u/kinezumi89

I'm looking to get my first credit card. I read here that secured credit cards may not help you build credit if they don't report your on-time payments.

Can I assume that any card not advertised as secured will help build my credit? I bank through Chase, so I'm looking at the Chase Freedom Unlimited card - I don't see anything mentioning secured or not; can I assume it isn't a secured card?

Thanks for any info!

I'm looking to work with a financial advisor, but I can't find any information about them on my bank's website. I guess I imagined I would look up their credentials and make an informed choice, but it seems I just call the number and they randomly assign someone to me - is that correct? How can I trust that the person I'm assigned will make good decisions? What if they pair me with someone brand new with no experience?

Unrelatedly, is it possible to work with someone solely remotely, discussing by phone and not meeting in person? Or is it advisable to be able to meet face-to-face?

Thanks for any info! (and for helping me feel less anxious about this whole situation, haha)

I typically grade clicker questions 50/50 participation/accuracy: i.e. even if you answer wrong, you still get half credit, to encourage students to attend lecture. I teach math-heavy engineering courses, so some questions do require calculations, but many are just "are you following along?"-type conceptual questions (and I make the computational questions a bit on the simpler side).

I've heard that clicker questions should be graded based on participation only - that expecting students to demonstrate competency so soon after learning the material is too stressful/too much pressure. However, one semester I tried 75/25 grading (3/4 credit just for answering), and I noticed many more students seemed to be answering "0" or "1" for everything, just to get the partial credit without having to do any work.

It's so frustrating to give them a practice problem (here's a chance for you to try out your understanding and ask questions if you have them, before you get to the homework!) but so many students aren't engaged and simply respond with anything to get the partial credit - I can't imagine the trend would be any better with 100/0 grading.

So, I'd love to hear experiences from other instructors who also use iClicker in lecture, ideally for math-based courses with questions requiring calculations. If you award full credit for participation, does it seem that many students are answering randomly just to earn credit? If not, is there anything you do to encourage actually solving/thinking about the questions?

Thanks for any insight!

People ask all the time "how cold can peppers tolerate"; I know they're okay even down to the mid-30s, but I don't want to just make sure my plants survive, I want to avoid stunting/slowing their growth due to low temps.

I've been bringing them inside if the forecasted low is below 45F, but we have many nights in the low 40s/high 30s over the next few weeks and I'm not looking forward to bringing in over a dozen 1gal pots every other night. (If size/age matters, most are currently around a foot tall, though I have some younger/shorter and some bigger/older ones)

Am I being too conservative? What's the minimum temp that you'll leave pepper plants outside overnight? They're looking great and I want to keep them that way, so if it's necessary, I'll totally do it, just want to make sure I'm not wasting the effort :) Thanks for sharing your thoughts!