It reminds me of a story that a PhD student stuck a $10 (the value varies) bill into the copy of their thesis that got filed in the library. Some <large # of> years later, they came back to see that no one had taken it.
https://www.npr.org/2021/12/20/1065723014/tennessee-professo...
But sure lazy students don’t read the syllabus
But where exactly was the text and how did the students miss it? These articles say it was "in the syllabus" but don't really go much further. I don't have access to the full syllabus but a snippet showing its immediate surroundings is available:
...
objectives. As a result, skill-based
courses in music may be exempt
from Covid-related accomodations
as a progression in skills must be
obtained across the semester to be
successfull in these course. Thus
(free to the first who claims; locker
one hundred forty-seven;
combination fifteen, twenty-five,
thirty-five), students may be
ineligible to make up classes and
coursework beyond the specified
number of days as determined by
the instructor. Requests will be
decided on a case-by-case basis with
specific emphasis on the ability to
achieve learning outcomes.
Technology Support: If you have
problems with your UTC email
...
Is it a typo? A copy-paste error? Only knowing that "free to the first who claims" is part of a boomer gotcha for kids these days does that whole parenthetical make any sense to me.
During a first year university computer science course, students were told to line up and sign an agreement for access to department computer labs. Most of the students lined up, grabbed the paperwork when they reached the front of the queue, then promptly signed it. I decided to actually read the paperwork, which earned me the privilege of standing at the side until the task was complete. No sneaky clauses, for the better or the worse, in my humble opinion. I simply had the privilege of standing out.
Not that it really mattered. I walked away learning a different lesson since I already had access to their computer systems. I already asked for permission to access their systems, and was granted permission without doing the paperwork. For the most part, these agreements are intended to handle the typical case, and are meant to inform rather than be a rigid contract. (The irony: I consider trust as sacrosanct, so I often over comply with the rules.)
Which is sad, because it's not rocket science.
PS: You should have yelled back "We have an illiterate guide here!" Anyone berating reasonable behavior deserves to be called out as an asshole.
Legally what's important is that you had the opportunity to read the contract before you agreed to it. In HN terms, as an example, you can't legally steal GPL'd code if you don't bother to cat LICENSE.md
In general the likelihood that the parties have read the contract doesn't have any bearing on the enforceability of it. But most such contracts are also contracts of adhesion (roughly speaking a take-it-or-leave-it offer), and there are special rules for the enforceability of contracts of adhesion. The principle is that they can't be too surprising or too unfair. There's a fair amount of case law about where that line is (which I mostly don't know).
Reciprocate when they want to read the changes you made, if their heads don't explode first.
I went into my thesis with a preprint of a paper exposing a fraud in my thesis chair's lab, literally in my back pocket... As a confidence booster.
An amusing counter example - I was asked to proof a students assignment. I did and the essay seemed weird and I couldn’t work out why, but the content was ok.
Some hours later I realised the work was mine, and had been placed in the library as an example of something (presumably anonymised). Good times.
If it wasn’t the original hard copy but a copy then I don’t think the $20 bill would be there regardless.
You are correct that getting dissertations from far off universities is often impossible. Many universities do not loan their dissertations via interlibrary loan, so unless it is online or you are willing to travel to their campus, you can't get access to it. ProQuest is another option, but they do not have everything and it costs money.
I've heard the 20 dollar bill story many times but I have never found anything like that in an original hard-copy dissertation. If I recall correctly, I have found things used as bookmarks, like receipts or scraps of paper, and the cards in the back cover are often stamped at least once a decade. That seems to suggest that other people have read them over the years, just not as often as other materials.