Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service | Hacker News Reader

Need help with students who've turned my class into a dating service

academia.stackexchange.com

281 pointsjabriel621 comments

I'm appalled that so many other commenters don't see an issue with such behavior in class:

> number of female students have approached me, noting they are disgusted and uncomfortable with the amount of leching taking place

> It's also demoralizing several of them, since we routinely have cases where a young man is leading open labs as if they're a teacher themselves (in order to "wow" their female classmates, offer "private free tutoring sessions", etc). Some of the young students in my class take up these offers, and this further demoralizes other female students seeing this happen (i.e. only attractive women being offered tutoring sessions).

So suppose you're a university student who have a mild preference for this course. Upon hearing of such behavior, you'd end up avoiding such a class to sidestep such a distraction. Not to mention being distracted with insecurities if you don't end up being offered tuition.

This was my first reaction as well - sounds cute and prankish until you’re one of the students negatively affected.

Meeting people is part of the college experience, and I definitely met people who attended classes with a higher female ratio in the hopes of meeting someone.

But there’s a big difference between “I’ll take an acting class because there’s a lot more women there”, where you might just happen to learn something, and “I’m going to effectively run a class and control the situation so attractive students get an advantage by hanging out with me”

It's curious how a particular app changes the language and interaction culture of behavior. For example, there was a Facebook course at Stanford by a self-styled persuasion researcher who delved into how user interfaces and appearances of websites forms the basis of an impression in the viewer's mind. And then, from that basis, encourages or discourages behavior based on the technical behavior of the website. From there, it would then influence and shape the individual's beliefs and attitudes as much as any traditional PR manufacturing of consent. (Cambridge Analytica, 2016 Russian US election hack)

> I'm appalled that so many other commenters don't see an issue with such behavior in class:

>> No unwanted advances

It seems very appalling when you focus on the bits you don't like and ignore the bits like "no unwanted advances".

I didn't ignore that, but chose to focus on the fact that other commenters have seemed to ignore all the problematic lines lines completely surrounding those three words. There can be only willing advances between the person making the advancing and the the person it is advanced on, but in the completely wrong environment can affect everyone else who has to be in an environment who has to be in the same environment. These surrounding lines spell out how such behavior affects everyone else. A later comment by the professor makes explicit the harm being done:

> Even worse, some women in the class seem oblivious to this or don't care, while the majority of them are insulted and hurt by this.

Making the interested parties "disgusted and uncomfortable" - on purpose! - pretty much qualifies as "unwanted advances".

>It seems very appalling when you focus on the bits you don't like and ignore the bits like "no unwanted advances".

Yes, lets cultivate young hetero men to expressly look for sexual opportunities where they have an explicit and conscious asymetrical power-relation to women. Quality dudes these will be.

I think you're right about this. The male auditors are overdoing the whole showboating thing in a way that creates a bad experience for the rest of the students, and probably doesn't really help their romantic prospects either. Sensible women want to get to know friends in a gradual, natural fashion and perhaps be a little wowed in non-obvious ways. No one wants to be advertised to with "FREE private tutoring sessions, limited offer!" That alone is incredibly obnoxious.

> The male auditors are overdoing the whole showboating thing in a way that creates a bad experience for the rest of the students, and probably doesn't really help their romantic prospects either. Sensible women want to get to know friends in a gradual, natural fashion and perhaps be a little wowed in non-obvious ways.

They aren't looking for sensible women, they're looking for attractive women. IOW, it furthers their goal, even if you think they should have a different goal.

> Sensible women want to get to know friends in a gradual, natural fashion and perhaps be a little wowed in non-obvious ways.

How do you befriend these "sensible women" if it's apparently not okay to go where they are -- because they're there?

I've done the opposite to what these guys do by ignoring this when choosing my education, so I met basically no female peers from HS to higher education to _now_.

Discussion around this question really reinforces my conviction that things are fuc*d beyond point of repair. "Get to know friends in a gradual, natural fashion"? Lol, impossible, because you can't even meet people without it being an issue.

Reminds me of kids in my high school classes that would misbehave and cause disruptions, which would cause a disruption for everybody else, but the teacher really couldn't do anything about it because short of violence, you couldn't kick them out of the class.

So, the social norms are that men are supposed to approach women to form relationships.

But they can't even offer women free tutoring lessons... because other women feel bad about it? Wat?

Or women are offended, supposedly rightfully, solely because of the presence of these men (because person who asked the question said clearly they have done nothing wrong)? What the...?

"Being distracted with insecurities" - men, on the other hand, have no such problems, yes? They willingly went to classes that are useless to them, in order to try to impress women.

We live in a society, I guess...

Is there not a chance one of the young men offering open labs or tutoring might, in fact, be intelligent, enthusiastic about the sciences and decent?

They might be! Which makes it even more of a shame that they used an app whose intent was to help students audit classes where they have a gender ratio opportunity.

If this person sent an email to the class group offering their services and coached folks without seeing their gender or appearance, I would applaud them, and I’d be more than happy to support whoever they met through that.

But my guess is, that’s not the situation here. Would love to be wrong.

Is there not a chance that the professor might, in fact, be correct in her assessment of the motivation of these upperclassmen and decent?

It's not like anyone's proposed sentencing them to death. (Or any punishment at all?)

Most universities have gobs of overlapping official and unofficial tutoring programs both broad and subject-specific. Enterprising scholars will also inevitably find a way to announce independent tutoriing services.

Students who are enthusiastic about sharing knowledge, making a few bucks, or adding a line to their resume generally don't have trouble finding such opportunities to share their knowledge and help others succeed without having to audit a course.

I think it's a conflict of interest if someone is teaching/tutoring so they can sleep with their students, and that approach can result in unfortunate incentives for the tutor at the expense of their students.

A decent tutor's first and foremost goal is to educate their students. If a student makes advances on a decent tutor, the tutor will rebuff them, for concern that it will detract from their attention and the quality of the lesson. That's not what these guys are up to.

If they're so intelligent and decent, why are they relying on such disturbing tactics to meet women in the first place?

Not if they’re putting themselves in that tutoring position using a dating app specifically designed to facilitate manipulating those students for romantic purposes.

Some people choose universities on its reputation for sex, partying, and drugs!

It’s absolutely appalling. And especially so with so many comments suggesting the opposite of the things you quote. Seeing no harm by pretending the directly express harm was never expressed at all.

> you'd end up avoiding such a class

Of course, the only workable solution is the only one you're not allowed to suggest: gender-segregated colleges.

Less attractive girls get less male attention no matter what. Why would it be any more demoralizing if that attention comes with tutoring? Why would it be distracting?

It seems everyone is complaining except the girls getting tutored. And if they did complain, if some guy was pushy or wouldn't take no for an answer, then deal with him the same as any other such guy - that they're attending a class for the sake of dating would be incidental, and make their actions no worse or better, and wouldn't affect the response in any way, except that it would be easier to expel them from the class, as it wouldn't impact their academics.

Because it can be very dehumanizing. "Even in a STEM class, I can't escape being unattractive". At minimum, it'll make me less likely to want to excel.

(Been there)

It would be demoralizing because your attractiveness shouldn’t factor into whether you can get academic help

> Less attractive girls get less male attention no matter what.

This is simple reality, but it seems certain people want to reject it. As if the less attractive women should be forcibly provided special access to the more attractive or top percentage of men.

> It seems everyone is complaining except the girls (college women) getting tutored.

I also find this quite strange. It's as if the college women tutored are denied agency and are children of the school. Like these guys are not talking to adult women who can choose their actions, but rather the teacher of the class and school administration control these women and mandate dating access to them.

> And if they did complain, if some guy was pushy or wouldn't take no for an answer, then deal with him the same as any other such guy...

Again, you are noticing the same thing. Not seeing why any actual complaints can't be handled on its merits, based on the individual it happened to. What the hell is going on that the teacher feels she should control the "dating privileges" of her female students and be empowered to block male heterosexual student access to her class.

I find the behavior and intended actions of the teacher in question very strange. It's as if she wants to run a "pre-crime" unit, where the male students are already guilty, and her female students need to ask for her permission for who they can or can't date.

> Less attractive girls get less male attention no matter what. Why would it be any more demoralizing if that attention comes with tutoring? Why would it be distracting?

And fuckton of men get literally 0 attention. That's, of course, not an issue at all.

It goes deeper than that. It's predatory. And it can go from being harmless to SA really fast if you're on the receiving end.

If you are a SA, or a CSA, survivor, then this is the kind of behavior that gives you nightmares. I know, because it gives me nightmares. And it's brought up in almost every support group I've been a part of. Their behavior is identical to someone who profiles a victim type, seeks opportunities to put themselves in the victim's path, and creates an opportunity to engage.

At the extreme end, Bundy did this with a cast and by targeting times of high stress (exam time). He would place the car outside of dorms and essentially fumble putting things in a car. Women would come up and start trying to help him; at which point, he'd kidnap them,

> Further similarities between the victims were noted: the disappearances all took place at night, usually near ongoing construction work, and were within a week of midterm or final exams. All of the victims were wearing slacks or blue jeans when they disappeared, and at many crime scenes there were sightings of a man wearing a cast or a sling and driving a brown or tan Volkswagen Beetle.

This post isn't to say that these people are Bundy. That's not the point. If you had 50 glasses of wine in front of you, but 1 of them contained cyanide, would you drink the wine at random? Now, what if the wine glasses were being forced on you? And you still didn't know?

1 in 50 to 1 in 10 of these people won't have such nice intentions. 1 in 100 will be a psychopath. If you are at the receiving end, how do you know? How do you differentiate between the majority that's innocent and the years of hell and therapy on the other hand?

Would you want to navigate this every time you went to class to learn?

I'm sorry this behavior gives you nightmares.

I don't find this line of argument compelling though. For example, your Bundy argument appears to imply that it is immoral to have any sort of difficulty in a public place that might cause a woman to come offer help to you. This seems like a fairly absurd, possibly ableist moral guideline?

The reductio ad absurdum of this reasoning is: "Abusers breathe oxygen, if you breathe oxygen that makes you like an abuser, therefore it's predatory to breathe oxygen."

Basically by saying "X is a behavior that abusers do", decent people will want to avoid beahvior X in order to not be thought of as abusers. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: no decent person will do behavior X. This works regardless of whether behavior X is inherently problematic.

I'm really sorry that you had such shitty experiences, but I think your ideas about reworking society to give you less anxiety are misguided and counterproductive (even for the goal of reducing your anxiety).

If you're super risk-averse, you can implement some personal guidelines like "never be alone in a room with another person" or whatever. I don't think your own risk-aversion is a good justification for preventing other consenting adults from being alone in a room with each other though.

There's a widespread lack of male role models, absentee fathers, and anything and everything male bashing.

The ladies could be mentioning to the guys specific constructive feedback, because the guys probably don't know how they're failing or how they're making others feel.

The surprising and shocking secret of being a ladies' man, is underwhelming and doesn't get press: being human and treating others as human according to their needs (improved Golden Rule).

It's not the classes's student's moral responsibility to teach these men. But it turns out that you are somewhat right in the sense that the professor and the answerers think that something student-let eventually has the most promise, to show the women that they can protect themselves by student-organized activities to draw attention to the issue.

why does it fall on the person being made uncomfortable to correct the behavior of the being making them uncomfortable?

I still have clear recollection of the 50:1 men-to-women ratio in my CS2xx classes and higher. Your odds weren't good if you were hoping to meet Mrs. Right. I imagine things have gotten better since.

Still, seems like a fairly high effort low outcome place to meet someone who is likely not even receptive to advances in that context. Do colleges not offer many other opportunities for people to meet outside of class in 2023?

It's interesting that one of the highest-voted responses suggests bringing in the ten ton hammer of legal governmental involvement against a bunch of kids trying to score a date. Yikes.

When I was in college I think the thing to do was to take the ballroom dancing class if you wanted to meet Mr./Mrs. Right. I agree that taking an introductory science class is overthinking things…

Hah, in my time at a technical uni it felt like everyone had the idea to take Spanish classes. Because women love Spanish, right? And surely that's what they do with their free time, right?

Cue the start of the Spanish course with 18 guys and 2 girls in it. Not sure how it progressed but I dropped it again after that one semester. I have a feeling many of the other guys did the same.

> It's interesting that one of the highest-voted responses suggests bringing in the ten ton hammer of legal governmental involvement against a bunch of kids trying to score a date

College students aren’t “kids” and it’s extremely disturbing that our society continues to infantilize teenagers and grownups and push the boundary of adulthood later and later. In the Jewish tradition the coming of age ritual for young men happens at 13. Clearly we don’t need to coddle these little degenerates into their 20s.

> In the Jewish tradition the coming of age ritual for young men happens at 13.

What does this have to do with anything in the modern age? Girls being up for grabs after their first period was also a tradition of coming of age, it doesn't mean anything about a kid's maturity...

> there are no unwanted advances, but it's painfully obvious to some students of what's taking place

Auditing a class and showboating while making no unwanted advances seems pretty harmless.

Things have not gotten better.

I had several 3 and 4 hundred level CS classes with literally zero women in them. This was at a large, major public school with several hundred in our CS program.

My upper level CS classes in college had one woman back in early 2010s.

I entered grad school some years later. My graduate level CS courses that over lapped the data science classes were usually around fifty percent. The courses that didn't were more male but nothing close to undergraduate. It really wasn't something I noticed like in undergrad. So seems to be getting better

What I did notice was both the data science classes and CS classes often times had fifty percent or higher non American students. We seem to be educating a lot of foreign born students who are willing to come to America.

It felt gross when I had a friend, with an American master's degree in STEM, who ended up having to leave a job she liked to go back to her home country because she ran out of time on her visa and didn't win the lottery to stay.

Seems extremely stupid of us to be kicking out highly educated individuals basically randomly.

But if it's not a pipeline issue, what could it be!

i was going to say.. there weren't many women in my CS classes either and I'm not an outgoing person, but i still had no problem meeting women. just go to whatever events anyone puts on. whether it's a dorm party or a school dance. just go out. that's how you meet people.

Part of the problem appears to be the anti-male agendas or stealth contempt of males and heterosexual coupling. If this was in reverse or non heterosexual, it would likely be close to a "protected" privilege or right nor not even mentioned.

Almost any context to where males are perceived to be at an advantage or even having better options for hooking up, has become fashionable to demonize. Even mentioning the situation and the inherent unfairness of it can mean attempts at silencing and demonization.

It has reached the point of silliness, where instead of focusing on teaching (like you would think), time is endlessly spent on worrying about which adults might be dating who or ways to more effectively block heterosexual male students.

That this is even going on, is likely a reflection of such reduced normal opportunities for meeting (that should be available in college), that students would be resorting to more desperate measures.

> Almost any context to where males are perceived to be at an advantage or even having better options for hooking up, has become fashionable to demonize.

If so, it's a weird thing to demonize - 80% of women chase after the same 20% of males in the 18-39 demographic. That means 80% of males of poor dating options.

> Almost any context to where males are perceived to be at an advantage or even having better options for hooking up, has become fashionable to demonize. Even mentioning the situation and the inherent unfairness of it can mean attempts at silencing and demonization.

Do you have any other examples of this occurring?

> It has reached the point of silliness, where instead of focusing on teaching (like you would think), time is endlessly spent on worrying about which adults might be dating who or ways to more effectively block heterosexual male students.

The professors concerns seem to be that students think that the class is an uncomfortable environment, not that student are dating or that heterosexual students are trying to hook up.

I met Mrs. Right in one of those classes! But like time she eventually slipped away and I never saw her again...

Similarly, I met Mrs. Wright in high school CS. She was a fantastic teacher who helped cultivate a lifelong passion for the subject.

> It's interesting that one of the highest-voted responses suggests bringing in the ten ton hammer of legal governmental involvement against a bunch of kids trying to score a date. Yikes.

I think the bigger "yikes" to me is the implication that being young, male, and lusty as a motivation is a sufficient to dismiss any possibility of illicit behavior.

I don't see that implication being made and I have trouble believing anyone could read that into the above in good faith. The linked questions mentions that this has created an uncomfortable environment for female undergraduates -- but no allegations of illegal behavior.

Where's the illicit behavior? The only accusation being made is that the men are lusty and perhaps socially awkward. There have been no sexual harassment complaints. What it looks like to me is that being young, male and lusty somehow now carries an assumption of illicit behavior, even with a complete lack of any evidence thereof.

> This might be hard, as no unwanted advances are taking place. We simply have students excelling at the course, and drawing-in a crowd. I should've been more clear with my "leching" comment. Still, it seems harassing in nature.

It seems increasingly that society demands a world where dating only happens during designated and approved dating times and venues, and outside those strictly delimited places, men are to behave as eunuchs, and all prospects of romance are to be extinguished.

Then wonder why marriage and fertility rates are tanking.

Nobody cares if college students try to date other students from their classes.

It is weird when people take a class specifically because of that reason though.

It is even weirder when the class in question is something that they have a very high skill level in specifically so that they will be able leverage that into some kind of situation that leads to dating.

This is pretty cut and dry to me, I am not sure why so many people in this thread see no problem with this.

It's not surprising imo. If you don't go significantly out of your way to be in spaces where you might bump in to someone you'd date, it's unlikely to happen. "designated dating spaces" like apps and bars have largely been failures so people are returning to tradition of trying to bump in to people semi organically.

I'm a gay guy so the situation is a little different/more level but I put a lot of effort in searching out local events, clubs, hobbies and attending a whole bunch of things I don't actually care that much about, just in an effort to be more visible and meet new people. Because getting to know someone first without jumping directly in to being serious like you get in dating apps is way better. You wouldn't consider it weird to join say a hiking club to make friends as the primary goal over just the hiking.

> It is weird when people take a class specifically because of that reason though.

Really? I know people who specifically chose their entire major based on the ratio of women in that major.

Is it really weird? I get the gut reaction, and it certainly feels something like "pathetic", but when I think about it more: at the end of the day it's people trying hard to meet other people and find a connection.

Why is it not weird that tons of people use digital buffets to rate potential mates in their area before matching and meeting (often for one night stands)? Is that much different?

What about people looking for "the one" and going to unrelated social gatherings with strangers with that passive desire in the back of their head? That doesn't seem all that weird to me.

What makes this feel weird just seems to boil down to "they are trying too hard" or "they are trying in an unconventional way". The post said it: there are no unwanted advances, there is no harassment, there's just young men trying to find a wife, and pursuing that in a pretty direct and unconventional way.

> It is weird when people take a class specifically because of that reason though.

The ends seem to justify the means, sometimes. I know a married couple who met on a college campus. While students, the man (boy at the time, really) was a manager and chose his and her hours at the campus store so they would overlap. They tell this story proudly. The distinction between weird and romance seems to be whether it succeeds.

"Weird" is not the same as "immoral"

yes, but it would also be weird for the university to go out of its way to stop the pressing issue of people finding dates in classes wouldn't it?

You use the word weird a lot. But what's the actual problem?

If nothing else, it sounds like there’s an unproductive amount of auditing going on, especially if it is causing disruptive behavior.

No, you just to treat women with respect. The issue here is intention. The intention here is not about teaching or learning in the class. But its using that pretence in fact distrupting the intention of the class and people there. How do you like your intention distrupted? How about by unattractive slobs who are objectifying you and trying to be "helpful" and trying tricks they found on internet If someone is trying to come to terms with complex mathematics it just not appropriate to distract or give them the feeling of having to deal with a situation of someone coming onto them.

How do people not get this? It's about basic respect. Isn't it totally distracting to you if someone you're not attracted in is looking at you and commenting on you and trying to "help" you?

Maybe you'd like unattractive specimens distrupting your coding process by hanging around and offering to be "helpful"?

You've assumed a great deal more about their behavior than was written. The professor even states "no unwanted advances are taking place", contradicting your characterization. Indeed, your extra assumptions would qualify as 'disruption', and I imagine the professor would be well within her rights to expel such students.

But merely offering, not pushing, assistance, or even less "showboating", letting students in search of help come to them if they want to, isn't disruption or even untoward.

> No, you just to treat women with respect.

We've really come to a point where even the purest romantic intentions (the post talks of wife material, not one night stands) are "disrespectful", have we?

Taking a class, participating in labs and offering tutoring purely to find a partner is an extremely high effort attempt from a man. Men try less respectful and far more thinly veiled attempts on women all the time.

> Isn't it totally distracting to you if someone you're not attracted in is looking at you and commenting on you and trying to "help" you?

And what if they are attractive?

I don't think that taking a class to get to know single women of your own age is disrespectful.

Do we know they are objectifying? The post said this was about finding a future wife.

The "unattractive slobs" bit seems a bit excessive to me, but I absolutely agree with your main point: the issues are indeed respect and intention. As the professor describes it, it sounds like the perpetrators of this "prank" are turning this class into their own romantic playground without regard for their classmates' wishes. Their "help" comes under false pretenses. They seem to think their dating lives are more important than the education of their classmates. There's a fundamental disrespect and a bit of -- sorry to say it -- misogyny there.

An extreme example, I know, but I can't help but think of the movie Audition.

> Isn't it totally distracting to you if someone you're not attracted in is looking at you and commenting on you and trying to "help" you?

That would be the "unwanted advances" that the complainants claim did not happen.

You clearly don't treat men with respect; why should men respect you for being a woman?

I mean, "unattractive objectifying slobs", really?

Why do you assume all these people are unattractive?

That wasn't my reading. It seemed like the instructor was not thrilled that her course was being audited by showboaters, who were interested in meeting/impressing women as opposed to learning.

“College students taking social classes with no intention of learning” is not exactly headline material though.

Birth rates are tanking because of increased access to contraceptives and people having the wealth and freedom to enjoy their 20s and 30s unburdened by children

> people having the wealth and freedom to enjoy their 20s and 30s unburdened by children

and people *not* having the wealth and freedom to have children, being burdened by 80+ hour work weeks to pay rent on a place they'll never own or have capital in.

Listen to the millenials and gen z'ers before you make bold accusations.

More like people could not save up enough wealth and freedom in their 20s and 30s to afford children.

Half of men under 30 are single in my country. Yeah, sure. Lots of enjoyment for everyone.

Women are relatively lonelier than in the past too.

My wife and I are having a very hard time convincing ourselves to have kids for exactly this reason.

We're wealthy, free to pursue our hobbies, and advance in our careers. Nobody's body is getting wrecked, nobody's free time and sleep is getting upended, and it's generally a Very Good Time.

Both having kids and not having kids feels selfish for different reasons. It's hard to really feel like there's a right answer here.

Or more likely something within our food / water chain labeled safe and unharmful. Birth control pills part of the drinking water supply is a popular theory

I think one people miss is that lack of interaction can be a form of harassment.

>we routinely have cases where a young man is leading open labs as if they're a teacher themselves (in order to "wow" their female classmates, offer "private free tutoring sessions", etc). Some of the young students in my class take up these offers, and this further demoralizes other female students seeing this happen (i.e. only attractive women being offered tutoring sessions).

Imagine how it must feel to be sincerely interested, possibly struggling because they didn't have a great K-12 experience and thus didn't have things like pre-Calc or AP credits and then... being brushed aside so someone can "tutor" their crush 1:1?

Speaking as someone who's had the unpleasant experience of having someone treat me differently at work based on if I'm "datable", it's incredibly demoralizing, it makes you want to leave an entire field. On my end it made me leave a specific strain of research, but had it happened earlier on I'd have probably switched majors entirely.

I'm sorry for your situation but this is just ridiculous.

You cannot ever harass someone through non-interaction, which is by definition aggresive and unwanted interaction.

People complaining the women aren't being offered enough "private tutoring" in a post about how men offering women "private tutoring" being harassment.

Being mildly autistic you can see why I don't date either gender with ridiculous sentiments like these being blown around.

It sounds like everyone in the class can clearly see what's going on, which means there's probably not a lot of "tutoring" going on in these 1:1 sessions. So no need for the other girls to worry much about that. That said, even if they were I'm not seeing the problem. If two people start dating is one not allowed to help the other with homework now because it's "unfair" to single people? I helped my wife (then girlfriend) with her work in college. In fact I helped her in her 1 semester general optics course in the physics department when one of my majors was optical science, so almost the exact same situation (though we met in a math class). Should I have offered to help her classmates too? Does it make a difference that she's older than me? Or that the other students didn't know I was giving her 1:1 attention?

I get that rejection is demoralizing. Probably almost any man understands that. But we can't exactly expect people to prioritize fairness to everyone in their personal relationships, nor does it make sense to ban students from seeking those relationships.

> Imagine how it must feel to be sincerely interested, possibly struggling because they didn't have a great K-12 experience and thus didn't have things like pre-Calc or AP credits and then... being brushed aside so someone can "tutor" their crush 1:1?

Imagine how life must feel for these males, who, desperate for attention, spend large amount of effort going to classes which are useless to them, solely to get it (potentially). And then they're, IDK, reading threads on HN about themselves being _predatory_ and _manipulative_. Because they tried.

But of course, men don't matter. Can't wait 'till society decides to cull unattractive men or something - they're "dangerous" after all. I guess world war would be really handy, so that people unworthy of empathy can be dealt with.

I mean, seriously. You're blaming them for not trying to interact with people they're not attracted to?

Do you blame attractive women for not interacting with unattractive men? Ever thought about it?

> I think one people miss is that lack of interaction can be a form of harassment.

I don't think you actually think, that - be honest with yourself, have you ever spoke up on behalf on incels, claiming that they are actually a group of harassed males because females are ignoring them?

That will not lead to a drop in fertility.

Infact, that's exactly how high fertility societies operate. At least the Islamic ones, like Afghanistan for example, where the population doubled since 2001.

Fertility has been dropping since the 80s, long before anything to do with wokeism or meetoo or whatever.

In those societies, 'dating' may be highly regulated, but it is present and functional, however immoral to women's rights.

But in our free societies, where dating and romance are left to chance, we are one by one prohibiting it in the places where that chance might occur, and not replacing them with anything. Not at school, not at the workplace, not outside the workplace if you are in the same profession and there might be a perceived "imbalance of power"...

That doesn't eliminate everyone you meet and get to know, but it eliminates most.

I don't think the population is doubling in Afghanistan because of segregated school classes. There might be another confounding factor you're forgetting...

Fertility has been dropping since the 80s, long before anything to do with wokeism or meetoo or whatever.

So nobody was woke in the 80s? Feminism and homosexuality just sprang up out of nowhere in 2010?

> It seems increasingly that society demands a world where dating only happens during designated and approved dating times and venues

Isn't that the definition of "dating" though? If you're not at a previously designated "date" you're not really dating, you're just hanging out as friends. You can still try to show off good qualities that would hopefully raise the other person's interest. Sometimes people who hang out as friends even get involved quite closely romantically prior to having any formal "date" together.

it is, and that's the problem. in my opinion, dating is really the wrong way to meet a partner. it is a high-stakes activity where the first impression decides everything without any second chances.

Sometimes people who hang out as friends even get involved quite closely romantically

because that is really the better way to find a partner. someone you already know and are friends with.

I think the post you're responding to meant 'courtship' instead of 'dating'.

There is a strong correlation with a puritanical culture having much higher birth rates than a sexually permissive one, so I don't think that is the reason.

We have moved from a sexually permissive society 60/70/80s 90s.. but sex is now taboo under the thought of children seeing content and being abused by the experience and children being allowed in previously adult spaces.

Ever wonder why murdering, killing, blood, guns are allowed on prime time tv but naked breasts are not? It use to be the opposite.

It might be a bit harsh to say "society demands". Society created that dating service, and, apparently, society accepted it eagerly enough for that to be seen as a problem by some other part of that society, which then came about complaining on academia.stackexchange.com.

I'm not even trying to say that the former is a majority that represents the real desires of the "society", and the latter is a vocal minority: I don't have the data for that (even though I suspect that might be the case — but again, I don't know). I'm trying to say, that I'm wary of such wording, because it contains an implicit assertion that some part of the society isn't really a part of society and what it demands doesn't count. Because society demands this and that, and whoever wants anything else, isn't the society: at best, it's a sore spot on the body of the society, which should be treated as such, by applying a medicine to cure that... thing. Which is rather totalitarian worldview.

So, I get what you are trying to say, but even just by saying it like that you kinda help the cause you are supposedly against.

I'm not sure whether to classify this approach to dating as merely dishonest or actively predatory. In either case, I'd hope that I would have imparted enough sense and wisdom to my children that they could see through such transparent attempts at manipulation.

serious question, are deliberately ignoring the context of the question to post your victimizing dribble? it's male seniors borderline harassing freshman woman, not "someone asked someone else on a date in my class!"

Ohh hey Jordan Peterson, nice of you to weigh in!

> ...society demands a world where dating only happens during designated and approved dating times and venues...

It's not so much "society", as it being groups with extreme contempt, misandry, and hostility towards heterosexual males, that have pushed a very distorted narrative. That is acting like all heterosexual males are a constant danger and threat, in which all women in their presence must feel uncomfortable and under continual harassment. Leaders and advocates of such groups with negative views about men, act like they speak for all other women, and are continually attempting to push these biased and actually hateful agendas.

So we get placed more into situations where any actions initiated by heterosexual males, is perceived by such groups as aggressive or predatory. Asking someone out for a date, asking women questions, heterosexual flirting... easily becomes demonized. Despite how such is unfair, illogical, and opposed to biology. It should be no more of a "threat" or "violation" for a man to ask a woman out, as a woman to ask a man or another woman out (note the included cases).

Furthermore, many heterosexual males are afraid to even ask women out, for fear of rejection or embarrassment. Lots of guys can't do it or seek advice. Asking out the opposite gender is not something that needs to be so tightly regulated, unless its truly a case where the person has repeatedly said no (thus actual harassment), is stalking, blackmail, extortion, etc... And in that context, women are equally capable of harassment, stalking, blackmail, etc...

> men are to behave as eunuchs, and all prospects of romance are to be extinguished.

There is a trick being played here, to get to that misandric destination that certain parties wish for. This is to stealthily and by defacto limit and restrict male rights, and give women extraordinary and special rights.

So, push the situation where only women would have the right or privilege to initiate the possibility of a date, with men or other women. Where if a heterosexual man attempts to do so with women, he would face the possibility and fear of punishment.

Think about what this teacher, who is so preoccupied with the dating lives of her students, is trying to enforce in her classroom. Looks like if she got her way, she could actively restrict the numbers of male heterosexual students in her class, for any half baked suspicions. Wants to control the popularity of where heterosexual males want to go. Then seek punishment or expulsion for any male heterosexual students that might of asked one of her female students (like she's their owner) on a date.

eh, there's really no good signal for women to display that says "hey, i'm open to being hit on right now" or "please don't hit on me right now"

Well that's the issue. It's not their fault. The idea of dating today has been reduced to hitting on people and jumping right into high commitment situations instead of slowly building a lasting relationship built in solid fundamentals, the kinds of advances which are rarely rejected in practice compared to just hitting on someone as if they are a checkbox to be ticked.

No but there are social queues for this. Flirting is exactly that. Friendly small talk to see if the other person is receptive or not. If you're like me and are probably slightly autistic with very little social interaction growing up, then you'll be terrible at that. Perhaps this is the problem. A large number of socially awkward guys are joining these classes irritating all the young women.

Maybe that's what we should work on instead, along with making hitting on people acceptable for women too. That way, it's not just a male thing, and people can still indicate they want to be left alone.

THE DEFAULT IS "please don't hit on me right now"

Women signal interest or a lack thereof in a thousand ways. Picking up on that is a basic social skill and like all skills some persons are more capable than others.

There are appropriate times and places to pork yourself out, academia is not one of them. Go pork yourself after you've "punched out".

This has to be one of the worst pieces of dating advice ever written. Universities are one of the best places to meet people as a student.

1. I don't actually know what "pork yourself out" means.

2. Why is porking yourself out at work more appropriate than academia?

3. What if you stay in academia your entire life?

Bill Gates and Paul Allen were doing something similar decades ago. According to https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35442969 (but well known before that):

> Paul Allen, who would later become a co-founder of Microsoft, was a couple of years above Gates at school. Together they fixed the school scheduling software to ensure Gates was the only boy in classes of girls.

In 2004-2005 one of the most interesting features of Facebook was to see which students were in which classes (lectures), and even which smaller labs or sections of that class. So you could enroll and change your entire schedule if there were openings based on data made available within Facebook... it felt pretty creepy even back then.

Remember, YouTube started as a dating service!

Source? Genuinely curious

Sergey Brin too, with company massage rooms at early Google.

As others have pointed out, it's also how Facebook was started.

Sometimes I look back at my youth, and think about how I used to view technology: as a democratizing force which could tear down artificial barriers. Then I look around today and wonder what happened.

It makes sense, though, if you look closely at the founding fathers of big tech.

https://theinfosphere.org/Transcript:I_Dated_a_Robot Futurama did it

And it's still a thing at SpaceX, seemingly.

Elon Musk very famously didn't go to University of Waterloo and instead went to Queens, despite Waterloo being a higher ranked technical university.

Mainly due to lack of women.

IronWarrior is the Engineering Student Paper at UWaterloo.

https://iwarrior.uwaterloo.ca/2013/09/21/24233/elon-musk-and...

And Zuckerberg. All sorts of creepy disembodied men do this kind of thing!

Zuckerberg's case is arguably even worse (though I completely agree otherwise). If I recall he created a way for harvard guys to rate their female peers appearances and had some pretty disparaging comments on the site itself.

Ingenious and hilarious.

Trying to shut it down is probably going to create more interest, Streisand effect type thing. I would leave it to burn out on it's own. It sounds like a net positive on the whole.

Hard to tell if there is really a problem here. "a number of female students" reached out to her with concerns, but "a few fellow profs either find it comical, or are happy that open labs are so full of volunteer tutors" and the boys are leading labs and offering tutoring.

Of course there are hidden motives, but it sounds like for the most part everyone is getting something useful out of this.

I agree that shutting it down would likely backfire if the prof tries to shut it down too aggressively, but I don't know that I follow the conclusion that this is mostly a positive. There's some selective minimizing of the students that feel uncomfortable and maximizing of what some of the faculty think:

~Sure, some female students feel weird about guys in their class pretending to be in the instructor so that they can trick the hot students into "private tutoring", but some of the faculty think its funny. Sounds like a net positive~

There's a bit of boys will be boys energy in this reply.

> There's some selective minimizing of the students that feel uncomfortable and maximizing of what some of the faculty think

When did the goal of the university shift toward minimizing when students "feel uncomfortable?" When did the definition of "uncomfortable" expand to such a degree that men simply enrolling in and performing well in a class with mostly women is seen as "misconduct?"

> There's a bit of boys will be boys energy in this reply.

What do you mean by "boys will be boys energy?" That the vast majority of young men are attracted to young women and will attempt to create situations where they encounter young women?

What's stopping the young women from standing up for themselves? Why are they being treated like damsels in distress without agency.

I suspect the likely reason why the faculty think its funny is because the average number of volunteer tutors is likely close to zero, and having too many volunteer tutors is an unusual problem.

The more cynical faculty may think that there is generally only two reasons why students would spend their time volunteering as tutors. Either because they get paid, or because they want to impress other students.

If you eliminate the chance of someone feeling uncomfortable you also eliminate a lot of good interactions.

If there are only a few people uncomfortable with this and there is no harassment, that seems like it's probably fine overall.

I think they need to get into more detail regarding

>... uncomfortable with the amount of leching taking place.

What amount and what actions specifically, like are the guys ogling the girls non-stop. What are they talking about exactly.

Yea, the word "leching" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence, and the edit doesn't really add much information:

> (edit: there are no unwanted advances, but it's painfully obvious to some students of what's taking place)

OK, but what's taking place? That's pretty important. If they're catcalling, harassing, whistling and other kinds of inappropriate behavior, that seems to be a clear cut discipline problem that should be dealt with via the university's discipline and sexual harassment policies. But OP specifically says no unwanted advances, so what on earth is OP talking about? It's definitely not painfully obvious to me.

Yeah this professor seems to be taking this really personally, like some fictional crusty dean. Simpson!

Referring to it as a “prank” is what puts it over the top for me

If guys are harassing someone - that is the problem that needs to be tackled on its merit. Not this app. Banning it will alleviate this problem.

As much as I disagree with "diversity" pushes, I don't see the publication of this data (which the author mentions at least twice) as being really important here. It should be obvious to anyone who thinks about it which classes would fit the description. It seems like the app is somehow a catalyst for coordinated activity at this school (and maybe driven by the data) but realistically you could probably find a speculative "what classes to meet girls in" thread on reddit that would give the same info

Ah, but a speculative approach wouldn't be a misuse of data that was published to burnish the university's diversity image. Following the OP's logic here, it seems to be grounded in a complaint that the university is publishing granular diversity data as a way to burnish its image without considering potential adverse effects of publishing said data. So it's attempting to set up a scenario of two pillars of woke ideology coming into conflict - like homeless people camping in the wetlands, or trans people vs women's sports - which I think is why the writer also thinks it's something the right would pounce on.

I'm offering the above analysis whilst thinking all parties in this are creating a tempest in a teapot.

If a male engineering student chooses, say, a drama elective in hopes of meeting more women, that's fine as long as he takes the class seriously and treats fellow students with respect. He might even learn something. But someone with a strong math background shouldn't be allowed in a 100-level math for liberal arts students class, regardless of motive.

I took one such class, of latin, which unexpectedly was all women except me. The class itself was okay but the environment was terrible, I wouldn't recommend unless you really want to study the topic. Ended up quitting but read the textbooks anyway. Depending on how you look like, you get treated like a creep just for being in such place, no matter how respectful you are.

Language classes typically prohibit students from taking the class if it's one of their native languages or they're above some skill level. On the other hand, STEM classes are wide-ranging enough that even someone with a graduate degree in math and computer science might benefit from taking physics 101.

I've taken a 100-level math for liberal arts students class as a 4th year engineer.

It was useful and different, being counting class as a prereq for a 200 level comp sci algortihmns class

It was still really easy, but i don't think I could have done the 200 level without it

I specifically took a bunch of easy classes in my Senior year because 1. I already fulfilled my major-required core and elective classes, 2. I already had a post-uni job lined up (so I just had to keep my GPA high) and 3. Honestly I'd been burning myself out with 18 credits per semester, and thought I could use a break.

I wouldn't see the harm in adding "4. There are a lot of women in these classes" to my already lazy-burnout list of criteria. I kind of wish I had those demographic information available to me back when I went to school. Neat hack.

I took weightlifting as my PE elective in college, and it was full of young women. I made a comment about this to the instructor one day and he said it's always like that. The young ladies sign up for weightlifting because they think it's going to be full of buff men but instead it's 75% women and the 25% of the class that's men are out of shape and taking the class because they want to get fit. Already buff guys just go to the gym and don't bother with the class.

What a bunch of lecherous creeps!

I suspect that if you just announced this fact to the women in the class - either officially, if that doesn't get you in trouble, or under the table if it would - then the problem would basically solve itself. Certainly no males in the class would be getting dates.

I was a bit disappointed in how much the question and the answers concentrated on the course/university/app. Students have agency and are relatively intelligent. There's one side of "how to change this in the future" which matters of course. But for making the environment safer? The teacher can literally state what's happening for the first few lectures: "This semester the class composition looks different, because we've been joined by a large number of students using app XYZ to select this class for its high female:male ratio. They're likely familiar with the curriculum already and are hoping for easy grades and the chance to get close to others under the pretext of tutoring. Keep this in mind if approached. You know who you are and you're still free to change your course for this semester. Now for the actual lecture..."

Even this seems over the top. A simple "Wow, the ratio of men to women in this class is much higher than it usually is" can get the point across there, without alienating the men in the class who actually care about the subject material. Women aren't oblivious, and people can absolutely draw their own conclusions with that info.

Women aren't dumb. They almost certainly already know what the deal is, and I doubt they'd be phased by it if they were attracted to a guy.

“If a sexy man compliments me it’s fine. If an ugly man looks at me too long it’s harassment”

The entire third paragraph (sans the introduction) confirms this.

I lament to say it but I tend to agree.

"Sunlight is the best disinfectant" was my first reaction, and I felt awful & loss hearing your comment (because I simultaenously also agree!), but I'm also back to some transparency in the end, if less hopeful (that this would turn out/cleans us of what feel like thin actions). It's up to people to decide, hopefully from an informed place! Simply posting about this & hopefully awareness taking off & giving folks warnings what is afoot here is basically the one responsible step, that at least tries to inform potential datees about this pretty icky predation (but which alas to everyone, also makes sense).

This definitely feels not good to me, in a big sense. But I have a hard time convincing myself it really matters in a case-by-case sense. If someone's cute and has prospects, is doing something actually interesting on their own & has potential I respect, and has the time and slack to come meet & be interested in me while (hopefully) also enjoying & sharing a subject some, I'm not really sure that I'd be all that bothered. Even knowing there's a bit of sham, a bit of a waste, a game at the heart. They're going out of their way to find a connection. Like, ok, this person gave up a sensible path to go do something stupid to come meet me... ok, weird, but ok.

I still think there should be a disclaimer at the start, make it known. Not that adolescents really have the fully developed limbic system to handle/make use of the info fully, but at least to open the idea first, give em a better chance. Heck, let's deploy some ML: "HAL 10k reports 20% of the boys in this class have no business here whatsoever; it has no contribution/would be easier than their regular classes, & their intents are suspect!" Match data with data! If the diversity data gives insight one place, equity insists we give counter-data on the un-diverse, and in that seems like a solid chance to start to make pretty strong inferences about what is up.

Or just more simply, pointing out the stats in general: that these classes have rather surprising new attendees en-mass, and showing what ranking of predation the class has on the predatory website being described here, for what search critereon. Rather than be specific, just leave it at the general non-judgemental but also generally most would conclude yuck. Let the information go two ways.

But to return to my parents point. Yeah. I think we should prepare & equip, make known & make bidirectional some of the what-is-what here. But I also don't think, even knowing & seeing, it'd be that much of a hinderance or burden in many cases. I started with a so what, and that still kind of is my final conclusion. But I still feel the need for sunlight, the need to make it a reasonably fair so-what, versus a Dark Forest scenario.

> Certainly no males in the class would be getting dates.

You don't know very much about young woman, nor young people in general.

The females going on dates already know what the deal is. Telling them about it isn't going to change their mind.

Girls must be protected from being asked out at all costs because they are strong and independent future girl-bosses.

Let's change the subjects from "horny upperclassmen" to "MLM representatives that want to get new suckers". Would you be fine with going to a class where a significant percentage of people are trying to get you to sell Amway products? And they don't give a damn about the class?

The real issue was pointed out by the professor herself, that only attractive women were being offered tutoring and getting attention. The ones complaining were jaded by the competition.

I don't see how there is any issue with this if the men were respectful and didn't actually make unwanted advances. Why does the professor (a woman) feel like women are stupid, or need to be coddled? I can't think of anything more disrespectful to empowering women than assuming they don't possess the agency to make calculated decisions on their own.

stunning and brave, queen.

Why would you think that?

Young women aren't oblivious to their own charms. They know what they're doing. They're getting free 1-on-1 tuition from a nerd, and the nerd gets to be within 3 feet of an attractive young woman - maybe even more than that, let's not be naive about college campuses - which might otherwise be impossible. Everybody wins.

You might even upset the women most of all! When the quiet part is said aloud, you take away their plausible deniability. You're calling them out even more so than you are the men.

Because I have an attractive daughter studying engineering, and she tells me that her single biggest problem is that she constantly has to reject, avoid, or otherwise fend off male advances nearly every day. It's exhausting, it makes her never feel at ease in her classes, and she is constantly being distracted when what she really wants is quiet time to figure out integration by parts or whatever.

As a male, this is not a problem I ever had, but I believe her. She isn't making it up.

I find the behavior predatory but not to a point that I can complain about without any more detail. If I swap out senior students with complete strangers, then it kind of sounds worse, but that may be an unfair comparison.

One thing that I will complain about is the preferential treatment that these seniors are showing. In my opinion, you are in a course to learn and teach (or because you're forced to), and these seniors definitely fall in the latter, yet, as teachers, they only help select juniors. This somewhat reveals their intentions and also makes the other juniors uncomfortable.

I don't see what point the app and diversity data play aside from optimizing for the courses you join and being backstory as to why seniors are joining. You're free to stick your head into courses and figure out if there are potential partners there.

Unsettled how many HN readers think this is OK. Please think deeply about this situation, using your systems thinking, to see why this is a really bad trend.

It is kind of worse than a single guy joining a yoga class for the same reasons. This is a conspiracy to get lots of men to interfere with the education and success of women to get a date or sex.

"guys being guys", "people find their partners in college so it's ok!", "men are the real victims so they're justified / understandable", "nothing is wrong so long as it's not sexual assault". grossest comment section i've seen on this site in forever

Citing article:

> there are no unwanted advances

Could you explain, what exactly is wrong with it?

These kinds of threads are always an interesting reminder of the kind of people that post here. They have comments on other things too... Can't take any comment seriously

This story, even if it's a fake, is a great litmus test for how many engineers are creeps and continue to justify creepy behavior for the most absurd of reasons.

I never did such things as these men. Results are pretty predictable, I think.

Are you suggesting that men in general should just give up?

> It is kind of worse than a single guy joining a yoga class...

Let's start with that point and take the reverse. Are we suppose to automatically discriminate against or condemn a woman who joins say a kick-boxing class full of men?

Her reasons, which others may agree with or not, are not as relevant as her right to do so. In the same way those male students have the right to join that class, regardless of internal reasons. To include we should be mindful that people have many reasons for doing things, so singling out just one, doesn't mean a complete picture of their motivations.

The next problem with the argument that you are presenting, is because a person of the opposite sex joins a class, does not mean they will automatically gain total sexual access to everyone there. This is why you can't drop a simplistic argument, and act as if it represents real world scenarios.

Every adult person inside the class has the right of refusal. If a person makes dating or sexual advances towards them, they can refuse the offer. If there is any kind of harassment or violation of class rules, they can complain about it to the appropriate instructors or higher. That they actually did something, should be the issue, not the belief of what they might do or the automatic presumption of guilt.

What the issue is, as presented by the teacher, is she personally didn't feel comfortable with the opportunity certain male students had. We are arguably dealing with a level of prudishness or disdain versus actual probable cause that violations of anything had occurred.

It would be similar to an old kick-boxing coach not liking females training in the same gym he's in, because he believes their mere presence is an unacceptable distraction and they are possibly sexually promiscuous, so wants to kick them out. That is him grabbling with his own internal issues and trying to impose his biases and preferences on others. In the same way this female teacher is trying to impose her biases and beliefs on various male students in her class.

At the end of the day, the opposite sex exists and people might have sex, so deal with it. The school makes rules of behavior for which people in the class are suppose to follow. That's what the teacher should enforce. What adults do on their free time and outside of the class, is not the business or concern of any prudish teachers. The teacher needs to focus on her class, not what people might be thinking, any possible dating, or the consensual sexual lives of her students outside of her class.

Guys being guys trying all the ways to meet girls that are not present in their "engineering majors". Nothing new here. TBF, somewhat applaud the creativity.

At the same time totally understand the unpleasant atmosphere this behavior creates.

For many people, college itself is a dating service.

I never dated when I was in school, if I could advise my past self I'd say try to get as many dates as you can because after school it dries up pretty fast... I'm 36 now and still single -_-.

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the next best time is today.

I think often we way over-weight environmental factors in this area. As individuals we have crazy amounts of agency to change things for ourselves. FWIW I barely dated in school, partly because I didn't care much for social interaction but also (maybe mostly) because I was quite clueless about romantic attraction. Since graduating and especially getting into my 30s, things have become so much easier.

Especially as a male, you can really change your situation by consistently choosing to invest in becoming a compelling partner.

Yeah but the girls in the 100 level course are required to be in that course to graduate almost for sure.

What else is it?

It's what you want it to be. Dating area, social network building place, source for information and tutors, source of certification, funnel to corpo jobs, etc...

Acculturation to bourgeois and haut bourgeois norms depending on the college, for elite colleges a way for the rich and those highly likely to be professionally successful to associate to the benefit of both, a way to launder IQ tests (the SAT and ACT), a four year holiday and networking opportunity, an entree into better jobs, a way to get the public to subsidise research they don’t understand. College has many purposes, just like school. They share the sorting and ranking function but for college there childcare one is much attenuated.

Adult daycare? An expensive way to delay the onset of adulthood a few more years? An elaborate proxy for an otherwise-prohibited IQ test?

Mostly it's a piece of paper. For many professions, no matter how pointless the journey, that's a very necessary piece of paper.

I find it a little disturbing that the top rated answer that people reached for is to bring in Title IX claiming this is discrimination.

Title IX covers a lot more than discrimination!

That said, the professor is a mandatory reporter under federal law. Either she is aware of violations and has reported them, or she doesn’t believe that what is happening crosses that line.

Especially when she writes that students have complained to her. If it even begins to sound like a Title IX violation, you interrupt to tell them that you are legally required to make a report of anything they tell you and offer to let them continue talking or that you will personally escort them to the university office where they can talk to someone that is not legally required to make a report. You absolutely do not solicit the internet for advice.

So this is dumb, creepy, and uncool. But it’s not a Title IX issue.

Only because the first options of reaching out to department members and administration went completely ignored. I certainly wouldn't file a formal complaint as my first action in this case (as described), but at a minimum the people who work there have experience dealing with situations like this, and could offer advice to the professor, or perhaps have a discussion with the administration about how to prevent this situation from escalating into a Title IX issue.

While I normally would argue about virtue signaling, this seems like creepy and unsettling behavior that definitely warrants an investigation. That doesn’t mean there was any rule breaking, but this is one of those creepy things that I strongly oppose looking the other way at. If you’re afraid of an investigation, then it is probably something worthwhile looking into.

Don't let senior level students audit junior level classes? Why are they even there besides the reasons outlined in the problem? This is a problem with the University because they don't want to acknowledge a problem. Do they really think that's going to last? If it was my daughter who left the class because she was harassed I'd be very angry.

Why do people see this as even remotely unethical? It seems to me that it's great that plenty of younger people are getting essentially free tutoring sessions and fun friendships/relationships out of it.

Unless there's sexual assault/battery being alleged here, this is both ethical and good for all the students involved!

There is an assumption in a class that you are there to learn the curriculum in some way.

The seniors in this case are interested only in the other students. The class/coursework is only a prop for them to force interactions with other students.

I don't think it's violence, but it's certainly unethical, and makes the class a "joke" for senior students to interfere with others learning.

Imagine taking your first CS course and you get paired with someone who does the entire project before you can grapple with the question, An important part of the class has been taken from you.

They can offer to "teach you how" but they have little motivation (or even skil) to actually do a good job.

Maybe it would help to imagine it's an all men's school and it's young men who feel uncomfortable being hit on while they need to learn. I'm not saying it's any different, I'm just saying shifting it this way be help you think about how it's a power imbalance.

>Why do people see this as even remotely unethical? It seems to me that it's great that plenty of younger people are getting essentially free tutoring sessions and fun friendships/relationships out of it.

>Unless there's sexual assault/battery being alleged here, this is both ethical and good for all the students involved!

A high school senior in Calc 2 would a helpful in an Algebra 1 class as a tutor or teaching assistant. A high school senior in Calc 2 taking that same class on the pretense they forgot how to take the slope a linear equation is, uh, just weird vibes you know? It's that pretense that does it.

Double so if there's an age dynamic of Seniors/Freshmen.

Anything not “equally accessible to all” is antithetic evil.

It is more just for everyone to be worse off than advantage to accrue to the already advantaged.

At the very least it seems demeaning to the women taking the class, if not predatory

That requires support of the university which the instructor doesn't have, and there are legitimate reasons for senior students to audit junior level courses in a different field from their major. Universities want to encourage intellectual curiosity and cross-field pollination. However, by the time students are senior they likely have filled their non-major electives, so unless they are taking enough classes to get a minor, the class won't count towards their degree and taking it for a grade is all risk and no benefit GPA and graduation wise. That is one of the main reasons that auditing courses is allowed.

If the professor did have support, and this phenomenon was really was causing a surge in enrollment, they could make a compromise like having sections that only allowed junior-level same-major students, to consolidate all the pranksters together.

This is an economics problem and this teacher should work with their Econ department to change the rules for course auditing and increase reputational costs to disincentive this behavior. A few options: 1) Make auditing those classes more expensive by limiting the total number of courses a student can audit, or capping the number of students that can audit those courses. 2) Make auditing a remote-only class option. 3) Give lectures on how to spot this behavior which will make the perpetrators obvious and undesirable. 4)Have a no-dating policy between students within the same class under penalty of failure. 5) Couple course participation with a mandatory internship at a STEM company (something a serious student would want but a time-suck for a fake student).

The economics department might enjoy testing these policy changes and could get some papers out of them.

(I wish I could have posted on the original site but I need some sort of karma to do that)

It is difficult to suggest solutions without knowing exactly what the course is, but designing a class project to develop a solution for an analogous problem might be a solution.

Assign the students a project to filter out students with ulterior motives from a theoretical class. The engineers will then be forced to produce a solution for the problem of their own creation while subtly alerting other students that not everyone enrolled in the course is there for the same reason.

This is a fantastic suggestion. Probably not going to be applied by this professor but I love the symmetry of 'playing games' back and forth. Sounds fun honestly, as either side.

It was kinda obvious knowledge back when I was the uni on which courses have higher ratio, that just centralized this knowledge. The professor sounds like total buzzkill, "how dare they use our forced diversity program against us!"

Yeah this was completely known among all where many members of the opposite sex congregate be it courses, clubs, or other places.

Whether or not this account is mostly true or not, IMO, the most important thing lost in this is that some young adults are reportedly so desperate for a date that they'll go to class more often. Think about how stunningly crazy that is. That's a clear indicator that something is really broken about society.

What is it society that is so backwards right now?

IMO, it's the bullshit of the last 3 years. If you're in college today, either the tail end of your high-school years, or all of your college experience has been ruined by the inhumanly stupid reaction to Covid. This has been one of the worst times in human history for meeting new people with all of the nonsensical Covid rules. How many college campuses have been fully masked up and made normal social engagements a nightmare?

There's a lot more that can be said, particularly how dating apps screw over average people, but I'd say that looking at why these young adults seem to be engaging in weird behavior is the most important takeaway.

True. Going to class to meet girls is a pretty crazy thought.

“Hey man, that professor sucks and we can learn the material outside of class more effectively.”

“I gotta go though man, it’s my only way to meet girls… in a lecture where you can’t really talk to each other and maybe can get a few words in at the beginning and end.”

Truly we live in a dystopian time. Third spaces - even for college students are wildly absent.

I'd guess the people doing this gaming probably think it's clever, fun, and fair play (designed by-and-for hormonal college students).

Maybe all the school needs, to handle the problem without scandal or lawsuits, is for the students doing it to be called before a dean, who says it's disrupting class, and to save the dating efforts for extracurricular environments, not taint the academics.

If they don't seem to get it, spell out what a scandal they almost caused, but hopefully can be averted, and that the risk to themselves starts with getting suspended/expelled, and can get worse for them in the court of public opinion/mobbing.

That people should keep dating efforts out of workplace dynamics is also a good lesson for those kids to learn in the gentler environment of college/university, than to learn a harder way in a company.

Looking for dates is tainting and scandalous, worthy of expulsion?

>save the dating efforts for extracurricular environments

Then we get:

>Oh no I only joined to rec league soccer team to play soccer not so that lecherous guys can hit on me.

I'm OK with the idea that there are certain situations where it isn't OK of approach women, but online at least there always seems to be a reason why any given situation is the wrong one.

People these days just hate the other gender and are incredibly socially awkward. Look online - there’s nothing out there from people saying they love the other gender. Nothing. It’s all hate. It’s because they’re all so fucking awkward and don’t know how to interact anymore.

People who only think the only appropriate avenue to ask someone out is through a dating app are very likely socially awkward and are not representative of the norm.

Maybe you can call it facemash.com or thefacebook.com. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Facebook

This sounds like the college age mischief you read about in the biographies of founders who go on to build multi-billion dollar companies.

Ladies, let the sweet engineering student help you with your astronomy homework and buy you a chai latte.

The world needs more smart babies.

The only thing this person needs help with is how to laugh at the cleverness here.

Doesn't this actually push really hard towards a perfect 50/50 split of men and women in the classes anyway? Isn't that exactly what the professor wants?

Think of it closer to a company where the interns are girls, the team leaders are boys (who took the job to chat up the interns) and are now in a position of power and can legitimately ask for time with the girls (in 1-1s). They don’t do anything illegal or even hit on them overtly but it is creepy as hell.

Are they actually in positions of power? They are not marking papers, and nobody is required by their course to attend said 1-1s

Is that what's happening? It sounds like senior level students are auditing the classes, not working as TAs or something.

This seems like an extremely low yield way to get female attention. A male engineering student would have to take an entire class, study new material, and come up with schemes for seeming like a "chad" for the unlikely chance that the opposite gender will be impressed with him. They could spend that time building cool things. Are people really this desperate?

A 100 level math class for an engineering or other math heavy major should be easy though. A liberal arts algebra class that barely does math and spends more time talking about X and Y's feelings should be a total cakewalk if you've passed Calculus II and are taking classes on imaginary numbers and group theory. So all they'd have to do is join a study group, schedule group study time, and not even have to be all that brilliant at the math part.

If you're in college, and not interested in traditional partying (frats, loud music, beer, getting wasted; am terrible at beer pong), this is an alternative route to getting noticed doing something you're good at.

People pursue what they are interested in.

Per the above, for these students it's the math for the most part

It mentions being able to "audit" a class, that is, sign up and take arbitrary amounts without credit.

It is that bad. If I was in college again - I might consider the same approach. Modern dating is exceptionally difficult - especially so for men.

People really hate the other gender and there are very few ways to interact with the opposite sex without getting called a creep/harasser. Just look at this thread. It’s insane. “Online dating is the only acceptable form of social interaction with the opposite sex!”

> A male engineering student would have to take an entire class, study new material, and come up with schemes for seeming like a "chad" for the unlikely chance that the opposite gender will be impressed with him

not if you audit the class, which is what the post explains

(Assuming that the story is true, and not trolling.)

I'd guess that the school administrators don't want a public scandal for the school, lawsuits for the school (if the people behind it get exposed and harassed), nor individual risk for themselves.

But won't all of that happen if one of the targeted students goes to complain to a news organization (even the student newspaper), or files a lawsuit for harassment, and it turns out those administrators declined to act after they were alerted to the problem?

I've heard of schools gambling like this before, and sometimes it's seemed to probably come down to individual risk to administrators (e.g., definitely taking a career hit vs. possibly taking a worse career hit), not thinking of the school, students, or study. As much as we might've been brought up hearing stories of the brilliant, principled, altruistic, fearless professor... sometimes it seems organizational behavior is better explained by assuming the more common human corporate careerists are also involved.

Maybe address the imbalance of men and women in some branches of studies.

How are people supposed to meet relevant mates? I mean, they could use an app or social events, but you could raise the same complaints there too.

Hmm. So, try to get more men to enroll in mainly female courses? Might work, but I doubt it. And no university anywhere frets about disciplines where males are underrepresented. Males in general are underrepresented overall at university. Oh well.

Note that OP stipulated that there were "no unwanted advances". Is this even a real problem?

> How are people supposed to meet relevant mates?

I suspect the complainants real problem is that she doesn’t want these men to meet mates ever.

This is a wild conclusion to reach and it ignores the details of the situation completely.

This smells like a fake story created for trolling purposes.

Dumb professors and administrators exist and the world is big. Incredibly stupid things happen every day.

It seems lot of people are searching for things to fight against. But, clearly then drop them when they don't get traction and the fight might actually hurt them...

Trolling, or they have an actual app they're trying to advertise.

there is a non zero chance this post is a LARP or if it's real then greatly exaggerated. Parts of it don't sound right to me. I doubt anyone would keep this gag up throughout the whole semester if it wasn't going anywhere the first few days.

But the teacher also said there are no unwanted advances happening but referred to it as leching. Then later she described the problem as:

We simply have students excelling at the course, and drawing-in a crowd.

The same poster also made some other strange comments.

My university had versions of courses that engineering majors were not allowed to take. Chem 160 for most students, chem 167 for engineers, chem 177 for chemistry majors.

Mine had separate engineering versions of courses to make sure that all the courses work out.

The non engineering ones were equivalent and acceptable so you could switch tracks, but if an engineer didn't get into a chem class, they'd be screwed for their whole degree. The proper engineering classes have specific times both during the day, and during the year.

Engineering students allowed in the non-engineering courses, non engineers not allowed in the engineering ones

I'm mostly amazed that they are allowed to audit whatever class they want. I tried to audit a class in college once and the teacher refused. Now maybe that was not within their rights and I just took their word for it, but wow.

The author hints at this problem being more acute within a particular demographic: a “database of courses that are statistically likely to have a large proportion of young women from certain cultural backgrounds”.

Some societies put a lot more pressure on young people (usually men) to find a trophy partner. For example groups that consider themselves aristocratic and other forms of more explicit arranged marriages.

One of the reasons people go to college is to find a partner. It’s a good place for meeting new people, and getting a good idea of their personality/intelligence.

Maybe the college could prioritize students that actually need the class, limit the class size, and not let so many random seniors in.

I also think it would be good for us nerds to take a few art classes now and then :)

It is absolutely insane that the professor cannot eject an auditing student from their class. The relevant university is apparently a joke at the expense of fresher student safety.

Could you clarify how student safety is being threatened by what's described in the post?

Several components stand out to me as a safety risk:

1. There are senior students leading labs who may not have completed relevant OHS training that a listed employee would run. This is a no fly zone in any training scenario and is the most important point IMO.

2. The (fresher) students have commented on the remarkably high number of seniors in the class. This has a slightly less direct safety issue: a perceived power imbalance. If you have ever led a class you may notice that too many "big" personalities can cause less confident students to withdraw, and, crucially, ask less questions. This can lead to accidents (the seniors 'trying to lead' doesn't fix this in my experience).

3. The nature of the interactions itself is a distraction. If I am getting hit on, I am probably not thinking about the content of what is being said - I am thinking of the quickest way to excuse myself from that situation. Once again, this can increase risk.

While I'm here, I also have issues with this from a non-safety perspective.

4. While lecherous behaviour does not constitute harassment, it 'sets the bar' for student interactions and makes particularly socially ill-equipped students feel more confident in pursuing people. This just ends up making the environment less pleasant for the people being approached, as well as the onlookers.

5. Further, this is actually worse than flirting at, say, work ,or a social gathering, because college is expensive. Distracting students from a highly expensive experience designed to provide skills and challenge thinking is arguably wasting someone ELSE'S money. Which is just not cool.

Safety, literally? Maybe. But if the women are feeling demoralized and it’s preventing their access to those courses, then I’m confident the Title IX office will be able to look into it. Google U, JDs are focusing too narrowly on harassment. It could be analyzed as the policy of allowing this is having a disparate impact on women’s access to certain courses. It’s not unreasonable to ask people why they’re doing in your class.

She admitted they're not up to anything that's against the rules.

Why should she be able to eject them? Because "only attractive women [are] being offered tutoring sessions"?

From what I hear, this is the case in most universities (or at least in state schools). I really hope this doesn't spoil the view of students auditing on campus.

Sounds like a clear misuse of being able to audit a class.

If they're actually doing the work, and are meeting people to work with, it doesn't matter (edit: see edit at bottom). In any given class, attractive people get more help from peers.

Edit: I just realized these are math and science classes for non majors. I thought it would be something like economics or geology or something, where having a STEM background would help but not directly.

In this case, this is inappropriate and I don't think these students should be taking this class at all.

This feels like a fictional account, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

This reminds me of a pretty crude and unworkable site I launched in college called TheRatio. This was in 2000, before smartphones. The idea was to have people at bars in Manhattan and Brooklyn text a rough male to female ratio they were seeing, which would be aggregated so you could check the website (from your, ahem, computer) for which bars to go to before you went out for the night. I thought it was sort of clever at the time. (It was also just one of my first experiments in learning PHP and SQL). It just seems kind of crass and sophomoric, looking back, and in light of the info-commodification of sexual attraction like HotOrNot and Tinder that were on the horizon. I guess in my defense, I'd say I literally was a Sophomore, and that's what most 21 year old guys are thinking about. And that was for bars. Leveraging university course equality data and making it about classes would have struck me even then as douchey if not nefarious.

A lot of you are okay with this?

She clarified "there are no unwanted advances".

Just because someone is uncomfortable does not mean there's something untoward going on. E.g. if I'm uncomfortable with two men kissing each other in public, it doesn't follow that those two men are creepy.

If you grow up with conservative parents, you may be socialized to believe that men kissing each other is creepy, when it is actually normal and healthy. Similarly, if you grow up on tumblr, you may be socialized to believe that men taking steps to meet women is creepy, when it is actually normal and healthy.

>Lots of creeps here in the comments too. Some might call a 22 year old pretending to be helpful to younger 17 year olds for their ulterior motives, "grooming".

You're pulling in a separate issue of someone being under the age of consent. Let's focus on one thing at a time.

Not the same thing because of the power imbalance (older students, that teach labs) and obvious intent there is the threat of unwanted advances. I’d bet on even odds of actual abuse having occurred and it ends up being reported as less because who wants to go to court and face the next Epstein?

Agreed about the strawmanning. (Ahem, “strawpersoning”?)

Seems to be a common rhetorical tactic to substitute untoward “downstream” effect with a system itself.

(“Because System X can be exploited for unwanted behavior Y, we need to condemn System X as much as we do behavior Y.”)

>Lots of creeps here in the comments too. Some might call a 22 year old pretending to be helpful to younger 17 year olds for their ulterior motives, "grooming".

The age of consent is 16 in 16-33 states in the US (depending on how you count), and 17 in another 5. Wild to be labeling what is legal behavior in much of the country as "grooming."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_the_United_...

“Disgusted and uncomfortable” with a specific person's behavior or by the idea itself?

The problem is now he(she) won't be able to "stop" this at all. The cat is out of the bag, humans accepted a new niche and moved into it. Would banning app or stats make app authors "forget" their already existing data? Of course not. Also this already public data will be a basis of this app for many years in the future, even if zero new data is available. Because courses and gender rates doesn't change a lot or quickly. Lawsuits against uni are completely pointless, maybe only as a punishment (debatable due to a disparity in power of single prof and whole uni).

The only real solution is now to adapt the course itself, change auditioning rules, change program, have more individual approach to intercept predatory help etc. Basically a ton of more work from the teacher. Unfortunately.

Nobody promised you a rose garden. Life is not fair. Boys will be boys. These phrases became cliches because they are true.

The problem will not go on forever, because the men will become bored with it. Unless, of course, their plan is working. In which case, your issue is that you can’t stand the realness of reality.

The cynic in me thinks that the one of the reason for the post is that the instructor has lost control of the class and that showboating is not the only reason. I'm guessing some of the seniors auditing are better at understanding and explaining the course material than the instructor.

Sounds more like she's whining about creative reuse of open data.

Most US universities are 60% undergraduate women.

She should be glad some men actually want to socialize because US society is pushing most men into feeling "bad" about themselves and saying they're "stupid".

Philip Zimbardo wrote several books on the subject "Boy, Interrupted", "Man, Interrupted", "Man: Disconnected" and has a TED talk on the subject.

If she didn't want her university/class to be a dating service, she should go teach at nursing homes or become a nun. According to Thomas J. Stanley, a microeconomics wealth researcher, most millionaires met their spouses in college. Where do you think Google's founders met their wives, the DMV? No, Stanford parties.

This just sounds awful for all the first years...

Re-read every comment but imagine a Ferengi posted it.

I suppose a lil demographically predatory behavior and imbalanced power dynamics are just water under the bridge for some of y'all.

"engineering students looking for fee-males"

A lot of questionable defenses in these comments hinging on this phrase from the piece: "no unwanted advances". Keep in mind this is through the professor's viewpoint. I would love some direct testimony from the women students to see if they truly have received ZERO unwanted advances. I find that highly unlikely given that the piece also states that several of them have been demoralized by all of this.

> I find that highly unlikely given that the piece also states that several of them have been demoralized by all of this.

The piece specifically states that some women have been demoralized by the fact that they aren't receiving advances. Obviously, that is the opposite of making an unwanted advance.

Ok which one of you did this?

I suspect that if the situation in this class became well-known on campus, enrollment of both men and women would increase.

Maybe my perception is based on outdated knowledge. My own experience as an undergraduate was two generations ago. What I remember was that choosing classes to increase your chance of meeting good dating material was common with both sexes.

The apologists in these comments for what's effectively using educational data as a means to reducing the women in their program as "potential mates" - and making them "disgusted and uncomfortable" in the process! - are really concerning.

People can tsk tsk this, but it's damn hard to find a mate if you are not in the top 20% of (straight) men, and basically requires you to be aggressive like this. You may be praised for being a "nice guy" by being passive, but it will not get you dates.

I've seen some downright hideous guys get laid and get a girlfriend. They didn't use first year classes as a shittier Tinder, nor were they especially aggressive. The problem seems to be elsewhere...

For anyone experiencing this drawback, consider not calling your prospective cuddlybear a "mate" or leering at them when auditing their classes.

I recommend not calling it "finding a mate" and maybe it wouldn't seem that way.

As a woman, I can speak on experience that women will run away from any space men try to invade to seek us, whether it's dating apps, classes, bars, etc. The last thing I want is for a horde of thirsty men to chase me.

Getting access to real, living, hot college girls in your area is a 100,000,000X user multiplier for whatever you are working on. It's literally how "The Facebook" got so much traction at other universities in its very early years.

It sounds like the instructor has no control of the classroom. Even in the face of random attendees, the instructor should have the skills to manage and direct discussion so it benefits the intended participants, no?

This is how Facebook started.

Isn't this just marketing for the app? I could be wrong, but this is more than likely someone doing some 'growth hacking'.

I'm sure people will now go looking for the app.

Based on my engineering school, it's literally a joke on bad stereotypes assumed of engineers, and they actually are just there to help teach

Curious how the professor met her husband...?

If you can, have the classes be sex segregated, reducing the incentive for guys to enroll into those classes

this is so contrived and written in dramatising and fuzzy language ("perverted the data") that to me it's pretty obvious that this is a made up story by someone who takes offence in diversity measures.

I'm quite worried that the sexual motivations of young people being subverted by insincere programs is only going to increase as we become more connected.

On Twitter there are a number of male personalities with incredibly toxic tendencies. Andrew Tate and Sneako are topics that draw in an inordinate amount of unnatural attention. Bots or equivalents stalk those keyword names. Mention those male role models, even without a @ mention, and your tweet will be swarmed with responses.

I stumbled upon a subreddit called transmaxxing through some Astroturfing on Twitter. It weird, they still talk about women as objects but they also couch the actions under capitalist terms like value, extract, access. It's all very concerning and I hope no one falls for the propaganda they are spreading.

Sex sells... but I just don't know what these people are actually buying.

College is a great place to meet women. This professor needs to lighten up. After all, where does he think all of his students come from? To create future students, services like this are necessary.

saw this on stack earlier, this behavior is predatory and I'm disappointed that so many fellow readers think this is respectable behavior

Flagging this thread is an example of trying to silence any opposing views or logically examining the actions of the teacher in question.

We need more seggregated colleges.

To all the people decrying unfairness about some students being left out:

Now you know what it feels like to be a man.

Ah, the destruction of centuries of academic freedom and open learning in the name of social justice.

If i had to take a wild guess, the professor met her partner in university. I met my girlfriend in university, as well as my parents.

> a number of female students have approached me, noting they are disgusted and uncomfortable with the amount of leching taking place

It’s heartening to see that since #metoo, boundaries are being re-established as to where it’s appropriate for men to express interest and when it isn’t. Society used to have clear rules for courtship, and where and when it was okay for men to make romantic overtures and where and when it wasn’t. Men threw out those rules in the 1970s-1990s, but it seems that women have been pretty emphatic recently that new guidelines are in order. They want spaces where they’re not being propositioned by men: class, the office, the gym, etc; where they can focus on other aspects of their lives in peace.

Well, on one hand you have created "damsel in distress" classes for women who should not necessarily be in that field, so that part of the problem. On the other hand, dating is also very necessary and is more important for men and women in the big picture than an average college class. It's "How I met my future wife" app, not "How I met my latest one night stand". Places with concentration of young people should give them more transparent and dignified places to meet, get to know each other and prove their worth as a mate. In this sense, help with studies is a classic part of courting someone and there is nothing wrong with that.

Is this what chatGPT answers to "what would Stalin think of this problem"?

It's so weird to see people defend this because this seems like fairly textbook power harassment. If this was to occur at work where some managers were organizing their pods or such so that they're the only man in a group of women for the sake of dating it would clearly be seen as a problem.

If the story is true, people auditing courses should be treated with a higher level of responsibility. Giving preferential treatment as a result because you want to date them or find them attractive isn't the purpose of auditing at all. This isn't to say it's wrong to potentially date someone while auditing a course, but the intention behind joining in the first place is what matters.

>fairly textbook power harassment

I thought "power harassment" is when you have power over someone. How does auditing a course give you power over fellow students?

>the intention behind joining in the first place is what matters

What's wrong with having an intention of finding someone to marry? Suppose a woman signs up for eHarmony with the intention of meeting her future husband -- is that problematic?

Thank you! Fuckin’ a, I can’t believe I had to scroll down this far to find someone who actually understands the dynamic here. People help each other out and study together in college courses. These guys know that and are orchestrating the situation to position themselves as a valuable resource to their female classmates and selectively dole it out based on their desire to (generously) date them or (realistically) sleep with them. Ew.

I can’t even imagine how pissed I would be if I found out a guy I was talking to used that app. Like oh cool you’re not actually helping me because we’re classmates taking the same course together, this is actually some weird scheme where we trade tutoring for “access” to me but I’m of course not allowed to know this arrangement because it would expose how gross the whole idea even is.

Am I understanding correctly that some students took the publicly published racial/gender/diversity data for the college and basically made an app advertising "here are all of the women taking college seriously and pursuing STEM courses, so you can maybe find a sugar mama?"

Why would a female smart enough to pass college level STEM classes fall for that "bro" logic? How is this successful at all?

"100-level science and mathematics" classes don't really qualify as college-level. They're basically remedial high school classes.

my fault, thank you for explaining

Reply on news.ycombinator.com