tests and flexible classes.

Accreditation is really thorny; a lot of schools might be nationally accredited but not regionally accredited when it's the regional accreditation that is the gold standard, or vice versa. Schools may have been accredited at one point but lost that accreditation.

This is why it's important for you to research the requirements of the field in your area, and to research the cost of schools with similar programs in your area.

For instance, here's a private trade school offering Registered Dental Assistant training for about $11k (for a course that looks to be between 12-18 weeks).

Here's a public community college fifteen miles away from that school offering training and prep for RDA boards for about $2-3k, over the course of a few semesters with a lot of in-class training.

It looks like the private school is accredited by the state but doesn't have national accreditation, which I had to find by searching the name of the school + 'accreditation' on the web because it's not clearly listed on their site. The public school is accredited by both local and national boards and makes a clear statement on its accreditation status in the "about the program" page; national accreditation is not required by the state, but is required by the American Dental Association, which is the primary professional association for dentists in the US. I don't know whether or not a dentist has to hire only assistants who have degrees from schools that meet ADA standards, but that's exactly the kind of thing you have to find out before you spend eleven thousand dollars going to a school that, tbh, seems kind of scammy compared to the community college program (for instance, 'oral radiology' is a semester-long, 4-unit class at the community college, and x-ray certification is a 2-day $500 class at the private school).

This kind of thing takes a lot of work to look into, and it is confusing and frustrating, and I, personally, am upset that this shit is so opaque and so many people get absolutely fucked by it!

[Img description: reply by @wrenseyeview that says: Decent central database for accreditation is ope.ed.gov/dapip/#home (I use it for work looking up colleges and universities). For those examples, it shows the private dental school with an expired accreditation from a continuing ed council. The public school on the other hand has several active accreditations, including from the ADA, so that may be a bit easier start than open google for anyone researching their own schools to get a sense of what's legit./ end img description]

Eyyyyyy, that is EXTREMELY helpful information and I really appreciate you sharing it.

I keep forgetting that I'm old.

ITT Tech melted down nearly ten years ago, and a lot of folks on Tumblr were in elementary school for that, so let's talk about predatory trade and training schools.

A note: most of the statistics and information I'm citing about ITT Tech was published by the school (as they were legally required to) in this 2013-2013 school catalogue. Page numbers cited refer to this PDF.

ITT Tech was a private, for-profit trade/training school that had campuses across the US and claimed to provide education and training for technical work; they offered degrees in several subjects, including several IT degrees, nursing degrees, construction management.

Now, from the top it's important to know that the student body of ITT tech was different than the average college or university - about 70% of the students were men, and most of the students were older than their late 20s, often with a full time job and kids. So generally you're looking at returning students who are the breadwinners for their families who are looking to make a better income and work while they're in school - so, not a demographic that a traditional college environment will work for. These students couldn't come in to daytime classes or spend four years at an academic institution.

ITT tech offered 4 12-week terms per year that had flexible class schedules and the bachelor's programs they offered took 14-15 terms to complete (so it was still about four years) or 7 terms for associate's degrees. The lowest cost for any of their programs was $47k, with several programs costing up to $100k (132). The median loan debt for their students was between $22k and $47k (136).

Some other info: On-time graduation for 4-year schools for mainstream college students is pretty high (around 60%), and on-time graduation for community college students is very low (about 13%). The reasons that community college rates are so low are varied - some students don't "graduate" they transfer, some students aren't *aiming* to graduate from community college but just enjoy attending classes, some students graduate or transfer very late because they are working or caring for family members and didn't plan on graduating after 2 years (I spent five years at a community college when I was getting my BA; this was not at all unusual).

On-time graduation for private, for-profit colleges is about 30%, and ITT Tech fit this range (144), which is sort of a problem because at least the people 'dropping out' of community colleges weren't paying $50k to do so, and the "on time" graduation rate for some of ITT's programs was as low as 5%. Student retention rates (the number of students who return after a term at school) for 4-year schools is around 75%, and for community colleges it's about 58%. The retention rate for ITT Tech was 37% for full time students and 25% for part-time students which means that between 60 and 75% of its students dropped out of their studies from term to term (145).

Of course, the institution doesn't carer if you've dropped out if they already have your money. 64% of ITT students were receiving Pell Grants and 31% were taking out federal loans to pay for school (144).

And that's what eventually ended up fucking ITT Tech: their students had very high default rates on their loans, with over 20% going into default by the second year of their loans.

And the reason they were going into default was that they had paid for job training from ITT Tech and in a lot of cases they found out that they had graduated with a degree that had done essentially nothing to prepare them for the field. They couldn't transfer units from ITT Tech to other schools, they had been misled about what an ITT degree would prepare them for (being told particularly that an ITT associate's degree in criminal justice administration could get them a forensic investigator job in spite of having no science training), some students who had felony records weren't informed that they wouldn't be able to find jobs in their field of study.

And as a result of all of this, the Obama administration restricted federal loans to for-profit schools generally and ITT in particular. That tanked ITT's stock price (and you should ALWAYS be concerned if your school is publicly traded because that means they care about shareholders more than they care about students) and ITT shut down a few months later with students unable to transfer to other schools and stuck holding useless degrees and loans - there has been a forgiveness program for federal loans, but a lot of students were stuck paying for private loans (there's a class action suit still going on about it).

Not all trade schools are like ITT tech. Most trade schools aren't, actually. But any time you start looking at a for-profit institution for education or certification you HAVE to look at how they make their profit, and you have to keep predatory institutions like ITT in mind.

ITT existed to pressure vulnerable students into taking out loans to make money for their shareholders. If you're looking at a for-profit welding school or dental assistant program or nursing training or construction management school, think about how the school makes money. Ask yourself what might prevent you from getting a job in those fields and ask how the school addresses those issues among their students. Look into what standard training/education is for that field, and ask yourself if the school is promising something that's too good to be true in terms of time saved or jobs available.

Anyway. Take care of yourselves, buds.

Hey friends, if you went to a predatory trade school like ITT or DeVry or Le Cordon Bleu or Art Institute you may qualify for loan forgiveness that was announced at the end of June 2022.

Here's the government website where you can apply for borrower defense.

We have to keep reblogging this so future historians will read it and puzzle endlessly over its meaning

The heavy implication that historical ‘abstract’ poetry that people have been analysing for ages without being able to conclude the meaning could have just been shitpost level in-jokes between poets is sending me.

wait isnt gender over today

buh-bye now

the genders are craft scissors, kitchen scissors, fabric scissors, and knife

this is sword erasure

The 2 birds per stone factoid is actually a statistical error. Astroid Georg, who fell from the sky and killed 38 billion birds, is an outlier and should never have been counted.

I'm sorry, professor, I consider publishing your course a day late, having a mandatory live zoom meeting during business hours to stay enrolled for an asynchronous class, and requiring students to use a $60 ***pdf*** that you wrote as their textbook to be exceptionally unprofessional and since I've still got 14 days to get a refund I'm totally not paying $150 to take your class.

Also, for all the newbie professors out there: a syllabus is not just a greeting and a list of assignments. If you haven't given your students AT LEAST your office hours, your late work policy, and your preferred method of being contacted, then you have not given your students a syllabus it's just sparkling announcements.

But really. Sir. SIR. You teach Speech 100. This is one of the most basic classes with like, 20 of the most widely available accepted textbooks and you want me to pay sixty dollars for a pdf of a book that you rewrite every semester so that there are no previous editions?

Buddy this is interpersonal communication, not introductory rhetoric. Why is one of your *four* total assignments about Socrates?

Maybe it's the fact that I've taken Spch 100 interpersonal communication three times already, maybe it's the fact that I grew up with somebody who taught Spch 100 interpersonal communication from 1981 to 2018, but buddy what the fuck are you doing?

"Some of our lectures will only be available for 24 hours so it is up to you to stay on top of it."

Friend, you are teaching an asynchronous online 100-level class at a community college during a pandemic. Get off your high horse, a third of your students are probably parents. There is no reason whatsoever to limit access to course materials to 24 hours unless you are doing it to be a controlling asshole.

Also YOU published your class a day and a half late! You don't get to publish your class late with an incomplete syllabus and tell students to "stay on top of it." Especially not since that means that people have two fewer days to buy your PDF textbook and only one full day to prepare for your mandatory 1pm on a Tuesday zoom meeting!

Why do you require me to have access to a printer for an online class? Oh yeah it's because you expect me to print out and draw on sections of your $60 ebook.

SIR. No thank you.

Kids, new students: this is a level of bullshit and disorganization from a professor that you do not have to put up with. This is a neatly ordered series of red flags that say "this professor is going to be absolutely unbearable."

Also *any* humanities class where your whole grade is 4 assignments should get serious side-eye. You should be able to pass most 100 level humanities classes by just turning in weekly assignments. 4 assignments means that by the time you figure out how the professor grades you're probably close to halfway through the class. Look for classes that require weekly participation as a major chunk of the grade because that way, even if you fuck up a project in a major way, just showing up can save your ass.

Me the first time I was in college: this isn't fair, but I guess these are the hoops I gotta jump through.

Me now: absolutely not. I am too old, too experienced, and my ass is too fat to fit through that hoop. Kid, you are an ADJUNCT, what the hell do you think you're doing?

One of the stated goals of the first assignment isn't "assess understanding of the subject" or "introduce basic concepts" it is "prove access to course materials, such as the textbook."

Friend. You are supposed to have global learning outcomes for your students. If your goal is "teach students how to pass MY" class and not "teach students the basics of interpersonal communication" you are a bad teacher.

Okay everyone get out your bingo cards because the professor just managed to get his class halfway updated and here's what I've found:

And just for shits and giggles, the first assignment is due one month into the semester so you'll have no idea what his grading style is until well past the add/drop date and that assignment is the only one that requires the $60 pdf textbook that he wrote. This is HIS description of that assignment:

Buddy.

No.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Also the midterm and final were scheduled for a one-hour slot on weekdays in spite of, again, being an asynchronous course.

So I've already dropped it (good riddance) but I probably WILL contact the dean and say "hey so I signed up for this asynchronous course because I am a returning student with a full-time job and your professor decided on his own that he was going to schedule 1pm zoom times and 1pm exams for all his async students, which is probably going to cause problems for other students who are enrolled because I'd guess that at least some of them have classes that are SCHEDULED for T/TH 1pm class meetings oh and also just FYI your boy was 28 hours late on publishing his class and didn't get his syllabus up until 34 hours after he was supposed to so I'm not really sure his time management skills are up to teaching async classes and ADDITIONALLY he noted that he would only make the lecture materials available for 24 hours and then did not list when those lectures were scheduled in his syllabus so it would be very easy for busy students to miss lectures because he didn't schedule them but also won't be leaving the materials available. So. You know. Someone should probably check on that."

His score on ratemyprofessor is 1.8 and even the two people who gave him a 4 say "I failed the final because he hadn't taught us any of that information or put any of those fields of study on his final exam study guide."

Also, new students, you must learn the proper way to complain to the dean.

Every department has That One Fucking Asshole who everyone wants to see gone but students tend to complain about personalities or "why is my speech teacher assigning an economic ethics paper published by a conservative think-tank funded by the Waltons" and that is not how it's done. The administration may agree that he's an asshole, but "he's an asshole" isn't a good enough reason not to renew someone's contract and go through the time and effort to bring in a new hire.

So you get them on bureaucratic shit. "Published his course late," "did not provide office hours," "did not provide a way to communicate and did not respond to calls, emails, or canvas messages," "set required meeting times for asynchronous courses" - THIS is the shit that the administration can pin a professor to the wall on because it isn't student said vs. Professor said.

Like, look, you are important and your feelings and thoughts matter, but the administration knows there will always be someone who is offended about something innocuous who doesn't know how school works and they're not going to write up a professor because of how a student thinks the class should be run. But they WILL write up and add observations for a professor who doesn't run a classroom the way that the school policy says a class should be run.

It's that time of year again.

When I was seventeen, I had a college French course over the summer where we had one student who complained to the dean over the professor's "inappropriate" behavior.

The "inappropriate" behavior was using the word "Madame," which the student insisted *only* meant "proprietress of a brothel" and was an offensive term to use around her, a Christian student.

Colleges are used to getting *that* level of complaints from students about various professors, and it's why "my professor was being inappropriate/rude/insulting" isn't a good enough reason for the administration to get off their asses and investigate. If you have a professor who is being horrible to the class in an actionable (racist/misogynist/ableist/etc) way, document it along with other students and get corroboration; take notes of when the professor is being horrible and at what times and get other students to affirm it as soon after the incident as possible.

But if an asshole professor hands you the beautiful gift of ALSO being a disorganized tire fire who violates academic rules like publishing syllabi and changing meeting times, take that beautiful gift to the administration because that is a *much* easier way to nail their ass to the wall.

For the record I did get an email back from the department head that was basically "YIKES no he is not allowed to set mandatory meeting times, we are speaking to him about that" so someone probably at least told him to knock that shit off and maybe scheduled an observation or three.

As a first year teacher a lot of this was actually super helpful to read so I know for sure what absolutely not to do.

Also, good idea on late policies etc on the syllabus, I hadn't thought to do that. Thank you!

So for folks who aren't familiar with me, I'm a returning student who is now in my second year of community college after completing a degree in English Lit in 2011, which took 7 years (five at a community college and two at a state school) and I happen to have also been raised by a college professor. Which is to say, I am very familiar with college norms and basic expectations of students and professors.

So for people (first-time professors and first-time students) who aren't super sure what to expect in a syllabus, here is some info:

Your school likely has minimum requirements for what constitutes a syllabus; if you aren't sure what those requirements are, check with your department chair. It is better to make sure you've got a full syllabus by comparing to the requirements than it is to assume you've got a full syllabus and not have one. Often professors are required to have things like learning outcomes for the class or academic dishonesty policies listed; that will vary from school to school, so check with your department chair or a trusted colleague. Students, if you aren't sure your professor is providing a full syllabus, check the student handbook; there may be guidelines in there that will help you figure it out.

As a BARE MINIMUM a syllabus should have:

You might also see:

The longest syllabus that I've been handed by a professor was 13 pages long and 4000 words. The shortest *complete* syllabus I've ever gotten from a professor was 3 pages.

Your syllabus is your contract with the class, and students, it is your contract with the professor. There should be no major assignments, due dates, materials, or possible expenses/scheduling conflicts that are not listed on the syllabus. A student should never have to approach the professor during the fifth week and ask whether they accept late work or how much of their grade the midterm is worth, because it should all be in the syllabus. If a professor is changing something on the syllabus, it needs to be clearly communicated to the whole class, preferably in writing, because the syllabus is the agreement that all students are working from.

PSA!

When you’re copying a URL that has a question mark in it, that question mark AND EVERYTHING AFTER IT are completely unnecessary. It’s tracking data telling the website whether you copied the URL from their share function, or visited them via twitter, or what search terms you used to find that page.

So a URL that looks like this:

https://www.somewebsite.com/article/thingthatscool?ID=26079&pla_country=US&CAGPSPN=pla&&trackingid=509x1052199823&m_sc=sem&m_sb=Google&m_tp=PLA&m_ac=Google_SH_PLA_Tabletop&m_ag=Noritake&m_cn=GS_Dinnerware_PLA_Restructure&m_pi=go_cmp-13050559898_adg-127803968051_ad-520677613594_pla-1260381317191_dev-c_ext-_prd-37725010212USAgo_cmp-13050559898_adg-127803968051_ad-_pla-1260381317191_dev-c_ext-&gclid=Cj0KCQjw54iXBhCXARIsADWpsG9Z5UOydUwZHBdA_NFYMTu3kG2u3kzIT-ooPt5bd3ZtAgyRnF0aqE4aAozBEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

can usually become

https://www.somewebsite.com/article/thingthatscool

You can delete all that tracking shit, and the URL should still work. You can even test it in a new tab first before sharing it, if you're an anxious mess like me.

Go forth and tell your friends! And maybe I will no longer have to see URLs on tumblr or Discord that take up a full screen.

that's not... really true, actually. um at all. the question mark means query parameters, which are sometimes pretty important. I mean query parameters can be pretty much anything. they COULD be tracking information but they could also be... well, yeah, literally anything. like, okay, for example say you're looking at a blog or something, there's absolutely nothing stopping the dev from putting the post id for a specific post in the query params instead of the main url, and if you delete them you just end up on the main page. or a 404! I mean, nothing wrong with trying out a link without the cruft and seeing if it still works, like if it works it works! but do actually try it first otherwise you might end up linking to nothing.

milf swordswoman one of my favourite genres of characters

Thought this said Mii Swordswoman and you know what reblog either way

Popular media tends to depict catgirls as having roughly the same preferences in prey items as regular housecats, but this represents a misunderstanding of how feline prey selection works. Cats don’t hunt mice because they prefer the flavour; cats are hyper-optimised predators that will hunt and kill literally anything they can catch. Their preferences in terms of prey items are less a matter of taste and more a matter of scale: you can only venture so high on the food chain when you weigh ten pounds. Given access to the force multipliers of tools and opposable thumbs, a catgirl would absolutely look at a T-rex and see tonight’s dinner.

#as far as a catgirl is concerned a tyrannosaurus is just a very large chicken #and she’s got ALL the secret herbs and spices

I sent this post to a catgirl friend and she said "that's why we all play Monster Hunter"

boxing - results wii sports ost

@cromerholt

We’re no strangers to loss You know the pattern, and so do I…

tricky words I always see misspelled in fics: a guide

Hope this helped! Please add more if you think of them!

Counsel/Council - counsel is advice, the advice giver, or the verb form of giving said advice. Council is the group of people who come together to discuss and/or make decisions.

Desert/Desert/Dessert - desert is a barren landscape where little precipitation occurs. desert - abandon (a person, cause, or organization) in a way considered disloyal or treacherous. dessert - a usually sweet course or dish (as of pastry or ice cream) usually served at the end of a meal.

OH MY TIME IS HERE! I HAVE MADE A POST I KEEP FOR THIS EXACTLY

Taunt/Taut - Taunt is a jeer or provocation, taut means to be pulled tight, or not slack

Weary/Wary - weary means tired and wary means cautious

Rogue/Rouge - rogue is a person who has unaffiliated themselves from what they were before (is the general understanding); a person or thing that behaves in an aberrant, faulty, or unpredictable way - rouge is red

Wonton/Wanton - a wonton is a dumpling, wanton is (of a cruel or violent action) deliberate and unprovoked and/or sexually unrestrained

Haphazard/Halfhazard - haphazard means to  have a lack of plan, order, or direction - the other isn’t a word

Corporal/Corporeal - corporal is a lack of plan, order, or direction and corporeal is to have a physical existence: to be tangible: of a person’s body

Peck/Pec - the first is a kiss (peck) and the second is the shortened version of pectoral (pec)

Virile/Viral - to be virile is to have strength, energy, and a strong sex drive (typically said about men) and then this last year (2020) has personally taught us, is how viral a plague can really be, so of the nature of, caused by, or relating to a virus or viruses

Vulnerable/Venerable - vulnerable means being susceptible to physical or emotional attack or harm, and if a person is venerable they’re accorded a great deal of respect, especially because of age, wisdom, or character (or if you’re religious, holy)

Dyed is something that is colored, and died is deceased

Chalk (it up to something) ; chock (-full of something); choked (to cutoff air).

to affect is the action, the effect is the end result

If something doesn’t bother you then you weren’t fazed by it. If you are between two states of being that is a phase.

Please. For the love of all things holy. I beg you.

Loose: the opposite of tight

Lose: to misplace something or the opposite of win.

I BEG YOU.

breath is the noun, breathe is the verb

Ah perfect. I needed these words for an alien character to get them all wrong when writing to a human.

Ohh! I have some!

Notching is when you make a notch in something, while nocking is the act of slotting an arrow into a bowstring.

Reign is a period of rule by a person of royalty or authority, and rein is a strap used to control or guide an animal. Likewise, it’s the same for phrases like “ reigning champion” and “reined in”.

A cord is usually something like a thin rope or a wire, and a chord is something that you play on the guitar.

Reliving yourself means you’re remembering a part of your past; relieving yourself means you’re going to the bathroom

When something is diffused it means it’s spread out, like what happens when you add dye to water. When something is defused it means the situation is made safer or less tense, like removing a fuse from a bomb. 

Sweetie: A term of endearment or affection (usually understood to be a shortened form of “sweetheart” or “my sweet”), or occasionally a word used with very small children for candy.

Sweaty: Covered in perspiration.

the kids are alright

okay but I had to go find the rest of the story 

Reverse Turing Test time, babey!

[INSERT BODY COPY HERE]

sorry to my followers but i want ppl in the notes to see that this company will not hesitate to give your private journals to the government and cops

and also they're lying bc they have several ad campaigns that are very well polished, they are just testing a new form of "relatable" marketing to get people to like them. unfortunately it seems to be working.

⚠️ Such an important comment. The application One Day is dangerous (there can be zero privacy of private journals.) Don't use it ever.