What’s wrong with the new degree audit and course history?

How does BC expect student to register for class and start a new semester when the service has been down for the entire summer? I need my transcript and course history for grad school and scholarship application, but I can access none of those information. Also, student service has not responded to my email over the summer….. ? ? ?

Frustrating for sure! I contacted Student Svcs; they said if you are still a current student or up to 6 months out, use the “order a transcript link” in agora. If not, use the National Student Clearinghouse (bit.ly/GetBCTranscript). Student Services was very helpful on the phone, so you may want to call them at (617) 552-3300.

O’Neill Library

Hi, I’m the Answer Wall! I’ve been perched in the O’Neill Library lobby at Boston College since February 2017, except for a year in 2020 when I went fully online. Ask me a question by posting a post-it on me in O’Neill Library. I’ll answer within a day on weekdays. I snooze on the weekends, because answering questions is hard work!

The world is experiencing prolonged depression and trauma… when is this COVID thing ending?

Can human survive this new normal? Is our society designed to support the most vulnerable and marginalized populations? From the evolutionary perspective, it looks like society is selecting the most privileged to survive. That is not a good direction… 🙁

“Hope is a discipline.” — Mariame Kaba. Also: “Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth’s treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal… To hope is to give yourself to the future – and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.” – Rebecca Solnit

I feel guilty for liking to listen to this (cut from Hamilton :D) song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVmVVkbx3jE The way the singer saying the f word with that accent just for some reason appeals to me. Don’t get me wrong, I hate songs with curses and I’ve never really listened to any, but it’s something about the way the singer says it that just makes me like it. I feel guilty for it. Is it normal? Why do I like it? (FYI it is one of the most unknown cut songs from Hamilton, not many who like it even know it’s cut, but, according to Lin The Great, it was cut because it didn’t bring anything to the plot.)

Such an incredibly catchy song. I wish LMM had been able to find the space for it in the show. I don’t think there’s any need to feel any guilt about enjoying it!

Dreams Heya! So today I woke up from a dream which felt like an entire day of progress, I could recall every detail of the day that never happened and when I woke up, after I realized it was a dream, I felt so disappointed that the work I did didn’t really happen.

Now I can hardly remember most of it, but I still feel like my sleeping was actually another day of work. It’s so weird, can you imagine that the last 20 years of your life, for example, have been just a dream and you can wake up any moment and lose all the progress you did in these 20 years? Sounds pretty scary to me.

It could be scary or liberating depending on how you look at it. Have you ever watched the film Groundhog Day?

Google is Bad Google removes SO many results! I tried to compare DuckDuckGo to Google and it’s just, DDG is SO much better. Also, what on Earth is this: http://www.petitionproject.org/ ?!?!

DDG has lots of advantages over Google, especially in terms of privacy. And yes, different search engines produce very different results for similar searches. It is a really good idea to mix things up and try new things periodically. The petition thing? Snopes has a good writeup on it: https://bit.ly/bc-pp1.

Hey hey wall! Was Newton hit by an apple when he discovered gravity? How do we know it’s not an orange, or maybe someone dropped a watermelon when climbing the tree?

He apparently didn’t get hit by it, just watched it fall and wondered what would make it do that in a straight line toward the Earth. He told a number of people the story (https://bit.ly/bc-apple1), so it seems likely to be true. There’s also a nice writeup of the story at Atlas Obscura (one of my favorite websites), and of all of the grafts of the tree that are still alive (https://bit.ly/bc-apple2).

Why do they change the door color at Gasson? They look so UGLY!!!!!!! The original doors fit the building much better! The new ones look so boring…

One of my assistants will try to find out, and I’ll get back to you.

UPDATE 8/19/21: A helpful staff member in facilities says, “We have a maintenance program associated with refinishing the wooden exterior doors on the main campus (e.g., Bapst Library, St. Mary’s Hall, Gasson Hall) to have a consistent color and keep the wood in good condition.” Though weathering can make wood attractive, it can also cause damage. As a wall, I approve of maintenance and upkeep.