Stubborn Student Dismisses Teacher's Advice, Ego Check Ensues

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mattstaff
Sep 4, 2021 6:00 PM EDT

Too many people in this world struggle with listening to advice offered to them and instead only create more stress for the rest of us. A computer science professor logged on to r/talesfromtechsupport to describe just that; a student who refused to accept their advice when troubleshooting a project that wouldn't work. You can really feel this teacher's frustration gradually build during this tale as their student refuses to simply check to make sure the hardware is wired properly, and ultimately, they learn the hard way. Props to the teacher for sticking their feet in the ground; they knew exactly where the problem needed to be addressed, and it seems like the student now understands the importance of troubleshooting from the ground up — the next time someone else had a problem, the student in question was the first to implore them to check the hardware.

To keep the tech support drama going, check out this tech support tale about a company that plugged every ethernet cable into their router at random, and then proceeded to distress call tech support.

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  • 01
    Font - r/talesfromtechsupport + Join u/TheNobleMustelid • 17h 1 5 2 Check the hardware Epic TL;DR at the end. Some years ago I needed a particular sort of sensor for my biology research. It was neither high-precision nor particularly complex, but it was strange. No one sold anything like it. So I designed and built the sensors I needed on a minimal budget, on a scratched-up table at home, using a soldering iron half my own age. And then, through a series of improbable events, this sensor got a l
    via u/TheNobleMustelid
  • 02
    Font - However, the computer science (CS) department did notice that I had just done something that looked very much like "Internet of Things" and made me an offer: instead of building my next device on a table at home using a soldering iron from the Late Paleolithic I could use their very nice lab, with lots of equipment, and even raid their parts bins, as long as I also passed off some of my knowledge to their students. And so I ended up spending a lot of time in the CS lab. This story comes f
    via u/TheNobleMustelid
  • 03
    Font - On the day this story begins I am in lab laying out a circuit. As I am doing so I am chatting with the students, a small group who I have come to know fairly well, who spend most of their free time in the lab tinkering with things. One student, who I will dub Hamilcar (who doesn't like the Second Punic War?) calls me over for troubleshooting. I get up from my chair, careful to bring my cup of coffee with me. When troubleshooting with students a cup of coffee is essential, because you can
    via u/TheNobleMustelid
  • 04
    Font - Hamilcar's project involves a speaker. He's quite early on in working on it and only has the speaker attached to an audio control board/amplifier which is, in turn, attached to an Arduino. (Arduinos are programmable microcontrollers.) Hamilcar points to his screen where a small program is open in an IDE. "This [points] should play a small tune through here [points]. But nothing is happening." "When did it break?" I ask. "It never worked," he responds. This seems strange. I question him a
    via u/TheNobleMustelid
  • 05
    Font - "Have you checked the hardware?" I ask. Always start troubleshooting at step zero. I then have to explain that I mean "have you done anything to verify that the hardware works?" "It's wired correctly," Hamilcar says. This is not what I asked. "Have you ever gotten any sound out of that speaker?" I ask. "A blip when you plugged it in? A short code snippet that just makes it hum? Anything to test it?" "No!" Hamilcar exclaims, clearly unreasonably annoyed by these questions. Other students l
    via u/TheNobleMustelid
  • 06
    Font - "No!" Hamilcar yells. I understand, a bit, where his frustration is coming from. He does have some real skills from his own, independent study, and nothing he's done yet has been able to showcase this. He feels like we don't believe that he knows things. On the other hand, he's being an a s. I bring the coffee cup down and give Hamilcar The Look. If you ever find yourself teaching teenagers or young adults make sure to practice The Look. Done correctly, the victim should feel the chill of
    via u/TheNobleMustelid
  • 07
    Font - Hamilcar makes his saving throw against The Look. "I know how to solder!" I point out that the years of his life are but a blink of my eye, and that while I had learned to solder as the great ice sheets retreated at the end of the Younger Dryas he had learned to solder two weeks earlier, from me. And that his solder joints still closely resembled metal potatoes. "You're not helping!" "No," I finally agreed, "I'm not. And I won't, until you check your hardware." Then I walked back to my be
    via u/TheNobleMustelid
  • 08
    Font - Day One: Hamilcar has discovered that Arduinos are not very good at keeping time by themselves. He has a theory that this is, somehow, messing up the speaker. Perhaps the sound frequencies are being compressed into the ultrasonic, or something. He's fiddling around with clock chips, which are really only needed when your time intervals are hours or days. Obviously, this just further complicates his untested circuit and doesn't help. Day Two: Hamilcar spends an hour undoing his clock chip
    via u/TheNobleMustelid
  • 09
    Font - Day Three: Hamilcar is now propounding a new theory to the other students. Arduinos use a C-derived coding language. But what if this language does not handle global and local variables in the same way? Much like the Carthaginian invasion of Italy, this theory serves only to cause a lot of destruction and get people angry without actually making any progress towards winning the war. Day Four: Hamilcar is bouncing his latest idea off another student. At this point Hamilcar's broken circuit
    via u/TheNobleMustelid
  • 10
    Font - Day Five: Hamilcar is hunched over his station, muttering something in an unknown language. Is this a dark ritual to the old gods of blood and fire, meant to strike me down for questioning his soldering skills? Has he completely snapped and is speaking in a new language that makes sense only to him? I listen more closely. No, he's just swearing continuously under his breath. Day Six is a Saturday. As a biologist I sometimes have to come in to work on a weekend to keep my living study subj
    via u/TheNobleMustelid
  • 11
    Font - There's no multimeter on Hamilcar's station (of course) but once I grab one his power and ground check out. The Arduino is pinned-out correctly, and l'm getting power where I should there, too. The audio controller/ amplifier is a bit of a mystery. I haven't used this design before. I unlock the computer and find that Hamilcar already has the wiring diagram open. Power is solid. Ground is ground. LVL is..not attached to anything. What the hell is LVL, anyway? I know that the chip can do m
    via u/TheNobleMustelid
  • 12
    Font - Two months later we're sitting in lab. A new student loudly complains to no one in particular that his starter exercise (get an LED to blink) isn't working. "Did your LED power on solidly when you first plugged it in?" I ask. "No," the new student says. "Does that matter?" A wave of apocalyptic fury breaks over us, a roar of sound and anger. It's Hamilcar. "CHECK YOUR HARDWARE!"
    via u/TheNobleMustelid
  • 13
    Smile - TL;DR: Student has an issue with a program. I tell him to check the hardware. He doesn't. It's the hardware. 1k Q 84 ↑, Share
    via u/TheNobleMustelid

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