How can they force you? Why does the university allow that?
The class was originally created because some of the Cal Poly's teachers were tired of the project that students were given at the time for the Technical Writing for Engineers class (Engl 149), which required students to make a fictional product and then write a user manual from it.
Most of the responses from teachers and students has been positive now that we have been running the program for two years. There are still some teachers that teach the class the old way, so if students dislike the project and want to write a twenty page paper instead, they are welcome to take the class with those teachers instead. Also we have excepted requests from students who want their work taken off of the website after the quarter is done.
As for being losers, well, sorry?
That is not true, iFixIt CAME to the english department to ask for free content for their website but covered it as a "great technical writing experience."
>"Most of the responses from teachers and students has been positive now that we have been running the program for two years."
Uhhhh where are you getting your responses? Most people will give good reviews since YOU MAKE OUR GRADE. If you report to our teachers that we did a bad job, WE FAIL. Of course we will say we enjoyed it since you control our fate. I think its crazy that iFixIt has control over students grades.
>"and want to write a twenty page paper instead"
That is not standard practice in ANY 149 class. There is a final project but 20 pages? Thats extremely class-dependent!
Edit: and their standards are EXTREMELY high. We have to go way out of our way to meet them. Perfect cameras, perfect room lighting, perfect hands to hold the devices, perfect backgrounds... Many times we were forced to redo our guides and go well over the bounds of a 100 level class....all so iFixit could benefit financially.
Also, I was there when we were initially approached and took 149 back when students had to write a long paper in all of the classes.
If you have more complaints or would like some of your facts verified, feel free to email me at nat@ifixit.com
