First Day of School!

[Bernard]

Chet, your school got beaten by a school whose mascot is the banana slug. Let this make clear to you the value of these rankings.

[coldforge]

Why you gotta hate? I'd be super pumped if my school were the 38th best in the world

[Chet]

UC Berkeley better than Oxford? What are these rankings based on?

Apparently

The ranking compares 1200 higher education institutions worldwide according to a formula that took into account alumni winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals (10 percent), staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals (20 percent), highly-cited researchers in 21 broad subject categories (20 percent), articles published in the journals Nature and Science (20 percent), the Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index (20 percent) and the per capita academic performance (on the indicators above) of an institution (10 percent). The methodology is set out in an academic article by its originators, N.C. Liu and Y. Cheng.[5] Liu and Cheng explain that the original purpose of doing the ranking was "to find out the gap between Chinese universities and world-class universities, particularly in terms of academic or research performance.

[Bernard]

With UCSD ranked so highly, I have to assume they also factored in # of badical surfing days.

[elpollodiablo]

Man teaching has been going really well this semester but *fuck* do I not wanna comment on 46 first year composition essays.

[alex]

Ugh, yeah, 46 is a lot. Surely by the end of the term that number will have been reduced a bit thanks to people dropping out, though?

[elpollodiablo]

Likely not; this is required for all of these kids, so there's not much getting around it.

On the plus side, though, the untold hours I spent preparing class plans last fall means that I can now walk into class every day with essentially zero preparation.

[silentsigh89]

My first day of graduate school is tomorrow. I am very nervous, but I THINK I am more excited.

Mostly I am just glad that it is time to be a student again. My job is going well (I got promoted!), but I want to read interesting things and meet more people and write things longer than e-mails!

[FreddyKnuckles]

Likely not; this is required for all of these kids, so there's not much getting around it.

On the plus side, though, the untold hours I spent preparing class plans last fall means that I can now walk into class every day with essentially zero preparation.

Man, is there any cushier gig than teaching undergrad level liberal arts?

[dumbfish]

Not sure if trolling...

[elpollodiablo]

I'm guessing it would be cushier if I had a trust fund, but that's just me spitballing.

[Good Intentions]

The answer is yes, there are many cushier jobs. Anything where you don't take your work home for you is a candidate.

[Thermofusion]

I've been waiting forever for the lptj class war to erupt, don't let me down this time

[Ignatius]

I think our best shot was the au pairs "debate." It will not happen.

[dieblucasdie]

I teach undergrad-level liberal arts, and I have a trust fund!  Unfortunately, my wife won't let me blow the latter, or I wouldn't be doing the former

[Ignatius]

I don't know what your point is unless it's to leave a record so my hate is backed by evidence when you inevitably quit the academy for BOOMIN

[Ignatius]

Which, I admit, would be a really decent gesture. I appreciate it, late-20s blucas.

[dieblucasdie]

Well, the thing about our trust-funds is, that, while of course they're awesome and we're lucky and super-grateful to have them, they're more, "Hey, I'll be able to put a down payment on a house, for my family, one day!" / "If I ever need to pay the bail/bondsman I'll be aight" money than "Me and FK gonna snort some coke offa all of Iggy's female relatives' boobs in Italy next weekend" money, both in $$$ amount and in structure.  

[Ignatius]

You'd have to buy them plane tickets, too.

[Ignatius]

Is it more expensive to get coke and to Italy next weekend than a down payment on a house, also?

[Ignatius]

Because who says you can't do both

[dieblucasdie]

Is it more expensive to get coke and to Italy next weekend than a down payment on a house, also?

how many female relatives do you have

[dieblucasdie]

'Cause 1 line per boob X ??????????

That shit can add up

[Ignatius]

Where do we set the boundary? Immediate family, none. First cousins are 11. First cousins by marriage are 15 or 20 or so... Unmarried first cousins are 4.


My aunties sit first class. You may not put coke on them and you can't afford it anyhow.

[Good Intentions]

I'm currently reading Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr Rosewater for the first time, and this conversation is making me think it's less an example of satire than it is of journalism.