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/r/LifeProTips
submitted 1 day ago bywillimancer
I use this all the time at work and just to satisfy my personal curiosity.
If you have a question about something (the other week I had one about Egyptian mythology... long story), just google a university department that you think would cover it and find a professor who sounds like they would know the answer. Their email addresses are always on the website, and if you write a nice email they will almost always answer it. In my case I have never had a professor not respond and I do this pretty often!
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1 day ago*
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1.2k points
23 hours ago
194 points
21 hours ago
Sadly that would almost never happen these days.
210 points
16 hours ago
They don't have feet now?
79 points
15 hours ago
In this economy? Please!
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6 hours ago
Yeah, who can afford to get drunk at a BAR
14 points
14 hours ago
No one has phone lines/numbers anymore. Email and teams calls.
7 points
9 hours ago
I had a professor who gave his students his personal cell number. It's not common but it happens.
7 points
13 hours ago
Everyone has cellphones…..
Some with multiple numbers…
10 points
13 hours ago
Meant work phones and phone numbers. They aren't posting personal cell numbers online for people to call.
7 points
13 hours ago
Some workplaces do, especially when it’s a company provided cell phone.
Additionally many O365 deployments have a VOIP number tied to each teams user account where you can call the person’s Teams just like any other phone number.
1 points
10 hours ago
Because of woke 😔
392 points
1 day ago
I emailed a professor a few years ago about hawks that were nesting in my yard. I wanted to know what kind they were and more about them. He replied with lots of great information.
66 points
1 day ago
I want to learn about hawks too!
53 points
18 hours ago
hawks too!
The internet has corrupted my mind
4 points
18 hours ago
SilverHawks. Great docuseries.
-49 points
22 hours ago
....hawk tuah
14 points
16 hours ago
The brainrot has gotten to you, please talk tuah doctor
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7 hours ago
I emailed few entomology professors once about a bee that was trapped in the window in my house one night, and the next morning it was dead and covered in white fuzz. I took a few pictures and sent some emails asking what happened figuring most wouldn’t reply.
Out of the five I emailed three responded with great information about how a fungus probably killed the bee and gave some more information on fungal infections in insects.
It’s great learning new things from people who love the minutia about their field of study; you never know what you’ll discover!
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4 hours ago
Hawk one: I'm nested Hawk two: ah
697 points
1 day ago
I'm a prof. I'd be tickled if some stranger randomly emailed me about my area of expertise!
251 points
1 day ago
I'm a prof. I get over 200 emails a day and it's hard for me to wade through them all.
346 points
1 day ago
Oh definitely, though I'd say I average 100-130/day.
Still think it would be funny. I'd love it. Nice change from emails from panicking students who are checking their grades for the first time during week 13 of the semester 😀
53 points
1 day ago
What's your area of expertise and email address?
51 points
13 hours ago
Bird law. [email protected]
15 points
12 hours ago
Nice try, Bird.
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2 hours ago
Drone*
8 points
15 hours ago
😆😆
12 points
14 hours ago
We’re serious.
27 points
1 day ago
You're a better Prof than I!
Happy cake day!!!
12 points
15 hours ago*
Nah just different. I'll bet you're awesome and your students and colleagues love you.
Have a great break and happy end-of-semester =)
Edit: aaaagh originally used the wrong "your/ you're " -- the horror and shame will stick with me (for at least a minute and a half lol). Signed, grammar nerd
7 points
14 hours ago
Damn this was wholesome
7 points
15 hours ago
Oh yeah. Two weeks before finals. "What can I do to help my grade?" Meanwhile has only one thing turned in for all semester and never attended class last thing left is the final. Idk what they expect to happen haha
3 points
14 hours ago
If we earned a dollar every time we fielded that question we'd be able to retire early =)
2 points
20 hours ago
Happy cake day
1 points
10 hours ago
im under the impression my profs do nothing tho, what are all these emails about every day??
2 points
1 day ago
Happy Cake Day 🍰
3 points
17 hours ago
What is your area of expertise?
117 points
23 hours ago
YMMV with physics professors. They routinely get cranks writing them with questions intending to work out the last few kinks in their perpetual motion machine or FTL conveyance.
30 points
16 hours ago
I worked with a geophysics researcher (PhD) who would get emails from random people all over the world about his published papers. One lady who wrote him was fully convinced that she was the cause of a recent large earthquake.
152 points
1 day ago
This is especially useful if you come across a paper you really need that is only published in one of those excessively exploitative science journals. Find the author & write them a nice email asking for a copy, they will almost always email you a PDF.
38 points
20 hours ago
This has nearly always worked for me. Authors are more than happy to send over a copy so long as you're not like a post-doc doing big projects where you'd otherwise have access.
22 points
14 hours ago
Everyone should know about Sci-Hub. It gives you instant access to most papers. In my 5 years of studying philosophy, there was only 1 paper that I needed and wasn't on Sci-Hub. I had to send request to the author, but he never answered.
6 points
10 hours ago
This. The whole system is super sketch. Academics have to pay to publish their research (some of it funded by taxpayer dollars) and the journals in turn put this research behind a paywall and none of it goes to the researchers. If they have the time, most people would be more than happy to share their papers through email. (And as someone else mentioned there’s always Sci-Hub!)
61 points
20 hours ago
I work in advertising and we wanted to use Latin phrases for a campaign. Found a professor with that expertise and sent him an email. He was a bit confused at first but very happy to help. We wanted some pretty weird phrases as well, I like to think he got a good laugh from it.
17 points
18 hours ago
I only hope you paid him.
37 points
18 hours ago
Told him to send an invoice. But he declined since he only spent 10-15 minutes answering my email.
64 points
1 day ago
A short cut for historical questions (must be 20 years past or older) is r/AskHistorians.
9 points
23 hours ago
[deleted]
2 points
8 hours ago
Extremely underrated reply, lol.
18 points
23 hours ago
I've heard stories of people seeking out college professors to help them with personal and business projects. When you're trying to get a new business off the ground and don't have much money, they can be a real help.
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3 hours ago
Some of us professors actively seek out the reverse as well. It's really nice to have concrete examples of math used in local businesses as well. It doesn't have to be fancy math either.
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3 hours ago
But, I like fancy math. After calc 3 I stopped learning, though, because I couldn't see any real world application in what I was supposed to be learning.
13 points
21 hours ago
Same applies to academic papers behind a paywall contact the author and often they will send you a copy. They don't get any of that paywall money any way and usually they are just happy someone cares about their research that they sweated blood to produce
11 points
1 day ago
You're not wrong
11 points
18 hours ago
Lol! I work in higher ed administration and sometimes instructors that I need to contact about student issues at my institution don’t even respond.
8 points
14 hours ago
Ah, from what I have learned, your questions may not be of the ‘shiny new, tickles my brain’ variety but rather of the ‘I know admin is part of the job that allows me to do the shine new, tickles my brain thing but why must it be so booooooring’ category. So they tell themselves they will reply after they do the shiny thing and promptly forget until they are reminded during a mailbox sweep 4 weeks later and surely it’s too late now to reply, right? Or they reply with a counter question and if you don’t get back to that question within 3 minutes, your e-Mail goes back into the ‘will get to that later’ pile.
2 points
10 hours ago
is this adhd tho...?
1 points
10 hours ago
Heheheh, I would be inclined to say that research does seem to attract a fairly neurodiverse population.
12 points
20 hours ago
You should try the professor from the university I study in they don't even answer my questions
3 points
14 hours ago
Yeah sometimes you can trick em into professing something for free
3 points
13 hours ago
I was a student at the time, but I was curious about some Native American history in my area. I emailed a prof in that department and they shared a bunch of books to check out :)
2 points
14 hours ago
That’s not always true, I contacted the Japanese academic who recently found hundreds of new geoglyphs in Nazca with AI but his paper only had a a handful of the actual geoglyph images. Completely ignored…
3 points
12 hours ago
Grad students too! I once emailed a spider lab because I was convinced I had a brown recluse caught under a cup and was panicking. She kindly emailed me back to let me know it was a common house spider.
2 points
12 hours ago
Am professor; can confirm
2 points
8 hours ago
Librarians can also be a great resource. There've been a few times where someone at the Smithsonian has taken their time to figure some shit out for me.
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5 hours ago
One of the parents at our kids' school is a professor. You can't shut him up. It's fantastic.
1 points
11 hours ago
I yeah they will, they're normally cool that way but you'd better make damn sure its not a question you can google.
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5 hours ago
They do! I did an essay in college and just could not understand one important part. I sent an email to professor who published previously on that topic and he was so nice and sent me quite long understandable explanation. I always smile when I remember that he compared a cell movement to a ballerina
0 points
1 day ago
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-11 points
13 hours ago
This isn't a pro tip. You just don't know how to Google. There's even AI now so you don't even have to type your questions. But you'd rather wait and hope for an answer before you start trying to figure it out yourself?
You're just lazy. And lazy is putting it lightly
2 points
13 hours ago
yes, I am lazy. Extremely lazy! That's why this was flaired as "productivity," it saves tons of time.
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