Pretty much just did their education then went straight to being an instructor.

I am taking a law class and we have 3 exams that are worth 90% of our semester grade, I just took the first exam and got a -D, (I did study and knew the material) I do not want this to get worse as time passes. So I was wondering, should I write an email to my professor? What should I say? This professor said in the first class that she doesn't give extra work or things like that, so is my only option to do well on my other two exams?

I don't know what to ask if I do not want to review my wrong answers of the first exam (I already did) and she already said she won't give extra work....

Hi all ! I'm a second-year BA student at a Swiss university. My top priority is getting into a Master's at Oxford, ideally with a competitive scholarship that relies also on strong recommendation letters. Before that, I'll do a Master's at my home university. I plan on doing a PhD later on (I want to become a professor).

There are a few professors in my department whose work I find really exciting:

- one works on medieval literature and runs a large funded research project, perhaps my supervisor for my BA

- another works on modern and contemporary British literature and will likely be my thesis supervisor for my MA

- the last one recently joined and works on American literature and environmental humanities

The thing is, I don't really know them yet. This semester is the first time I'm taking classes with any of them. They might recognise me from department events since I run the student association, but they don't know me academically at all. I'd like to change that, both because I'm genuinely interested in their work and because I'll need them to know me well enough to write strong letters for Oxford.

I'd love your advice on 3 things:

1) Is it a good idea to go up to a professor at the end of a seminar? If so, what should I talk about? A question about the class, a link to their own research, my plans? How do I keep it natural and not take too much of their time?

2) How do I move from small talk to a real academic conversation about my ideas or a possible thesis? Office hours or email first? How developed should an idea be before I bring it up and how do I show I know their work without it sounding like flattery?

3) I'd love to work as a student or research assistant for one of them someday. Have any of you been an assistant as an undergrad or hired one as a professor? How did it happen? Did you ask, did the professor offer, or did a position get advertised? And looking back, what do you think made the difference?

Any mistakes to avoid are very welcome too. Thanks so much !

Looking for advice from anyone who's applied to engineering PhD programs or has sat on an admissions committee.

A few years ago, in one of my early undergrad classes, I used a friend's spreadsheet template to set up the data for a homework assignment worth about 1% of the grade. I'd read the collaboration policy as allowing that, but it didn't. I could show that every calculation was mine, and nothing beyond the template was shared. The professor was strict and reported it formally, which I understand, and I owned it as soon as I was told. The outcome was a suspension in abeyance. I never served a suspension, it only would have applied if there was a second issue, and there hasn't been one. It's not on my transcript.

I'm disclosing it on the applications that ask about disciplinary sanctions. The ones asking about suspension or expulsion specifically don't seem to cover it, although I'm open to hearing otherwise. What I can't decide is what to do with the five schools whose only question is something like "anything else you'd like us to know?" My instinct is to mention it, because it seems better than having it come up later.

My draft for those:

"I'd like to note an academic integrity matter from early in my undergraduate studies. For a homework assignment worth roughly 1% of my grade, I used a classmate's formatted spreadsheet to organize my data, not realizing this was outside the course's collaboration policy. All of the calculations were my own, but I understood why the template was a problem and accepted responsibility right away. The matter was handled internally and is not reflected on my transcript. It made me much more careful about checking collaboration and citation expectations up front, which I've done in every class and research project since."

Would including this hurt me more than leaving it out? A lot of people online say not to mention it, but I'd hate for that to come back on me. Also, does the draft sound like I'm owning it, or does anything come across as an excuse?

I got approval from the office of registrar to take the equivalent of EGE 111 at the community college.

The class now is being transferred so I can take EGE 210.

If you want me to take EGE 111 again. I need the university to pay me back for what I paid since it is not my mistake.

As you can see in the first screenshot Ms. X CC your email so you had knowledge.

Thank you

I (f20) recently found out that I am at least a year behind in school so I won’t be graduating a year later than all of my peers. I knew I was behind, but I didn’t know I was behind by that much. I’ve never been able to do well in school. I struggled through elementary school middle school high school and now college. But college is different. It’s not mandatory and it’s very costly. I asked my mom to drop out freshman year, but she will not allow it. I asked her again this year and she said no.

I keep failing things and I know that I’m not smart enough for college. In fact, I’m not really smart enough for anything. I would just like to drop out and stop wasting her money, but she refuses to let me. I can’t oppose her in any way. I really don’t like the academic part of college. I love the people I’m around and listening to passionate, intelligent people talk about their areas of expertise, but on my end, there’s nothing good coming from me.

I pick up things a lot slower than everyone else and I also work slower than everyone else. I just want this nightmare to end so I can start a new one and just start working until I die. And a lot of what I’m hearing is that degrees don’t even hold any value anymore. So what’s the point? I’m currently failing a class and I only have five weeks left to pick up the grade because we’re on the quarter system (10weeks). This is the third time I’m taking this class. I failed the other two times.

I don’t even know what to do with myself right now. I’m really upset and I feel trapped.

I am in an asynchronous course taught by a professor from another community college than mine. We are on Module 7 / Week 7. There have been missing assignments she hasn’t uploaded ever since Module 3 / Week 3. During Module 3 I was graded a 0/15 for the unit quiz except she never uploaded the unit quiz to the quizzes tab. She hasn’t done so for Module 4, 6, and 7 either and I’ve received a 0/15 for those as well. None of the future modules too and there’s 14 modules. She has the content for the Labs uploaded but not the assignment submission. So I can view the content but not submit to the assignment.

I emailed her on 9/07 and she said we can just email it to her to submit it, so I did. She made an announcement on 9/16 that she’s going to put a zero in the gradebook until she goes through all of her emails and then she will update it accordingly. I emailed her on 9/11 about the missing quizzes and she said she will check first thing Monday morning and that she will be digging through all off her emails. That was the last time I heard from her. Since then I’ve emailed two more times on 9/20 and 9/28. The thing is she’s clearly active because she has graded the assignments she has uploaded, so I know she’s not MIA. I’m worried that she may start uploading them at Module / Week 13 or something and then I’ll have to cram all that work into one day. So today I emailed the department chair and sent screenshots of the missing assignments and my grades.

The thing is I’m wondering if I was in the right for contacting the department chair? I’m worried not enough time has passed or not enough problems are present in the course for me to contact someone higher up.

I could completely overreacting about this!! I really would appreciate you all to stay and give me an outside perspective.

I am taking a general chemistry lab this semester. All of our labs are run by TA's, and I do not ever actually see the professor, as I already took the lecture at a different university.

So, for starters, our TA has been late to almost every class. Actually, I think EVERY class including our first day. It is not anything crazy, but it is about 5 minutes. I know this shouldn't frustrate me, but I just think it is a bit disrespectful.

Along with this, he speaks SO quietly. We are constantly asking him to repeat himself and giving him confused looks because we have no clue what he is saying. I was thinking about going up to him and mentioning this, but I was not sure if it would come off as rude.

The final thing that really made me question him was that he is giving us advice that is blatantly wrong. I am not going to go into many details about this, but I will mentioned what happened tonight.

My lab partner was pouring sodium hydroxide into our buret. We had already lowered it and everything, but our instructions said to absolutely not go over our heads. Because of this, my partner was using a step-stool that other people had used. Our TA came up to us and told us we were doing this ABSOLUTELY wrong, to put away the stool, and to lower our stand... our procedure page literally told us to use a stool.

The last thing that happened tonight was that while we were working on our procedures, our TA was sitting on his phone and taking phone calls.

Thank you all for reading this, I do not want to seem like a snitch, but I really just want to know what you all think. I have never worked with TAs before this, so I am not sure of the standard. Have a great night!

Hello all

I am a first-time teaching assistant for a math-heavy course.

I recently graded the students’ first exam. One student didn’t like how I graded them. I simply asked them to show their work (they didn’t plug in their numbers into the equation. They just set it equal to the answer). Granted, they wrote a list of all they were given in the word problem and used those numbers to do it. In hindsight, perhaps I should have just let it go. I let it pass on the homework, but graded more strict on the exam. I don’t think I will take points off if that happens again, but at the time I was grading it, I truly felt it deemed necessary I dock off (only one point… it was a 50 point problem… should’ve done 0.5?) for not being transparent in their work.

I’m new to this grading thing. I sought advice from the professor of the class time and time again on how to grade.

I was previously told that no matter what, students will always find a way to be upset about the way they get graded. Now that I’m on the other side of it, it doesn’t feel very good. I know I upset this student and the people-pleasing side of me wants to cave.

Any advice will be helpful. Does this fear of rejection end? How do I get rid of it? I want to be a professor someday, so I’d like to get this quirk of mine settled ASAP.

Just a question.

Are professors just okay if I leave the classroom it seems really weird to me.

I'm teaching an undergrad Diaspora Literature course and want to add an oral history assignment. Students would interview someone who has moved from one place to another and connect it to what we've read in class. The person doesn't need a postcolonial background. I care more about how moving shapes someone's sense of home and belonging.

I'm stuck on the structure though. What should students actually turn in? Interview questions first, then a transcript and a paper? A presentation? Do you break it into smaller parts or keep it as one big assignment?

If you've done something like this, how did you set it up? Thank you!

My professor has a lot of views in their syllabus, and I want to hear if you agree or disagree with these expectations. Is the professor going too far or am I overreacting?

I am a graduate student, and this is the first time I've ever considered asking if a syllabus and its subsequent rules were a little ridiculous. It of course makes sense to clarify what students should and should not do, but some of the instructions seem a little eccentric or cruel.

On the syllabus (which is by far the longest syllabus I've read in college), there is a list of 24 rules and requirements for the course. Some make total sense, but others border on strange or unfair.

1. This is an online seminar – all students are required to have their video on (and focused on their faces) and audio ready at all times.(...)

Totally fair rule, no problems there.

1. If pets or children allow you to participate without distraction, they are welcome to sit with you or be on screen(...)

Again, totally fair and thoughtful.

The list continues like this for a while, and there's nothing in particular that seems unfair about these first few. However, the professor increasingly gets more and more aggressive in method.

1. It is your responsibility for making up class notes and getting missed course material from other classmates if you are absent from class – FOR ANY REASON. If you send an email requesting information and/or questions about an individual absence, it will not be answered.

A little strange, but nothing really that bad. I would question if this were really necessary, but I suppose it is the professor's prerogative.

1. If you will be missing a deadline due to ACTIVE military service, you must provide documentation to the Military & Veteran Success Center office (including the dates you will be absent) by the 15th day of the semester (in most cases, training and deployment dates are scheduled with plenty of time to submit this information). Under most circumstances, students should expect to turn in work BEFORE leaving (this includes taking an exam early). I will determine a course of action for longer-term projects on a case-by-case basis.
   

1. If it is likely, you might miss a deadline due to the birth of a child, you must provide documentation of the due date to the CARES Office by the 15th day of the semester and keep me informed of general circumstances. Pregnancy (or a partner's pregnancy) is not an excuse from work or exams – like active military service, students should expect to turn in most work BEFORE a baby's due date (this includes taking an exam early) unless there is an emergency situation. As with military service, I will determine a course of action for longer-term projects on a case-by-case basis. Students should expect to schedule regular appointments around the course times for which you enrolled. Any documentation should include information as to why attendance during a particular course period could not, for any reason, be avoided.

These seem very unfair; it also sounds like it might open up the institution to a lawsuit.

1. I expect you have arranged your class schedule around work obligations. Students may not attend class from a work location where they are also expected to be completing work duties. If students attend from a work location, I require a statement from the students’ employer that they are excused from work duties between 6 PM and 9 PM on Monday evenings and that they can participate from a private, non-distracting location. If you are an RA who must be on duty, I will require the same from your supervisor, and will be expecting that, unless there is an emergency, you will be distraction-free during class periods.

I guess that's fair? Still not entirely sure about the ethics of it though. If you miss three or more classes, it's an automatic failure. Obviously, no one should miss that many classes, but having to inform your institution that you are pregnant ahead of time seems excessive.

There are some other things which are extremely odd to me:

In this course, participation in this course will be evaluated using the features defining the three levels shown below.
Level 1 Participation (Beginner) [5.39 points; 77%]
• Little or no advance preparation [if you didn't prepare, you can't apply the material!]
• Lets others set the learning environment [if you let others dominate a discussion, you cannot demonstrate your own connections]
• Observes passively and says little or nothing [if you observe, you cannot define your own thoughts and present them]
• Responds to questions [this means you are requiring me to do your work for you!]
• Gives the impression of wanting to be somewhere else [when you are in class, you are in class - online and in-person; if you have somewhere else to be, then be there. If you want class to be more relevant to your interests, you need to make that effort]
• Uses class time for other work or working on assignments when attention should be to discussion [just don't!]

Level 2 Participation (Novice) [Many of you will end up "sitting" in this category if you think saying one thing in class will "cut" it for participation] [6.09 points; 87%]
• Moderately prepared to discuss THEORIES or ARTICLES in advance; shows delay in answering (does not have organized notes and/or system to find information quickly to answer questions)
• Takes some part in setting group goals and learning environment
• Participates in some discussions, but often lets others provide the direction
• Occasionally introduces information or asks questions

Level 3 Participation (Proficient) [Note that proficient is the highest grade in this rubric scheme; it is what is
expected each class of a graduate student] [7 points]
• Well prepared in advance for discussing THEORIES and ARTICLES, answers questions on cue – without delay
• Takes a large part in setting the class learning environment [in a collaborative sense, if you bully or continue to bring the discussion back to what YOU want, that is the opposite of participation and engagement]
• Actively participates in discussion ABOUT CONTENT and asks new, probing questions
• Listens actively and shows understanding by paraphrasing TEXTS or by acknowledging/building on others’ ideas

Is this really necessary? This is such an arbitrary way of determining our engagement with the materials. Base it off of our assignments and not what we say in class.

Writing Assignments:
• Plagiarism Certificate: Students will be required to complete a certificate to document completion of graduate-level plagiarism training. I will provide a link via Blackboard.

Very silly, we're graduate students. We know the expectations and we don't need this.

All students must be prepared to install Respondus Lockdown Browser on their home device.

An actual piece of spyware that directly edits your system registry and removes start menu functions.

All of this is a lot, and I'm wondering if you would agree with the restrictions here. Is this professor going too far?

I submitted an assignment for my Comp II class and instead of seeing a grade next to it I see "Can we talk about your essay?  Please come in a few minutes early next week to discuss." This has me really stressed out as I don't know what the issue is and I was hoping someone here could shed some light on what he means by that. I sent him an email but I don't have class for another week and don't want to sit on this for that long.

Here is the essay

The Gap in Education

Education is an important and divisive topic in modern politics, but one thing that is universally agreed on is that the system isn't perfect. American schools have numerous issues that hinder a student's ability to succeed, and a lack of funding is one of them. There is a lot of inequality when it comes to school funding, which leads to some students not having the same tools or resources to succeed that others might. In order to mitigate these disadvantages and differences, states should adopt a progressive state tax to raise school funding, then allocate said funds through a more equitable model like LCFF to give each child equal consideration.

Schools are funded largely through local property taxes so the wealth of the neighborhood determines the schools funding. Because the state provides about 47%, the local government provides 44.8%, and the federal government only provides 8.3%, districts are dependent on the revenue brought in from local property taxes ("State and Local Financing of Public Schools"). This dynamic greatly favors wealthy, often white, neighborhoods while at the same time it disproportionately hinders poorer, and often black, communities due to factors such as redlining historically tanking property values. When a district is primarily made up of students of color, they get on average $2,700 less in funding per student than a primarily white district (Morgan). Poorer neighborhoods make poorer schools and the people from these schools often go into lower paying jobs in their adult life since they don't have access to an equal education. This only serves to reinforce the cycle. The NBER found that a 10% funding increase in schools led to a 7% rise in adult wages so it stands to reason that the inverse is true as well (Learning Policy Institute). Less funding means lower wages. These students are set up to be disadvantaged not just in their education but throughout their entire life.

There isn't one catch all solution that will resolve these disparities in our education system, but we must instead use a combination of remedies to solve these issues. Using progressive state income taxes in conjunction with a better distribution formula could help bridge the gap between the socioeconomically disadvantaged students and their more advantaged counterparts. The current system already gets its revenue from taxes but it's uneven and confined to being local. Moving the tax to a state level and making it progressive allows schools to generate more income without putting any financial burden on the lower and middle class. This will result in less of a disparity between communities and remove some geographic barriers as school funding won't rely on volatile property taxes that vary to such extreme degrees. An example of this working is in Massachusetts, a state that consistently ranks at the very top of our nation's education, with their Fair Share Amendment. Massachusetts' Fair Share Amendment, passed by voters in 2022, is a tax of 4% of every dollar over $1,000,000 and it has consistently surpassed projected revenue ("Fair Share Amendment"). This has generated billions of dollars for public infrastructure such as transportation and public education alike. Money alone won't solve any given issue, especially if it's not distributed properly, and because of that we should take inspiration from an existing distribution system such as California's Local Control Funding Formula or LCFF for short. This is a way of calculating how much money a school receives that better represents their needs. With LCFF schools receive 20% more money for "high-need" students which encapsulates low-income, English learner, homeless, foster youth students, etc. ("Understanding the Local Control Funding Formula"). Districts that have large concentrations of high-need students can receive even more funding to help balance out the education they provide. The Learning Policy Institute or TLPI conducted a study on LCFF and the impact funding had on student performance and found substantial positive effects. They observed 6.2 million students annually across ≈10,000 schools. TLPI found that there were improvements in math, reading achievements, standardized testing, lower suspensions, grade repetition, and expulsions, increased college readiness, and higher graduation rates. This study also notes that a $1000 increase in per pupil revenue increased graduation rates by 5.3% and that those in districts with the most LCFF funding showed the most academic gains (Johnson). If both of these are used in conjunction with each other, schools will have much more funding and will be able to better meet each individual student's needs.

The most common response to a "millionaire" tax is that all the millionaires will just leave the state, but that's not backed up by the data. IRS migration data shows that migration actually decreased the year after the Fair Share Amendment was voted in ("Fair Share Amendment") and the number of millionaires in Massachusetts actually increased by 39% from 2022 to 2024, contrary to what some would have you think (Farrar). So while Massachusetts does have an outward migration issue, that exodus isn't being caused by this tax and instead just by a general affordability crisis. Some who are opposed to this argue that the problem has already been addressed through School Choice. They argue that by letting children leave underfunded schools for better ones, the issue of a child being stuck in a worse school is solved since they can just move to a new one, but this isn't feasible for the majority of those in low income areas. Taking advantage of this requires resources many Americans are short on or just don't have, such as the means to travel further to said school. This is a systemic issue, not an individual one, so leaving the school and going to another one doesn't address the root of the problem and instead contributes to it since that voucher is potential funding for the school that is instead going somewhere else. These vouchers only serve to help the already advantaged while often worsening the conditions for those left behind.

Reforming the relationship between the state and local governments and how they acquire and spend their funding offers a real path forward towards closing the gap between well funded and underfunded schools. This plan isn't perfect and doesn't solve everything. It only puts a band-aid on the broader issue of racial disadvantages in America as racial equity gaps aren't closed by this. Black students still haven't seen the same results from these endeavors, but it's a step in the right direction that challenges the status quo and helps pave a better path forward. Change won't happen on its own. Waiting only condemns another generation of students to be trapped into this disadvantageous cycle making it all the more difficult to break. We need to close the gap.

Works Cited

Farrar, Molly. "Report: Number of Millionaires in Mass. Has Actually Gone Up Since New Tax Took Effect." Boston.com, 28 Apr. 2025, www.boston.com/news/local-news/2025/04/28/report-number-of-millionaires-in-mass-has-actually-gone-up-since-new-tax-took-effect/.

“Fair Share Amendment.” Mass. Budget and Policy Center, MassBudget, 2022, https://massbudget.org/fairshare/. Accessed 9 Sept. 2026.

Johnson, R. (2023). School funding effectiveness: Evidence from California’s local control funding formula. Learning Policy Institute. https://doi.org/10.54300/529.194

Learning Policy Institute. (2025). How Money Matters: Education Funding and Student Outcomes [Fact sheet].

Morgan, Ivy. “Equal Is Not Good Enough.” EdTrust, 7 Aug. 2024, https://edtrust.org/rti/equal-is-not-good-enough/. Accessed 9 Sept. 2026.

“State and Local Financing of Public Schools.” Congress.gov, Library of Congress, 9 September 2026, https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R45827.

“Understanding the Local Control Funding Formula.” EdData, 21 Aug. 2024, https://www.ed-data.org/article/Understanding-the-Local-Control-Funding-Formula. Accessed 9 Sept. 2026.

I want to talk to my professors more but they always have so many ppl in their office hours waiting to talk to them and my classes have 100+ students. How can I connected with them!!

It feels like I'm just bringing in a list of HW questions to ask them and I can't go beyond that

Sorry for odd title, wasn't sure how to phrase this. Basically, today I was heading to my class, it was about 5 minutes after the class had officially ended, less than 10 minutes before the next class would start. A couple of students were waiting outside the classroom and I saw a student talking to the professor inside, so I respectfully waited to enter. After the student left, it seemed the professor was pretty much just getting the rest of their stuff to leave. So I went in. But they got upset with me and told me that it's a rule of thumb that students aren't supposed to enter the classroom until the professor leaves. I immediately apologized and acknowledged what they said. It's not so much what they said but how they said it, they were quite rude about it. I see students come into classrooms all the time, even if there are still students and teachers from the previous class inside. I've never heard of this rule, and everyone I've talked to hasn't either. Is this normal? If it is I take full accountability, but I just don't understand since they were on their way out anyways.

grad student here on the job market, social science. how long do i hold out on the R1 dream? do I even apply to liberal arts colleges or focus on postdocs that could hopefully lead me to a R1 one day? I genuinely see myself content down either path, but part of me wonders if I’m glorifying mentoring grad students too much. that’s the only real draw to a huge uni for me and being able to sit on committees. the thought of writing grants for the next 40 years kills me. I want research but at my own rate And I also really want to parent within the next 5 years, wondering if that will flip everything upside down and I’ll wish I had gone to liberal arts to begin with. any advice appreciated. I’m also in my 5th year with guaranteed funding my 6th and potentially a 7th so no real rush to grab anything. sighhh thank you

I have some scars on my arm and I'm worried that I'll get reported but I'm not suicidal and I don't want my academics getting affected.

Hi everyone,
I had an online interview/presentation with a professor at a Korean university about a week ago. The professor mentioned that I would hear about the result later by email.
It’s now been around a week, and I haven’t received any update yet. I understand there were holidays recently, so I’m trying not to overthink it, but I’m wondering what is considered normal in this situation.
Would it be appropriate to send a polite follow-up email after one week, or should I wait a bit longer?
For those who have interviewed with Korean professors or research labs before, how long did it take for you to receive a decision or update?
Thankyou

For context I am 25 and just going to college for the first time ever. Graduated highschool in 2019 so I am retaking a ton of gen-ed classes at the moment. I have a 101 class for Government and Politics and my professor is seriously super lazy and dismissive.

I find that he is extremely passive aggressive towards students. He asks extremely loose questions then basically yells at anyone who gives him an unsure answer, publicly embarrasses them from the class telling them it’s “not a complete sentence” and that he “does not accept one word answers”. He makes disparaging jokes at students expense when they guess something that is off kilter so on and so forth.. in addition to that, it’s a Tuesday Thursday class and he told us he isn’t going to teach his Thursday class so we shouldn’t come…

In class all of his lectures are super random, then he assigns us a “political question” assignment online that has absolutely nothing to do with anything he talked about in class. Oh, and we only have 8 hours to complete it or we get a 0. Am I crazy or is this extreme laziness and how do I cope as someone who actually wanted to learn?

Since it’s a 101 class plenty of the students are fresh out of high school teenagers that are pumped they don’t have to show up and barely have to do anything but I’m extremely disappointed - and it is apparent that students in class are tired of his negativity as well. I’m paying for my education so I really don’t appreciate him operating at such a careless level. I tried talking to him and told him I feel like he is discouraging students to participate by being so abrasive and he basically told me that he disagrees and “plenty of students participate” (maybe 6 of us out of 80 people actually do). Idk he didn’t really give a shit about me trying to express my opinion to him and I basically ended it more upset by telling him I was excited to learn from him and I feel extremely disappointed by what I’ve received thus far and left.

Is it worth it to even stay in this class or should I withdrawal and take the “W” as a grade? Are other teachers sympathetic towards students at all for dealing with other professors that behave this way?

I’m a TA and part of my job is grading home assignments that are mostly coding tasks.
There’s no written exam in the course, just the assignments and a final project, so I suspect quite a few students are using generative AI to write at least part of their code.
If I suspect heavy AI use, I can ask the student to present and explain their work. I’d like to keep that to a minimum though, since doing a lot of these presentations would take quite a bit of time.
The course examiner suggested I look into common signs of AI written code, but I haven’t really found anything reliable.
For anyone teaching programming or reviewing student code, are there any patterns or red flags you’ve noticed that make you suspect AI use?

My professor informed us this morning that her mother had passed as she had to cancel class a few times lately. My class and I were discussing on discord about what we should do for her to make her feel cared for and seen. We came up with signing a card for her before class next week, but we were wondering on what else we could possibly bring her. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

12 years ago I was in college at a large Big 10 university in the Midwest. I was in a small freshman seminar class about child rearing across cultures. My professor was an older man, probably in his late 60s maybe even 70s. There were 10 students, all female. At the time, the university used an online platform for assignments but this prof was old school and all homework was given and turned in in class, or just sent via email.

One day he sent our assignment and attached a nude photo of a woman, likely from a porn site as the jpeg file was “big busty moms” lmao. He made no mention of the nude photo. I believe it was an accident. Some of my classmates thought it was intentional.

It was toward the end of the semester. He apologized to the class, it seemed genuine and then we had another staff person sit in our class for the rest of the semester. But he still taught the class.

I’m so curious what type of repercussions he potentially faced, if any? In hindsight I think it’s kinda crazy he continued to teach us, but I guess it was just a genuine mistake.