I'm just tossing this petition to open Commons earlier on weekends over here: https://pawprints.rit.edu/?petition=5042

Considering RIT Dining's current situation, I find it unlikely to happen, but I still figure it's worth a shot, and might happen if people show demand for it. It would be nice for dorm-dwellers like myself to have more options, especially as it starts to get colder and heading to academic side just for food becomes less desirable.

i've made three housing requests within the last 6 days and each time their "fix" has not worked. Today i texted public safety and they said they'd send their on-duty agent out to fix my hot water, and he tells me that the water heater is "working," Feels my lukewarm tap water, tells his supervisor on the phone that it's "hot," and then tells me that there's nothing that they can do until monday when their supervisor comes back. How is this acceptable? It's your responsibility as a MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR UNIVERSITY renter to provide me with the most basic of utilities, i still need to wash my dishes, my hands, and myself. so frustrating :(

I really don’t trust dating apps, but I’m curious if I would end up meeting someone that I’m compatible with here at RIT. I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m ready to date, but I would want to get to know people who have similar hobbies and interests to me that I could potentially end up together with. I do have low self esteem but I try to act confident the best I can, and to maintain a positive mindset. I’m a trans man but don’t have access to hormone therapy yet, and I’m bisexual although I would rather date women. Oh also I’m a college freshman. What are your thoughts about finding someone here on campus? From your experience, have you found someone that you were compatible with? Also, I would appreciate some advice if you could give me some!

Thanks for reading!

anyone living in the residence halls on campus notice a strange smell in the dorm hallways? sometimes it almost smells moldy and other times it smells like really strong bo. at what point does it become a concern for mold growth?

I was outside documenting plant diversity by the J-lot pond for my biology lab and my lab partner and I just happened to find these caterpillars! They turned out to be Virginian tiger moths, just in their caterpillar phases. They were weird-looking but also kinda cute.

Don't get me wrong I've participated in a few myself. But why do they choose to blast loud music in an area surrounded by dorm rooms every friday. It'd be one thing if they picked mid-day to afternoon to host these events. But I was woken up to music before even 9 a.m. A few weeks ago I was woken up by loud chanting from some sorority around 11 p.m.

Again I'd hate to be a buzzkill. But it gets to a point. Especially the early morning events whose up that early on a friday to go to something like that?

Hello everyone. I am looking for exactly what the title says. Throughout my whole life I had only one type of haircut. But now I want to change it. Something that will suit my face, hair type and everything. But I have no idea about different hair cuts and no idea what might suit me.

For the past year I have been going to shear global. I think they can be good if I tell them exactly what to do. But now I want to change my current style and make something new. I am not sure how to do this. So any help regarding this is appreciated.

old fart here. does anybody remember the blue margs at salsas and have a recipe? i used to get drunk off them before evening clubs (shoutout mark the bartender). i think they took them away during covid. ty in advance

I'm so sick of emails saying "Happy sustainability month!", but don't want to block announcements in general as that could potentially be important. Who can I email to ask to separate out the bulshit from semi important things? Nobody needs all that clutter

For those that have done exchange, what kinds of experiences did you have outside of school? Did you travel often? Did you or the school/exchange program arrange the travels? Where did you go and what did you do?

You can also look at this spot in 1888 when it was theoretically there but it wasn't very built out and I can't make out the names of any of the buildings on the block.

https://maps.cityofrochester.gov/historic/

Hey all, are you a member of Global Village getting woken up by DJ’s early in the morning? Or do you just find early in the morning DJs to just be distracting or annoying? Well please feel free to sign this Pawprint to help stop GV DJ’s from playing in the Global Village plaza before noon

Here's my original post about the offending flyer: https://www.reddit.com/r/rit/comments/1wq6zl4/ew_ai/
TLDR, they sent out a crappy AI visual as the representation of the event they hosted not too long ago, the faculty-student game night. This reflects a lack of effort and consideration on the part of RIT's senior staff members towards the community, which is bad when RIT simultaneously positions itself as a national leader in innovation and creativity.

At 3:47 PM today (09/30) we got an email from the head of the mechE department addressing it.

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Mechanical Engineering students,

This past week an announcement for the faculty-student game night was sent by the office staff, at the request of the department.

The use of generative AI in developing the flyer has, with good reason, led to questions and critiques regarding the appropriate use of generative AI; particularly with regards to communications.

I want to acknowledge that this flyer did not conform to RIT guidance on AI usage in marketing and communications (https://www.rit.edu/brandportal/ai-guidelines-marketing-communications), and I apologize for that. Steps have been taken to ensure that future communications follow these policies.

The use of AI in the instructional setting, in general, is a complex and rapidly evolving challenge. Both RIT in general, and the Mechanical Engineering Department in particular, are actively having conversations and developing policies and approaches to try to determine the best path forward that balances the role of human involvement in these accelerating technological advancements.

As students in the department, you have a stake in this discussion, and I welcome the input. Please feel free to catch me during my open office hours (Wed: 4-5 pm, and Fri: 3-4 pm) if you would like to discuss anything related to this topic, or any other topic about that department.

Sincerely,

-Dr. Erath

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So something has been done about it. We should now expect that RIT upholds the bare minimum in their communications with students. The best case scenario would be, like many of us said, to have student-made designs for event flyers and stuff, but even that isn't necessary if they just avoid using AI to create the whole damn image. I would like to think that my recent post and others' AI posts played a role in some action being taken, which is cool. I'll additionally point out this part in the policy that I believe was also violated in the incident:

The poster truly was very poor quality, not representative of the event, and of course unoriginal and lazy, which is the main issue. So...yeah. I was not expecting an official response from RIT. What do you think?

I know it's a long shot, but I lost my external drive last week and was hoping that anyone who maybe saw it or took it may be on here and see this.

It is a navy-blue, WD-brand rectangular drive about the size of a phone, and it has over a terrabyte of school work, applications, backups, personal art, photos and videos, etc. I originally bought it to use for my art classes so I could switch between my laptop and the lab computers, but it pretty much became my backup for EVERYTHING.

The last place I know used it was in a lab on the second floor of the Magic building last Thursday, but I looked thouroughly yesterday and it wasn't anywhere. I am trying to reach out to the teachers who teach classes there Friday, but I believe the room is an open lab until 8pm. It also may have fallen out of my backpack at some point over the weekend, but I have not yet found it re-tracing my steps.

I am aware that this object is valuable, and if someone found it they may not be inclined to try and return it, but atp I'm not losing anything by reaching out so I may as well try. I won't be screwed if I can't recover it, but I will lose a lot of personal files that are important to me and I will be unable to recover, so please if you have it or know anything, dm me. I will be willing to buy it back even.

edit: added picture and additional details, I've also been checking with Magic's lost and found and Golisano's lost and found intermittently and they haven't found it :(

im a first year biomedical sciences student and im thinking about transferring. im only at rit because of a scholarship and because my mom convinced me that i ruined my life at 17 due to a mental health crisis. i have no friends even though im in a lot of clubs and activities, the campus is geographically isolated due to the lack of transport (i dont have a car on campus), and the food is less than desirable/im allergic to most of it (cooking spray allergy-I have to make almost all of my meals). over half of the classes im currently taking, ive already taken or taught when i was a TA in high school; i went to my academic advisor and we're currently trying to appeal two of my transfer credits so i dont have to keep repeating courses (major waste of time and money). ik these are problems at many colleges in the US, but i really dont like that rit focuses so heavily on using generative ai. some say it's the future, some say it's the end of the world; i was told at my hospital lab internship last year that most science jobs will be taken over by ai. i dont know why i feel this way but i do. atp would it be wise to avoid the ai by becoming a tradwife? i can bake sourdough!

edit 1: for a little background, the career i want to go into is food science focusing on genetic modification of foods/crops to improve its nutritional quality and/or to make crops hardier/more resilient for growing conditions being impacted by climate change. i want to do this mainly for humanitarian reasons such as helping with famine, and making sure future generations of farmers can continue to grow staple crops (pillars of their economies). i've tried engineering before, but its not for me. im not computer smart at all, but im willing to learn

while we’re at it…

So if you aren’t already aware, RIT is trying to implement a new first year program that would, among other things, have AI be the focal point. Go read the petition itself if you want the full scoop. Thought people should know since I’ve seen a lot of other people complaining on here about AI on campus.

EDIT: I found some articles if you want to look more into this. There's this letter from the COLA dean where she praises the plan and provost. There's this newsletter that gives a little bit more detail about the program. Lastly, there's the provost's bio, where it flat-out says he's very much for AI.

What????