As the final week of refresh button worship SSOL registration comes to a close, Bwog pays tribute to the team that created the Columbia Underground Listing of Professor Ability (CULPA). We couldn’t help but jump in and ask a few questions.

What to do while your mom registers for you.

Your daily dose of cute via Wikimedia Commons.

Yesterday, the USenate held a two-hour townhall on “Open Course Evaluations” in the Law School. Around 40 people attended, including a fair number of students.  The details of the proposal can be found here: the basic gist is that the primarily quantitative data will be released online, with at least one qualitative question, “Would you recommend this course to your peers and why?”

Here is the breakdown of the arguments made for and against the SAC’s proposal of open course evaluations:

One thing agreed upon was that students were dissatisfied with the limited information they have about professors and classes before making a choice, and alternatives were brainstormed.

Professors who voiced concerns about the SAC’s proposal for open evaluations include: Marilyn Ivy (Anthro), Bette Gordon (Arts), Tom Panayotidi (Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics), Rosalind Morris (Anthro), Carlos Alonso (Dean of GSAS), Rebecca Young (Women & Gender Studies, BC), Jean Cohen (Political Science).

Hooray! [Some of ] You are done with finals. So what’s next? Before you cram all of your belongings into an unreasonable number of suitcases and ship home for the holidays to bask in the glory of parental bickering and endless free food, Bwog has a few simple reminders for you.

Use Carsplit to save yourself some money on the way to the airport. You might even make a new friend! Maybe you’ll be best friends! Then you can nostalgically look back and say “Remember that one time in the taxi?” Alternatively, you could always use mass transit.

Before you forget just how great/awful your classes were, write Culpa reviews. You can unleash your pent-up rage or expound on the wonders of your favorite professors—all for the good cause of helping out your classmates. It is the holidays, after all.

It’s hard to believe, but registration for spring 2012 (aka the last year) starts today for seniors! Time to squeeze in that last credit of PE before you graduate. Or maybe you’re looking for a more eclectic elective to take—if so, we’ve got you covered. And don’t miss out on our jaw-dropping list of courses to take before you die. So hop to it. Browse the list of available courses, find out how brutal your professor is going to be, and do your best to squeeze them all in without conflicts.

Another sort of Revelation that you'll study

We check SSOL so you don’t have to! A few days ago, Lit Hum and CC profs were unmasked, and today Art and Music Hummers should be up too. Bonus points if your Core professors are actually on CULPA. (Hint: they never are.) Google away then wallow or rejoice!

Goodbye Columbia!

Last minute reminder to:

Use Carsplit to get to the airport– you’ll save (some) money and make (new (best)) friends.

Write CULPA reviews while classes are still (fresh) on your mind– also upload the syllabus because that’s really helpful. It’s for the general happiness maxim!

Chillaxing via Wikimedia

What Columbia is filling your inboxes with

Over the last few weeks, your correspondent has received a total of seven automatic reminders to fill out course evaluations (i.e. spam) and three personal emails from professors requesting that their evaluations be completed. And they are pretty important—filling out course evaluations lets professors know what works and what doesn’t in their classes. Unfortunately, course official evaluations only help professors. Other students can’t see them…at least not yet. That means you’ve got to write CULPA reviews, too, so your fellow Columbians know which classes are amazing and which are even more pointless than Frontiers! And if you couldn’t care less about any of that good citizen crap, then do it so Columbia stops spamming your inboxes!

UPDATE: As this post was being published, Bwog received yet another email reminder!

Canned meat from Wikimedia Commons

Columbia, let’s be a community. Let’s show the collective action problem who’s boss! Let’s rate our professors on CULPA. Don’t you see that when you review, and other people review, everybody mutually pools their experience?

What…you’re not a chicken or something, right?

Things to remember!

Use Carsplit on your way to the airport– you’ll save money and make new best friends.

Write CULPA reviews now that exams are fresh in your mind– you’re helping the next generation! Teamwork! Friendship! Etc.

Finishing up the PE requirement

Tomorrow marks the beginning of pre-registration for SEAS, GS, and CC! If you haven’t done so already, it’s time to consult the directory of classes, send an email to your advisor (maybe even get one back!) and take the first steps toward next semester’s homework. Bwog hopes you get into that Music Hum section, even though you got a terrible registration time. Don’t Worry, Be Happy!

Image via Wikimedia Commons

In May of last semester, CULPA came out with the Oracle, an algorithm that hoped to achieve the impossible–to predict the scheduling of Core Curriculum professors. For those wishing to avoid blindly selecting their Core courses, the Oracle stood as a beacon of hope.

Unfortunately, when put to its first test this semester, the Oracle’s results proved to be no better than Professor Trelawney’s. In CULPA’s own words, “they were almost completely useless.” Only the predictions for Music Humanities presented a statistically significant degree of confidence.

But the good people of CULPA are resilient! Though this first attempt at divination may have failed, the CULPA team will not give up on cracking the mysterious Core scheduling code and plans to release a new algorithm later this semester. You can read a full statement from the CULPA team here, and if you’re into that kind of thing, you can check out all the fancy numbers here.

In case the Oracle let you down and who you thought was your gold nugget LitHum professor is actually the Trunchbull, never fear! CULPA has just come out with a new tutoring marketplace to supply you with upperclassmen who can answer all of your questions about kleos and Achilles’ apotheosis. CULPA’s really got your back! If you’re interested in helping your fellow struggling Columbians, sign up to be a tutor.

The Oracle in action

Today, CULPA unleashed the Oracle: the culmination of several years’ work trying to determine when Core professors teach. In other words, you may no longer have to stumble in the dark as you pick your CC, Music Hum and Art Hum sections. The Oracle matches up predicted professors, the times they usually teach, and the section numbers they usually teach. The CULPA gods then used a super secret algorithm to convey their level of confidence that the professor listed will actually teach the time slot/section number listed. Oh, happy day! CULPA warns that the system is a mere babe, and that it may flourish or flop. Either way, it’ll need fine-tuning. In the meantime, take a stab at it, and don’t forget to review your professors and upload your syllabi.

Name, school: Ron Gejman, CC

Claim to fame: Computer nerd extraordinaire! No, but really, I ran CULPA for the past couple years and revamped it a bit (remember what it used to look like?). I also designed the super-graphic—but ridiculously effective—posters that got put up all over campus during Ahmadinejad week.

Where are you going? I’m going to work in a lab for a year in NYC while I apply to MD-PhD programs. Wish me luck!

Three things you learned at Columbia:

1. CU Housing doesn’t understand rules of grammar and consequently interprets its own rules incorrectly.
2. The walk from Butler to EC at sunrise after finishing a paper is GLORIOUS.
3. Reading week is the best time to work on all the important things you neglected all semester because you finally have something more important to neglect.

Justify your existence in 30 words or less: I got tickets to both Ahmadinejad and Obama-McCain. I was clearly placed on Earth for a reason.

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese? You can take the lactase away from the man, but you can’t take the man away from his cheese.

Any advice for the Class of 2014?

1. Make a group of close friends early on and stick with them all four years.
2. Learn how to teach. Find a way to tutor, TA or lecture. You will not regret the time commitment and it will impact EVERY aspect of your life for the better.
3. Make friends with seniors every year. They know what’s up and are a great source of advice.

Any regrets? Not sleeping on the roof of SIPA or ever participating in Holi.

It’s near the end of the semester, and the only thing that’s on your mind is laying on the lawns running from the rain. But don’t forget that there are things that need your input! Cough.

• Courseworks evaluations have been out for a while now, and many of them are due towards the end of this week, so fill them out soon. They’ll change how the course is run in the future, or something.
• CULPA is a great resource for future students, so as you are wrapping up your classes, be sure to share your experiences. It’s also a good idea to go back and rate reviews for professors you’ve had in the past, just to maintain reviewers’ integrity.

Image via Flickr/tmray02

You probably haven’t been as excited to evaluate your courses as that automated Courseworks student-pestering system thinks you are. Yes, robot, I must have just forgotten to do my evaluations, thanks for the reminder! But at this point you’ve got to start thinking about it, since the deadline for most class evaluations is tonight (presumably) at midnight. It will satisfy the narcissism of your professors and more importantly you won’t be held responsible for holding up the reporting of grades for your entire class.

Also remember to fill out CULPA reviews! Not like Columbians are obsessed with cults of personality or anything, but reading about professors on CULPA really does affect your fellow students and it is guaranteed to someday affect you (if it hasn’t already). Remember that class you suffered through freshman year because there was no CULPA review? Think of the children.