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Comment by anonsivalley652 | Hacker News Reader

Striking when it's convenient is worthless. Perhaps if the students weren't so entitled, they'd understand that solidarity is important and that grades should be handled. Furthermore, you have to realize the university is punishing you to turn you against the grad students... and it appears they have succeeded. If I were an ugrad there, I'd be right there with the grad students.

I was an ugrad at another UC where 2/3 of my classes were cancelled because lecturers got jobs at startups in the dotcom times, and they made a habit of not scheduling upper-div major classes frequently enough to stay full-time for the year. haha.

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I agree that striking when its convenient is worthless, but at the same time, I have various emails from my direct TAs and the COLA organization as a whole mentioning the intent is to not harm undergrads, but here we are... Additionally, I'm not sure where youre getting the students are "entitled". I work and take loans out in order to go to this school, takes classes, and receive my grades. Am I entitled for wanting what I pay for?

The administration is not withholding grades, the graduates are. I understand that they're doing it as a result of the administration, but why are we (undergraduates) sitting in the middle taking heat from both sides?

I'm happy you would be out there striking as thats your right, but to call me entitled is a tad bit much no? The response on the UCSC subreddit is similar - youre either entitled or a bootlicker if you don't join the cause. I am unsure how that is supposed to make me support the cause?

> The administration is not withholding grades

It clearly has the resources to provide you with your grades, it's not like the specific grad students are the only ones being able to grade random undergrad work. It appears it's failing to provide the service you pay it for.

You're absolutely right in that they have the resources to get these graded. Another comment I posted down below describes my grade situation and how I've been asked to help grade (for pay). I imagine in six months time I'll have my grades, but the wait is absolutely wrong. Other students are attempting to graduate, but their requirements are not met because of withheld grades by their TAs. Can they afford another quarter or two while the UC gathers new graders? Who knows.

The university is preventing people from graduating, not the TAs. The university could have professors grade their own exams. The university could hire undergraduates like you to grade exams. The university could also let anyone graduate that they want, the university is the body that enforces these requirements, not the TAs. They could send a memo tomorrow saying they would aggregate your other grades, or let you graduate provisionally, or waive whatever requirement the university itself has put in place, but they aren't because by not doing so they turn undergraduates like you against graduates. And from the looks of your comments they have succeeded.

And this is exactly what my professor has done in response to the graduate student strikes: she is some grading assignments herself and has dropped ones that she no longer has time for. I will probably receive my grades on time, and if I don’t I’m going to be a lot more annoyed at the university for not working something out than I will be at my TA (who has already submitted grades for assignments due before the strike).

I really hope you pay close attention to the comments by assdf replying to this. The graduate students clearly got desperate because of how crazy the financial situation got. It's sad to see how few people really recognize that. I hope you're lucky in life and never end up trapped the way they were!

This situation is also a consequence of poor management at UCSC. Every other university I'm familiar with makes faculty responsible for submitting grades. It's inconceivable to me, as someone in the UC system, why TAs would be responsible for grades. TAs should be teaching assistants, not adjunct faculty.

Eh, sounds like the grad students are doing the punishing. Their cause is noble, I'm sure, right up until it interferes with my education (and thus my career path).

They need to find a way to exert leverage on the people who can satisfy their demands -- meaning the University -- and not on people who are basically innocent customers.

Is it Ok to strike when that will hurt innocents? I think we can all agree that having nurses strike and abandon care of their patients is unfair to those patients. This fight should be between UCSC and the graduates, not holding innocent undergrads hostage in the middle.

The only reason why undergraduates are 'held hostage' is due the policies of the university. The reason why grades are not posted is due to the university. The reason why people aren't able to graduate is due to policies stipulated by the university.

In most other universities, professors submit grades and are free to grade their own exams. TAs are there to just get through the stack of exams a little faster than the professor working on that same stack themselves. The TAs don't hold any sacred power in this scenario, they aren't needed at all actually, they just add an extra sets of hands to check or cross out answers on a piece of paper. That's it. There is no bylaw stating your grades must be submitted by a graduate student and no other, but if there were, it is the university that is enforcing the bylaw.

This narrative that grades can only be submitted by the TAs does not seem right, it seems like a narrative designed to put a wedge in the student body by spreading around a fundamental misunderstanding on how grading and graduation occurs at a university.

You wrote a lot but I am struggling to see your point. The TAs tried holding student grades hostage as leverage in their strike. Now some are withholding those grades for work they reviewed out of spite after being fired. They are hurting innocent students and potentially wrecking/derailing careers and lives. This latter part is a fact. The difference is that sone people here think this is an acceptable price to pay for the TAs to make more money. The rest of us think that’s a BS position.

Systematically it sounds insane that the TAs are wholly responsible for grading but they don't get to teach the class, and they don't get paid enough to live. How can you expect a TA to grade appropriately if they are starving? I would blame management for shitty TAs resulting in shitty work, than the TAs for breaking under unlivable conditions.

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