jolly good.

Random Acts of Kindness

Last night while studying for my last CS final my friends told me about a study guide one our classmates made and shared on our class website. It was a comprehensive summary of our professor’s lectures and notes condensed in beautiful charts complete with a table of contents. The whole PDF was about 49 pages (because it was so well-organized). He wrote that he’d been working hard on it all semester and he wanted to share it with us before this morning’s final. 

For those of you not in college, I’m not sure if I can adequately describe how competitive some people can be. Often times students care more about beating the curve than they care about each other, so giving a 50 page self-made study guide to 300 classmates is kind of a big deal. 

This isn’t the first time a generous, studious classmate shared his study materials with classmates he’ll never meet (like me). In my other CS class, another student made 40-minute videos explaining our professor’s notes Khan Academy style, just to deepen our understanding in case we couldn’t understand from only reading.

I know I often complain about my classmates at the top of the food chain that make me feel so inferior, but it is so humbling to see these people go out of their way to share their expertise with others.

Moral of the story: Have talent and time? Pay it forward and help people out; it goes a long way.

“Part of me is like ‘screw it, I don’t care,’ like, a big part of me…really”

I love studying with friends

Reported Cheating on Final

“We have received disturbing reports of observed cheating on the final —- people copying answers and continuing past when time was called.

If you yourself cheated, I *strongly* urge you to confess. We will be significantly more lenient with those that confess. If you don’t, we will throw the book at you and work as hard as possible to have you expelled from Berkeley and possibly, to have your name and reputation ruined for all time. (Think about what the Google Pagerank is of my website and of the EECS website. Remember, in the USA, it isn’t libel or slander if I have evidence. Simply the fact that it hurts your reputation doesn’t make it legally objectionable if it is true. And I’m a tenured faculty member.)

…

For those who saw something, do not enable this kind of behavior in others. This is not normal. It should not be tolerated. They are contaminating your environment by their presence.”

Never have I seen a professor respond so strongly about cheating. This makes me afraid for the cheaters in my class during this morning’s final. I never had a professor that 1) discussed his tenured status with students and 2) threatened to use it to jeopardize a student’s reputation.

Finals week get real for anyone yet?