Readme Investigates CMU's Newest StuCo
Though many universities offer student-taught courses, CMU’s StuCo program is unique. It’s better. The newest offering from the StuCo program is 15-122: Principles of Imperative Computation. Over the past few months, several readme journalists have gone undercover as students and enrolled in this course. Here is our unbiased, fact based, objective review.
The course has two instructors, both appear to be super-super-super-super-seniors. It is concerning that StuCo allows instructors to teach when they clearly are unable to graduate from CMU in a timely manner. Furthermore, the course seems to have a third instructor in the form of a very large goose. The goose appears to go by the alias ‘Chonk.’ Readme reached out to the course instructors, Iliano Cervesato and Anne Kohlbrenner, for comment on the student status of ‘Chonk.’ We were told that “the instructors of 15-122, cannot comment on any human, animal or stuffed entity called ‘Chonk.’” Readme was assured that “[15-122’s] hiring practice[s] follow the letter of the law and are in full compliance with the GGPA (Giant Goose Protection Agency).”
Furthermore, course instructor Anne Kohlbrenner claims to have “never encountered giant geese on campus. I can assure you that I am definitely not a goose.” This feels suspicious and readmE has opened the Goose Intelligence Agency (GIA) to further look into these claims. Please call our silly goose reporting line at 412-268-2323 with any information.
The worker status of ‘Chonk’ is not the only cause for concern. The information in this course is dubious at best, and utterly wrong at worst. This course claims that dictionaries implement “hashing.” Dictionaries are large books that do not have social media and cannot contribute to the latest hashtags and trends. We recommend that the instructors enroll in 76-103: Introduction to Books.
Books are not the only common object that the instructors seem to be unfamiliar with. This course claims that trees are isosceles triangles. Furthermore they claim that the root of a tree is at the top, and leaves are at the bottom of the tree. We recommend that the instructors take a trip to Schenley park and familiarize themselves with trees.
Readme reached out to course instructors for comment on the spread of misinformation and was told that “[course instructors] firmly stand behind all the disinformation disseminated by 15-122.” We admire 15-122’s honesty in their dishonesty practices, however, at a top institution like CMU we need to be committed to factual information. We recommend that StuCo take the spread of misinformation seriously and conduct a full investigation into 15-122.
While this course has a disregard for factual information, reAdme does have to commend 15-122 for amassing a large number of students in such a short period. We understand that being a student at CMU is a large time commitment, and we find it very impressive that the student instructors for 15-122 are still able to dedicate so much time to giving students AIVs. For students who received an AIV from 15-122 we recommend taking 98-305: A guide to cheating and succeeding. Furthermore, 15-122 has invented its own language: C0. While readME thinks that this is a bit much for a StuCo, we have to appreciate the dedication that the instructors have to this course (if only they had this dedication to graduating on time).
Ultimately, reaDme recommends that you enroll in 15-122 at your own risk.