And after law school, you tell the judges what they want to hear.

Great advice. Fighting the good fight with your transcript is a losing proposition. When leftists profs figure out what you're about, it becomes their mission in life to make sure you leave their clutches as "permanent record"-ly damaged as possible.

Better to blow smoke, pull the 3.7, and have a nice life. They get to laugh for 4 years (5? 6?). But trust me when I tell you that you'll get the last one.

I smile every time I see the signatures on my diploma. It's signed by 2 of the biggest idiots ever to run a school.

And nothing makes me happier than throwing out "PLEASE DONATE FOR THE NEW LIBRARY" solicitations. Please. Motherfuckers owe ME money for making me listen to that drivel all those years.

ATS

Whatever. I don't placate.

I'd rather take the C than bend over for those fucking hippy dickholes.

Sit quietly. Grab the rant with two or three brain cells (all that is required for a prof's rant, believe me), repeat back what the graying hippy wants to hear, get the grade, and LEAVE.

A student who challenges a prof's opinions, especially personal opinions, is fighting well out of his or her weight class. Don't do it.

Yes, it is wrong for a prof to take advantage of the disparity in power for his own enjoyment. If it was a proposition, the prof would be going down in flames. This won't get the dean or trustees to worked up unless the lawyers can get involved somehow. That is the way the world of academe works.

Too bad, really, but petty tyrants are like that. Don't damage your life and career to give them a moment's worth of joy.

Instead, mock them later in screeds on blog posts.

Hm, since I'm in the chemistry field, there really isn't any reason to challenge anything my professors say.

I mean, I might not understand a whiff of quantum mechanics (and think that some of it is quasi-scientific BS), but there isn't really much to argue about.

Really, Ace's advice is meant for people in the liberal arts (I suppose the pun is appropriate here).

Yeah, but I still think we should applaud those brave people who decide to take on the establishment.

It was an uphill fight, believe me -- I majored in English Lit., and absolutely refused to take any shit. This meant a neverending series of standoffs with asshole profs, snotty grad students, and clueless department heads. It also resulted in several occasions where I had to threaten to go to the accreditation board, and a non-stop hostile environment. Oddly enough, things got better by my senior year -- the profs knew enough not to fuck with me, and to grade fairly (not easy -- fair). Financial assistance was out of the question too; after all, I was a white male. How dare I even ask! So that meant a full time job on top of a full classload.

Let me tell you: that shit got old. I hated my college years and have often wished I could be young and do it again, just to understand what other people thought was so fun. But I'm not sorry I did it; it would have killed me to knuckle under to those bastards.

And before Lauraw asks: I'm not bitter. At all.

Yes indeedy...a spine is a terrible thing to waste. Good on ya Monty.

Monty -

I know where you are coming from - I spent my college years living and hanging out with Ace. I often wonder what it would be like to go through college and have fun.

If you showed up to make converts, a student's desk is a pretty expensive and ineffective pulpit. If you showed up to nail the grades and get onto the next stage of your life with the best advantages you can, give them what they require for the grades. That simple. You won't always like or agree with what you do professionally either.

That said, if you want some revenge for the aggravation you can always grill your profs in class about facts and events they aren't accounting for. Always be at least 1 day ahead on your reading, pull in some outside sources, and then politely lay into them during lecture. Putting out your own point of view is taboo, but hammering their logical leaps and factual omissions is usually fair game if you keep it professional.

Yes, I was known as a bit of a terror among the faculty. But at least they respected it and they graded well when I handed in exams with what they wanted to see. I got what I wanted and they got what they wanted. Didn't hurt me a bit.

Conservatives have a unique advantage over leftists, if we choose to use it: we are expected to become intimately familiar with every modish post- neo- re- de- anti- quirk of every nuance of their pet philosophies in college--while they, on the other hand, can blithely write essays in the NYT or Washington Post referring to everyone from Pat Robertson to Jerry Falwell, Fred Phelps, and Bill Kristol as being 'neocons'.

Trust me--spend your college years becoming intimately familiar with leftist philosophy from within--and then, do as the leftists do: deconstruct! Find the loopholes and start pulling--just think of yourself as one of those creatures from Aliens.

Not that you won't develop painful ulcers and hideous scarring from all that biting of your tongue, or turn into an bitter, cynical old misanthrope before you're even 30--but. . .

This is why I'm majoring in Computer Science, specifically focusing on cryptology... so I can spy on them.

I neverr tok no propagenda from no fanccy assses proffs.

Isn't this a bit like the brainwashing techniques used in prison camps. "Tell me something about your country that you don't like. Here....write it down for me and you get to eat tonight." Behaviour affects thought as much as thought affect behaviour. Soon, it starts to sink in. Maybe America's not so great. At least here in Hanoi everyone's equal, one might begin to think.
I read about a study where college students were polled about raising tuition rates. Naturally, most were opposed. But after being assigned to write essays on the topic, some assigned pro and some assigned con, the opinions measured more evenly.
Dick Morris tells the story of how young Goldwater Girl Hilary Rodham was assigned to debate taking the opposite position, which really got her to thinking....
Point is, if a kid goes to school knowing what they believe in and know to be true they may be alright regurgitating the profs opinions. The kids in the middle of the road not so much. It's those kides you've got to worry about getting brainwashed.

Easier said than done.

Anyone need to be kept down? Anybody?

Perhaps she was just practicing integrity...ya know...doing the same when someone is watching as she would be if someone wasn't...like we all want the professors to do.

I have surprisingly little experience with hard left academics, even though I was a history major at the Univeristy of Texas at Austin. Though I do think I may have benefitted on one occasion from telling a professor what she wanted to hear. In my second year, I took a class on the Cuban Revolution, and we were tasked at the end of the semester with turning in one final 12 page paper on a subject relating to the Revolution. I really wasn't that into the class, so I picked an obvious target and wrote about Che Guevara. I procrastinated on the damn thing until the last week of class, and then I threew something together, using as my references mostly sympathetic sources which left the impression of che guevara as an enigmatic visionary notable mostly for being to the left of castro himself. In my paper and my presentation of it, I was almost fellatial of the man ("It's true he did send thousands of men to their deaths, but one could argue that this was necessary to usher in the era of the socialist "new man" he envisioned," or some shit like that.) There wasn't an original thought in the damn thing, mostly because when I was typing it, I was already 36 hours beyond my last wink of sleep.

But in the end, I scored well on the paper, and the professor, a Swiss woman who delighted in recounting her trips to the socialist paradise, saw fit to raise my score from a B to an A, seeing as how I was right at the tipping point. But other than that, I didn't have a lot of professors who wore their politics on their sleeve. I think at UT, the students are a lot worse than the professors.

Although, I should qualify my statements by noting that I was out of college by 2000, when Clinton was still in office, and many months before the election. Those same professors of mine may have gotten worse since then.

Beuller? Beuller?

Hm, since I'm in the chemistry field, there really isn't any reason to challenge anything my professors say.

This gives me a great idea. I'm going to challenge the validity of evolution in my biology class with some verbatim quotes from Powerline and other moron-american blogs. Think I'll get the $100? I'm sure there will be quite a laugh track.

Also, for such a brilliant writer, Gina sure seems to have some problems with logical fallacies.

In another course at UCLA having nothing to do with politics, I wrote an academically excellent, thoroughly researched paper, knowing that I was probably taking a position opposite to one held by a professor, but naively hoping that he would recognize the quality of my effort. Wrong. I received a mediocre grade.

Excellent? Really? I've written some, in my estimation, excellent papers in my day that teachers didn't give me an A on. They usually gave some reasons. Somehow I doubt Gina's paper had a D on top with no comments save "Republicans Suck". It was probably a B covered in red ink. Waaaah, waaaah.

I mean, from cursory inspection of her blog, I'm not exactly in awe.

I had one professor who was so liberal that in writing down the name of the class on my notes one day I absent-mindedly wrote "Socialism" instead of the real course title, "Torts."

Who can argue with that?

Ah school days - i remember as it were yesterday when in my creative writing class (myself and 3 other guys, about a dozen gals) i took the wrong side of the Hemingway "Nick Adams Stories" line - you know, i thought they were amazingly well done, arguably his best work, and from that point forward nothing i did cd quite measure up in a Pass/Fail required class.

So i went to see the Prof and behind her on the wall was a rather large sign that said "Castrate the Patriarchy". I looked at the sign, looked at her, walked out and received my Fail.

One guy passed, 3 failed, all the girls passed. Shocked.

Yep, let my alumni association ask for so much as a nickel.

I made the mistake of asking some African minister of culture about some atrocities in his homeland while he was visiting my world music class.

Of course, I had a buddy all encouraging me to do so at the time.

I pissed off the prof who said some nasty things to me and had to hear the minister go on about "South African mercenaries" etc.

Gee, you know I think it was Mozambique and the mercenaries are now the opposition party.

I have a liberal friend who claimed the most open-minded prof he ever had was a conservative Jesuit, while the hippy prof in the same department only wanted regurgitation.

Okay, he's liberal but he's from Montana, so he's all conflicted.

The semiliterate turdshapedstar wrote:

This gives me a great idea. I'm going to challenge the validity of evolution in my biology class with some verbatim quotes from Powerline and other moron-american blogs.

Yeah, great idea. But first, why don't you entertain us with those imaginary quotes from Powerline?

Keep looking, nitwit. Let us know when you find them.

Please, hs students, choose your college carefully!! Apply to colleges whose atmosphere suits your beliefs.

In addition, many colleges have grade appeal procedures. Document any circumstances that you think betray unfair evaluation pratices.

No one should have to compromise his or her principles in order to earn the grade he or she deserves.

When it comes to a choice between "kiss up" and doing hard, unassailable work and fighting to see it's graded fairly, I choose kiss up. Every. Damn. Time.

I had a history prof who was absolutely agog over the "successes" of the Soviet Union and China during Mao's rule. When I pointed out that Stalin probably killed up to 20 million of his own people between 1925 and 1940 by starvation (most Ukrainians), murder, and privation, he told me I was lying. I gave him Robert Conquest's book The Great Terror and told him he was full of shit. I also pointed out from multiple sources that Mao's so-called "Great Leap Forward" had cost up to 100 million Chinese lives to starvation -- the worst civilian toll by a government anywhere in history, ever. Of course, he passed all this off as propaganda. (Either that, or hundreds of millions of dead innocents were fair payment for a socialist paradise...)

Oh, and scarshapedstar, you never answered me in the other thread: I'll trade you any creationist professor in a public college for all liberal/socialist professors. Straight across. I figure that gives me 1-100,000 ratio or so. Let's deal!

I happen to think that creationism is horseshit, so for me, it's a win-win situation.

When I was trained in my branch of science, my mentor told me (and led by example) to find people who disagreed with all/most of my reasoning and methodology. The idea was to offer a deal with them, that I would review their papers and they would review mine. Of course, one had to pick scientists who were open to real scientific discussions but those are really not that hard to find.

This way you have someone who will apply all those critical skills to find flaws in your work. And of course you will do the same to their work. This is a huge boon and much better than having someone simply agree how smart you are. In the classroom though the situation is different as the teacher rules the student.

And yes it works for all sciences, not just the 'soft' ones. It is just that the 'hard' sciences have a broader agreement of basic facts; however, they still disagree on the cutting edges (e.g. various string theory conceptual frameworks).

But as a grad student if you are sucking up to ALL your prof's (as opposed to the one or two real ass****s) then you are at the wrong school to learn how to become a useful scientist.

This&That

Science? Is that the thing with the white coats and the slide rules and the chrome-plated thingamabobs that go "g-STAK-a g-STAK-a"? Because, I looked into that, and I think there was math involved.

I had an English teacher who was a radical feminist and Sapphic. She even wrote a controversial book called Lesbian Nuns based upon her experiences after taking vows. She gave me a B on a hilarious paper I wrote about seducing women through cooking. (Okay, hilarious to me anyway.)

This was a "process" piece, designed to explain a process to the reader and after I explained to her that the deliberate use of zucchini and the liberal application of alcohol to everything (we didn't have Roofies back then) was tongue-in-cheek she agreed it was after all an "A" paper. Not a bad old lesbo IMO.

Anyway, she ended up at SUNY New Paltz organizing dildo-fests and I think she got canned. The moral may be that it can be okay to express different opinions but don't take yourself too seriously when doing it.

In a college history class, the first test had 5 essay questions. I had read the book assignment and took notes from the lecture. I wrote information from both in response to the questions and received a B-. On the next test, I just wrote down (parrotted) what he had lectured on and received an A+. I never openned the book again and just spewed back what he had said in class and got an A.

In other words, here was a class I learned nothing but to feed the instructor's ego.

Real scientists won't fail you for papers on abiologic origins of hydrocarbons, or s-process nucleosynthesis in stars of less than one solar mass. No, real scientists will plagiarize your thesis abstract and attach their favorite suck-asses' names to their publication of your work. Or deny your department funding when you write a research analysis that finds their proposed program would cost more and do less than afforded by the status-quo. Liberal arts has no monopoly on self-aggrandizing cheese-dicks; the engineering and hard science departments are peppered with them as well. Its part of University life - original thinking won't get you a passing grade. Even 30 years ago you *needed* to know how to parrot the retarded Che-sucking anti-American lib-think over beer and pizza, if you ever wanted to get laid. Although, as I recall the hottest chicks by far were the engineers. All the Dworkin wannabes were in Law or Education. And likely, they still are.

Feeding the prof's hobbyhorse back to him has always been good policy - even back in the 50s when a common campus hobbyhorse where I went to school was a commie under every bed and J.Edgar Hoover's "Masters of Decite" was second only to the bible. Its even good practice when the hobbyhorse has absolutly nothing to do with politics. Its all about the "A".

I guess I am lucky. -so far- at the under grad level the professors grade me fine even though I am out spoken. largely because i come correct and present facts and stimulate good discussion.

The University of Oregon, where I, uh, matriculated, is notoriously liberal, but I saw little of it. Of course, I was math and comp. sci., but even when I had to take courses like english lit and history where you had to actually read books and words and stuff, the profs made a good effort to be fair. So maybe I was just lucky.

This gives me a great idea. I'm going to challenge the validity of evolution in my biology class with some verbatim quotes from Powerline and other moron-american blogs. Think I'll get the $100? I'm sure there will be quite a laugh track.

I don't recall hearing anyone at Powerline going off about evolution but maybe you saw something I missed - how about you back that up with a few samples of those verbatim quotes so we can get a sense of whether anyone aside from leftard would be on that laugh track of yours?

I don't advocate intentionally creating an adverse situation with your professor because you disagree with their world philosophy but to submit positions or papers that are diametrically opposed to your own morals is nothing more than selling out. If you do it in college where else would you be willing to sell out in order to get to the next step?

easier said than done at the grad school level.

am I really going to spend several years of my life writing a dissertation I don't believe in? at the expense of what I do?

and then fake it for another 7yrs till tenure??

I'm walking away ABD because I canna take it no more.

fuckers.

If it comes to it, take the C, you shouldn't lie to get a good grade.

However, depending on your goals it is worth thinking about your thesis and your audience and trying to bring your thesis to your audience such that they will see the wisdom of your position.

Aristotle knew this. If anyone graduates from college with understanding this basic concept of classical rhetoric, then you really got cheated.

The best possible learning situation is to try and negotiate with people who do not agree with you. You learn something about them. They learn about you. But more importantly, you learn more about the issue.

People give me a lot of crap for not being conservative enough or for criticizing the President. They say, "You were never a conservative." These people are know-nothings. They choose to be ignorant rather than think about the possibility that politics can be understood in a context wider than a two party polarity. They'd rather write you off as a troll than see something that they troubles their position.

But it wasn't until I started talking to Libertarians, Greens, Democrats, Anarchists, and Goldwater-era Conservatives that I started to realize that I have to think seriously about the merits of each view.

Now I know this makes me seem inconsistent, but sometimes its better to choose a particular position if it offers practical benefits for the common good, provided that it doesn't violate the Constitution. And what would you expect of someone who is the Catholic child of an atheist. As Emerson pointed out in his essay on Self-Reliance, "Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

Maybe this is a cop-out, but when I disagreed with my professors I would try to see things their way. Then, I'd search for a premise that we would both accept, and then build my argument from there.

My most glaring disputes revolved around abortion. And so I would build my arguments on notions of the "person" and individual freedom. Sometimes it didn't work and sometimes it didn't. Sometimes it wouldn't go far enough. But on a great day, I could write an essay that they would find compelling, but leave out the specific references to abortion. If I could convince them to adopt my premises in such a way that they would, if pushed, be forced to concede some ground on abortion, then I knew that I had kept my dignity and won with my mind. If they were too small to admit that their view on abortion was illogical, well then, I knew that I had more integrity than them, too.

Grade or no grade, that is an education. That is what college is supposed to do.

People give me a lot of crap for not being conservative enough or for criticizing the President.

No, people give you crap because you are obnoxious and dishonest.

People give me a lot of crap for not being conservative enough or for criticizing the President. They say, "You were never a conservative." These people are know-nothings. They choose to be ignorant rather than think about the possibility that politics can be understood in a context wider than a two party polarity. They'd rather write you off as a troll than see something that they troubles their position.

Do you realize how insufferably smug and patronizing that sounds? ' Ah, look at me, man of the world, who truly has interacted with other points of view and takes them seriously in a way you rabble refuse to do, even if you could. '

Tell us more about how brilliant you are. Please. I love it. Perhaps it will inspire me to rip off my self-imposed ideological blinders and see things from your brilliant, tolerant, lofty point of view.

I haven't written you off as a troll, but I have now written you off as a self-pitying ass.

This gives me a great idea. I'm going to challenge the validity of evolution in my biology class with some verbatim quotes from Powerline and other moron-american blogs.

Before you make yourself look like an even bigger idiot (i don't think that's possible), let me explain something to you. Conservative and Christian are not the same thing! Furthermore, not all Christians dispute evolution.

I am an atheist. The difference between conservative atheists and liberal atheists is that the liberal atheists are of the whiny, asshole, Michael Newdow variety who think that we're one step away from becoming the Christian Taliban. Conservative atheists don't cower in fear if a politician invokes the word "God" or says a prayer in public.

BigTobacco,

In case you missed it, here is my response to you from the previous thread. You have to be the dumbest person alive. Did you even read the case history of FIRE? They don't sue Universities because a student gets offended at having to take a course that they don't agree with. Let me make this as plain as possible so even you can understand it:

FIRE represents students who have been punished for exercising their First Amendment rights. Read the damn case histories.

One time the way I cited my source on something was "here I can only refer you to the text of the constitution" and the teacher said I didn't have a source for the assertion I'd made there. Still got an OK grade, because she gave me credit for all the other citations.

"Do you realize how insufferably smug and patronizing that sounds? "

What's patronizing and smug about saying that I was a narrow stupid person who learned something in college? How is that self-pitying? How is it smug to say that I often realize that I am wrong when I listen to other people? How is it patronizing to say that I read to learn about what other people might teach me?

I realize that it might be patronizing to think that I am smarter than my teachers when they argued insupportable positions. But that isn't directed at you, and you shouldn't take offense at that. And, well, they weren't being fair.

I can imagine that some people might take offense at the idea that in interacting with people who have different points of view, it is important to listen to them without losing sight of your own beliefs. But if people choose to be ignorant and choose to be uncivil, they can't really blame anyone but themselves for appearing to be ignorant savages.

I would never call anyone "the rabble," except, maybe, myself. My dad died dirt poor and college was my chance to do something other than live paycheck to paycheck, in a constant struggle to pay rent. I believe that everybody is capable of improving themselves through struggle and study.

And I realize that I am quite low on the social ladder. And I know that I owe the trustees of my school for the scholarships and my parents for raising me and my country for giving me the chance to live as a free man. But I improved myself by going to college. I can own that accomplishment without having to apologize to you or anyone.

And I don't think it is even remotely fair or right to say that this means I think I am better than anybody else. We can all be better people. Sometimes we choose not to. People who feel threatened by this fact ought to look at themselves before blaming their feelings on others.

UCLA was the place that I became a conservative. All the hard left profs, hippie bums, and wild-eyed middle class radical students proved to me how deranged the Left was- even before we had people like Howard Dean and Sean Penn to show us on the evening news.

Maybe we should set up a foundation to fund some of these kids for their tape recorders, batteries, etc.

Is that what he keeps heden there at CHAPAQUEDIC?

Huh,
Y'all went to college and stuff. Me, I went to a visit at my sister's college, and I was the only guy that got laid that year.
Anyway, y'all souldn't worry so much 'bout how smart you are. Or your profs, cuz you KNOW they are moronic leftover hippies and shit.
Just get the grades. Pass. And be done with the whole distasteful mess.
Don't worry, in a couple of years, you'll have INCREDIBLY fond memories of your time at school.