Hey There! As a student, i-Ready sucks. Before you click off, I don't have a problem with work, I have straight A's and don't mind normal work, but i-Ready is different. For teachers, it is probably nice, with a dashboard that lets you easily see and put scores into a grade book, but as a student it is painful. Each lesson takes about an hour minimum, and I get 5 a week for both English and Math, meaning I have to spend 10 hours or more on this site each week (Adding up to a minimum of 400 hours a year.)
The lessons have 2 parts, practice, where they teach the material, and the quiz. The main issues I have with this is that it is digital. The school computers my school uses are very cheap (Understandably, after all most schools have hundreds of students they have to buy Chromebooks for.). Still, those computers have very poor hardware that struggles to run i-Ready's animations, videos, and audio, the keyboard is very cramped, causing me wrist pain, and the row staggered keyboards cause my hands to feel like they are on fire, as well as making my hands inflamed (We can't use external peripherals at my school, and even if you could it adds even more to your backpack, and mine ways over 30lbs from all the books I have to carry.). The touchpad is low quality, and we have to do a lot of clicking and dragging which sucks since the touchpad has a lot of friction.
My second issue is making it appeal to kids. I'll take math as an example. On top of them making you wait for the topic you already know be explained to you again (And in a confusing manner), they gamified the site, make you wait for the speaker to read the story (for math), make you wait for the speaker to read the word in another language used in the story (for math), make you wait for the speaker to read the problem, make you wait for the abundance of animations to play, make you wait for it to check your answer if you press the check button twice, make you wait for the annoying sound effects, make you wait for much more stuff, have annoying characters, play annoying sound effects, and God forbid you make a typo because you just added 5 minutes to your time for them to lecture you on the same material. The quizzes at the end usually have 5 questions, which isn't too bad but if you get over half wrong, you have to repeat the whole lesson again for another hour instead of skipping to the quiz. I would much rather have a real test daily with 20 questions than do 1 i-Ready lesson, and I say that sincerely.
Now, the diagnostics. Those are 70-100 questions, which is simple but takes a lot of time because of the introduction in the beginning and brain breaks, but I stress over getting every question correct and those kinda suck. Also, for the English diagnostic, it often says I rushed, even when I test out to the screen that says no work assigned (I also didn't rush). The district mandates the diagnostics are repeated if it says I rush, so I've had to repeat them for each grade, and I don't blame my teachers for it but it is infuriating, especially because there isn't a clearly defined amount of time I have to spend on each problem making it difficult to avoid it flagging me for rushing.
Remember earlier how I said I have to spend 10 hours a week on this? My schedule is already packed, I go to school for 7 hours, I then have to wait another hour for my mom to pick up my sister from her school instead of being dropped off at home, then I have to bring up the clothes from the dryer, fold and put away the clean laundry, move the clothes from the washer to the dryer, start the dryer, bring down the dirty clothes, start the washer, take all my dogs out to poo, refill the dog water, refill the dog food, take the recycling out to the bins, take the trash out to the bins, eat for the first time that day at 4:30 because school food costs way too much to buy and I don't have the time to eat breakfast before school, bring the food up from downstairs as dinner prep, finally go take care of my neighbors cats because they had another business trip, and what do you know before I can even sit down it is already time to change for my martial arts, then I spend 2 hours getting my ass beaten by people way bigger than me and 2 or 3 years older than me (Sometimes my coach will give my face bruises if we spar in Muay Thai and my neck bruises if in JiuJitsu because he thinks I'm trans, which I'm not, since I have long hair and a clean shaven face, and he's an ultra conservative anti LGBT guy, then I get questioned why my face has bruises at school, hella annoying), get home and cleaned up, wowzers it is 8:00 PM.
After I shower and everything, I have to stay up past midnight getting all my homework done because not only do I have to spend 2 hours on i-Ready, I have even more worksheets for math, have to copy down notes for English because I can barely read the board with all the glare, copy down notes for Science because there is also glare, spend half an hour practicing my trumpet and tuba for Band because I have a practice log to fill out (It's fun doing double instruments and also doing concerts with the band class above you, on top of your normal class, quadrupling your work in Band), do a section or 2 of my lesson in TCI (History Curriculum), then try and do my long term project for history, english, and coding if I have the time, and would you look at the time, it is 1 or 2 in the morning, and I can't sleep because of all the energy drinks I had trying to stay up this late to even get my work down, and usually fall asleep at 3 or 4 in the morning, then wake up at 7. I could have gone to bed at 11:30 if I didn't have i-Ready because not only would I have 2 hours less of work to do, I would be more awake and be able to do my work faster. As a consequence of not sleeping, when I can sleep on the weekends, I end up falling asleep at 10 or 11, and I wake up a bit later than noon, and my weekends go by too quickly.
This isn't entirely i-Ready's fault, more the fault of the US education system that needs severe reform, and I understand that the district pays for i-Ready and the teachers have a quota on how many lessons their students do (At least in my school), so you don't have a choice of wether or not you use it, but if you are a teacher, please help lighten the load by assigning simpler and smaller lessons rather than having the diagnostic give everyone different lessons, and maybe do them as a class. If a superintendent sees this, less is more and I'd advise not paying thousands for these programs, instead I'd use a free and simple service like Khan Academy. If your students are barely getting enough sleep and have poor grades, using gamified programs with only adds to the problem and none of the information will be retained for state testing because it is so oversaturated. Students also don't perform well when half asleep, nor when they are stressed and it won't reflect well on the state testing. Thank you.

Hey, so I'm not sure if this is the right sub for this advice but I know a lot of people here also have trauma and my nurodivergancy definitely makes things more complicated.
Essentially, my therapist wants me to try EMDR and to start talking about deeper trauma that I am so not ready to talk about or think about. Most specifically SA and CSA but more broadly, stuff with one of my parents and my ex. She doesn't know necessarily what it is I'm avoiding, but she has told me that I might not ever fully "get better" if I don't talk about it. And the more I feel pressure about it the more I feel this is not a good idea.
For some context, I've been battling mental illness for 10+ years and with years of therapy and finally proper diagnosis, treatment, support I feel probably the most mentally well I ever have. I feel stable and ok and not like the world is constantly spiraling in and sucking me in. Not perfect but ok. That's kind of huge honestly considering I spent most of my life in a chronic state of SI.
For some more context... I have also talked to her about other trauma I have. I know I have people pleasing tendencies and why. I know I mask and why and why it's not good for me. I dissociate, although the ADHD meds have actually helped with that. And I am pretty sure I have alexathimia, which I know can and probably is a bit associated with my trauma, but I'm also under the impression that it is very much an autistic trait (not to say all alexathimia is autistim). We've had several sessions talking about "how" to get myself to "feel" and recognize my emotions more quickly in the moment. And she keeps bringing it back to "just feeling the emotions" which honestly doesn't really make sense to me. She says I "over process"... which I know is true but I don't understand how I'm supposed to not? Like I actually have to examine my bodily reactions, the context, tone, and have to review things in my head and eventually I will come up with an emotion. It's just not an automatic process for me. And Im not sure it every can or will be. Like besides all the trauma shit, it just seems like thats how I process things. So I'm feeling frustrated because she's saying thats wrong and I feel like thats just how I am... am I wrong?
As for the trauma stuff I don't want to talk about, I feel like this is related to why she is pushing me. But I also just feel like its completely unnecessary to tackle. Why do I need to when I can supress the memories, when I am relatively stable and doing good. Why destabilize? Why push for something I don't feel ready for? It just doesn't make sense to me and I feel like it's just going to retraumatize me instead of helping. I have my doubts about EMDR already. I know the research isn't solid.
I like her a lot for a lot of different reasons but I also feel this friction that I always eventually feel with therapist. Where we just don't agree on something or if feels like they are missing or misunderstanding something essential or making it into something its not. She specializes in autistim and adhd and uses ACT primarily. I've been through DBT and although there is some stuff I disagreed with or need to kind of undo my learning from.. i also really liked the DBT structure, clear outlines, worksheets etc. Like it was all laid out and organized in a very useful way. And these sessions are not? And idk what "just feel your feelings" fucking means especially when I can't always immediately identify them and when I do try I'm told I'm over processing. Ugh!
Honestly the things I want to focus on in therapy are more so daily life management related. Autistic/ADHD challenges, how to figure out managment of something when all other advice has failed. How to get to a place where I can have hobbies and intrests and a work/life balance. Recognizing body signals about my limits. I don't want to talk about the past much because there is nothing there for me but hurt and pain and struggle and it just doesn't serve me to look back and talk about it when I already know what the issues are and what causes me issues now. I just want to solve now and look to the future.
Idk any advice about trauma, talking about stuff you aren't ready to talk about, alexathimia. Is there an alternative therapy I could seek out? Has anyone reached this point and feel "ok"? Has a professional ever pushed you to talk about stuff you don't want to? I feel kind of at a loss on this because obviously this is a professional giving me advice, and for the most part I trust her opinion. But I also know she doesn't see the inside of my head and I also know that professionals arent always right or don't always have the right therapy for every situation and need.

I am in a situation with a co-worker, sort of friend. We work together in a school grades pre-k to 3rd grade. We work with children with moderate to severe emotional/social/behavioral issues. These kids can't be in a regular classroom. She provides help in the behavioral manner, her background is psychology and I provide academics. When I started she had already been there 3 months, when I got there after being hand picked by the social worker in charge of the room (I was subbing for a couple of months before being offered a permanent position) they lacked the academic portion to that room, these kids were getting their behavioral and social needs met but there was much less academics. When I started the kids were bombing all spelling tests, they were many reading levels behind, and a kindergartener that refused to spell his own name, plus many other things. I brought their spelling levels up from 0-20% on average to 60-80%, their reading levels went up, as did their math scores and science scores. All 3 of us in that classroom were proud of our work that year.
Now that the summer was nearing she had been stressing about not working in the summer, her husband doesn't earn enough for them to comfortably live on one income and it was a constant stressor. There were student loans and other things, I never asked for specific details. Only that during our lunch break on more than one occasion she's be in tears just thinking about it. She had 2 children, as do I. She was asking me what my plans for work were in the summer and I told her I was planning on staying home, take one vacation, a staycation or 2 but stay in. One of my children is heading into 1st next year, I planned on expanding his reading instruction. My background in education is heavy on a philosophy of presenting the material and teaching without too much friction. It's how I managed to get the kids to advance, sometimes them learning things without them noticing. Her youngest is starting kindergarten and she asked if in the summer I would be willing to tutor her in reading. I was a little confused, she explained that because I homeschooled my oldest for the first 2 years of her education (kinder and 1st grade due to COVID) and my oldest started physical school advanced and placed in the advanced academics program at the school we work at that me tutoring her youngest in the summer would give her an advantage. I explained that her little one is a preschooler and I really would do much rigorous academics. (In the classroom she was big on worksheets and always having the kids doing something and thinking this fostered learning). She asked if I would tutor phonics and early reading. I explained that not all children are the same, my oldest started to read at age 4 but my youngest started later and there was nothing wrong with that.
Still she asked if I would and she would pay me something, to name my price. She knows my husband and I are in a higher income bracket, I don't need to work in the summer. I felt bad in charging her a lot for tutoring. THEN right before school is out and she tells me she found a summer job she begins to stress about not having child care. She wanted to know if I would be willing to have her children over some days in the week for a few hours AND tutor her youngest along with mine. I explained that I wasn't tutoring him. The teaching and learning process is holistic when it's at home. It begins early and isn't a set time, there is a rhythm...but she said any time would better than none. I said a couple of hours, I said this because I found it difficult saying point blank "sorry, no, I can't" she knows I'll be home with my children, not working, not having that stress. She had shared her stressors with me. I thought I could help her out with a couple of hours 3 days a week. Her children arrive one morning (I had asked her if they would arrive fed and she said yes) but when I fed my kids, they told me they didn't eat so I fed them. When the couple of hours finished I go to find out these kids were going home to be alone! So I let them stay longer. This happened the next day, to the point where sometimes she provided them lunches or I made them breakfast and lunch.
I feel for her situation, I really do. I know many are suffering financial distress. I don't want to be a babysitter. I don't know what she thinks I will accomplish, I don't believe in rigorous academics in preschool and kindergarten so I told her not to have those expectations. She said she doesn't, just that her little one would get to have a chance to be taught under me. I have an autoimmune disease and I use the breaks from the school year to recuperate and take it easy, spend that time with my children, do whatever or nothing at all. I feel she is in such a need, I feel for her, I really do, but I just don't want to be a babysitter. It stresses me out, I don't feel as comfortable in my own house, my anxiety goes up, I can't devote the attention I wanted to devote to my children because I have these other 2 as well. But what should I do? It can hurt our working relationship once school starts. In order for me to do my work I need her to do hers, we work VERY well together. She has such a way with them in their psychological needs and with their behaviors. I fill their academic needs, I connect with the very difficult ones in a way she cannot. We NEED to work well together, the whole team is necessary in our work to reintegrate these kids back into the general ed classroom. I feel if I tell her flat out "I just can't, sorry" this will affect our working relationship and that also gives me high levels of stress and anxiety. I feel I've dug a hole for myself. I haven't had the kids for 2 weeks because we took a vacation and had family come visit but while on vacation she was messaging me that they miss me and look forward to resuming "lessons", sending me videos of things the little one learned from me and how surprised they were, her not working many hours while I was out etc. How could I handle this professionally and maintain our good work relationship?
I apologize for the length (or any typos as I typed this QUICK), thanks for any advice in advance!

As we move into the next academic year the subreddit will be once again graced with more first years going into the common core engineering program. As such, there are a number of guides on what first year Eng looks like, particularly this one by u/SickOfEnggSpam and this one by u/micro-peepee have more detail and are probably more useful. However, after covid, we’ve moved to a more online model of all courses. This changes things significantly from what one might expect, and I’m hoping to compile answers to many of the common questions here, along with a description of each course, since they are each different in their own special ways.
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What the fuck is active learning?

Active learning, put simply, is watching the lectures at home, and doing the homework in class. Accordingly, everyone gets the same videos, there are no “best teachers.” To get into more detail, each week videos will be posted, usually in the 60-90 minute range, covering the content for that week. This will typically be a week behind the in class activity. You will then go to the week’s activity/active learning session in the class. This is typically a short review, followed by some practice, and then an assessment of some form. Labs are sprinkled in as needed. Remember to watch at 1.5x speed
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First Semester Courses:

Eng 225

​ Summary: Learn the basics of DC circuit analysis, then AC circuit analysis, covering Kirchoff’s Voltage and Current Laws. The sample of Electrical Engineering
Assessments: Weekly online quiz, unlimited attempts, 1 Midterms, 1 Final, 4 labs ​
Recommendations: This will be one of the harder courses of first year, but should be okay if you go to the ALS sessions. The videos are high quality, and, if you have a tablet, it is advised that you download the pdfs and erase the writing so you don’t have to copy a bunch of circuit diagrams. Go to the ALS sessions, this is a course where you cannot be caught lacking, as shit builds quickly. For the final and midterm, the previous finals will be rather representative of what’s on there. Be sure to do well in the midterm, as the course gets much harder after.
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Eng 233 - Intro to Python

Summary: Learn the basics of coding in python, learning functions, conditional statements, and libraries. The sample of Software Engineering (it is much harder don’t be fooled) ​
Assessment: Weekly Coding Assignments, 2 Midterms, 1 Final, Cheat Sheet Allowed ​
Recommendations: This course will be trivial to those that are experienced in python, or have experience coding. The teaching in this case comes from a ~$80 interactive website called the “Zybook.” I would advise purchasing it if you plan on learning the course, as the alternative is videos that go at a painfully slow pace through the zybook. For the midterms and final, I found that my cheatsheet was best filled with functions and definitions, along with examples that showed the limit of what python can do. For the final, you’ll want to have every single table in the zybook on the sheet. For the assignments VScode is recommended. Overall, an easy enough class if you are good at coding.
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Math 275 - Calculus 1

Summary - Learn Single Variable Derivatives, Integrals, and Serieses ​
Assessment: Weekly 2 attempt quizzes, 4 Assignments, Final & Midterm ​
Recommendations: If you are taking Math 31 at the moment, try your best to learn and purchase your prof a beer. Our class bought ours a chocolate basket. This class was taught very poorly, videos are short and the textbook is long. Regardless, if you’re unclear about a topic, the Apex textbook and just googling an actual video will be your best friend. There was no assessment in this ALS so it is totally fine to skip, the TA’s don’t know shit and won’t give you the answer. Practice is best found with what the PASS leaders provide. Fuck this class and Mark Bauer.
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Eng 209/204 - Chemistry for Engineers

​ Summary- Do some chemistry ​
Assessments: N/A ​
Recommendations: This course, along with 201, is being redone to be more useful to engineers. As such, there’s not much to say for certain. If there are labs that need to be done the lab reports will be much worse than what you’ve done from High School. Your best bet is to talk to an upperclassmen for a copy of a lab copy of theirs so you can copy the formatting.
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Math 211 - Linear Algebra

Summary - Learn Matrices, Vector Spaces, and Vector Operations. All online ​
Assessments: Weekly 10 Attempt Assignments, 3 Midterms, No Final ​
Recommendations. This course is done all online through the Lyryx website. It is mostly going to be reading the online textbook. If you are stuck slideshows are posted on D2L that are helpful. Accordingly, everything, including the midterms, can be written at home. Writing an online assignment at home has certain advantages, which would enable you to do very well in this course. It is advised to do things by hand for the assignments. Lyryx is $40, and worth paying for, but one can access it on campus or with the virtual VPN, described here. If you want to get a headstart on this course, 3b1b’s playlist on linear algebra is invaluable. Don't watch the videos, they aren't that useful. For solved problems, check out PlugandChug
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Seminar

​ Summary: Waste part of your day and make sure you know that you are committing academic integrity violations ​
Assessments: Completion & Attendance based sessions with online reflections ​
Recommendations: This course is a response to mental health issues in eng. It is also the easiest 5% you will ever get. Show up once a week, sign the attendance sheet, listen and fill out the reflection online. Don’t use ChatGPT, it’s not worth it. If you are going to use it, use it to scaffold a response that you fill in. Burn your 1 freebie on something worth cheating on
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Second Semester Courses

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Eng 200 - Engineering Design

​ Summary: Learn 3D printing & Arduino to make a planter and a video game ​
Assessments: 8 Quizzes, 3 Projects ​
Recommendations: For this class you’re in a group of 4 that you select to make 2 projects. The quizzes are based on online stuff, but are trivial, I did them in between stop lights, just google the questions. Just be sure to do them, or you’ll get a 50% in the class. For the project portion, be sure that you have a solid group to work with. Other than that, this is a GPA booster. You will breeze through this as long as you don’t leave 3D printing to the last minute. The makerspace will be very full
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Eng 201/212 - Fluid Flow

Summary: Learn how to read fluid charts, PV, PT among them, learn about fluid flow, and PV=nRT. The sample of Chemical Engineering ​
Assessments: N/A ​
Recommendations This course is also being transformed. This is a tragedy, as 201 has been a staple for years. Regardless, the online model for the class was videos mixed with notes, textbook stuff, and sample problems. The videos should be watched, a sample problem attempted, and you’re probably okay. For the in class sessions things were summarized and then a worksheet was given. Answers were usually given right before the quiz with little explanation, so be sure to ask the TA’s if you got things right. For the quiz, split problems up into groups. Time is tight.
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Eng 202 - Statics

​ Summary - Learn about forces, moments, and friction in 2 and 3D. The sample of Civil Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. ​
Assessment: Weekly In Class Sheets, Weekly Online Assignment 10 attempts, Midterm, Final ​
Recommendations: This is either a really easy class, or a hard class for people. If you know trig and did well in 211 you’ll do okay. Videos used online copy of the textbook posted, which is not filled in. In class assignments consisted of ~6 questions that have a cumulative 4 hours of work. Among a group of 4 this can be split a few ways. My group settled on everyone taking a question, then double checking other’s work. You can ask the TA’s to see if you made any mistakes.
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Math 277 - Calculus 2

​ Summary - Learn Multivariable Derivatives, Integrals, and applications. ​
Assessments: Weekly in class quizzes, 1 midterm, 1 final. Midterm & Final Online ​
Recommendations: Don’t let the online midterm or final fool you, this is a rather difficult course. Videos for the week can be up to 3 hours long, 2x speed or even just reading the notes is recommended. Do at least 1 practice problem a week, but ideally more. This is a rather important course. In class quizzes were usually very strongly based on review done before, but makes the midterm look deceptively easy. Plan for success, but don’t stress, there will be a curve for the class. Don’t rely on it.
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Eng 259 - Physics of Electromagnetism

Summary - Learn the mechanics of Electric Fields, Magnetic Fields, and devices that utilize them. Assessment - Weekly in class worksheet, weekly 10 attempt assignment, midterm, final ​ Recommendations: This class has a reputation as rather bad, not undeservingly. The 3rd week is the hardest, but if you can understand that you’ll be okay. Online assignments can be accessed on campus or with the aforementioned VPN. It is recommended you use that instead. On the assignment there are review versions of the textbook. These come with practice questions and are fantastic for practice. The midterm and the final strongly resemble the assignments, if you can do those you should feel okay.