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Local Hero: This TA Just Gives out the Answer During Office Hours

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Photo by Ziko / CC BY-SA 3.0

An exclusive source has revealed that GEOL 100 TA Kaitlin Jacobs (C ’18) took the class three years ago and doesn’t remember any of the material, but she does have the answer key, so people can check their answers if they want. The source also reported that Jacobs often angled her laptop screen towards the students, allowing them to look over her shoulder as she searched through the answers. 

Ever since word of this initiative spread, office hour attendance has dramatically increased. While they used to be limited to those two freshmen who started the problem set as soon as it was assigned and the one sophomore who doesn’t understand how they got a D on the first midterm, recent office hours have exploded. Reportedly, almost half the class shows up to ask, “how do I even approach this problem, you know?” The other half the class just waits to get the answers from their friends who went to office hours, inspiring a new sense of camaraderie within classmates. 

UTB caught up with a student currently enrolled in GEOL 100, Martin Lynch (C ’20), who shared with us how nice it is to finally have a TA who gives a shit about his education. Lynch immediately dismissed questions of whether it might actually be hurting his education to just copy the answers from the TA. Said Lynch, “My CIS 110 TA wrote most of my code during office hours, and look at me now. I have Java on my resume.

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