---
# System prepended metadata

title: ll-microproject-initial-harvard-life-content-2-airtable

---

# ll-microproject-initial-harvard-life-content-2-airtable

let's start with it here and then migrate to airtable.

Undecided currently about whether we'll have a 

- **games**, which may contain
- **levels**, which may contain multiple
- **situations**, which may contain multiple
- **choices**

or just

- **games**, which may contain multiple
- **situations**, which may contain multiple
- **choices**

then to support the gameplay we'll also have

- **players**, who will initiate
- **sessions**, which will involve multiple
- **moves**

for more advanced games, we can imagine adding

- **items**, which will be stored in
- **inventories**

and perhaps

- **achievements** or
- **quests** and **sidequests**

and other levelling-up mechanics.



the text

## Harvard Life

### Game Description
Harvard Life is an interactive story game that allows faculty to assume the position of an undergraduate student. In this role, faculty players are faced with circumstances and conditions that many BIPOC and FGLI students regularly face. As players make choices, they receive emails from faculty and TFs that inform players of course policies, advise players on the discipline, and evaluate players’ behavior. The purpose of the game is to offer faculty the chance to learn about the challenges that BIPOC and FGLI face inside and outside of the classroom, give faculty a chance to reflect on their assumptions about students, and ask them to consider how they might want to interact with students differently based on this experience.

### Scenarios
#### Weeding Out 

**Situation:**
You are a prospective computer science concentrator and a first-year enrolled in CS50. You are two months into the course and are taking the class without any prior coding experience or computer science education. Even though the course is meant to be an introductory coding course for those without coding background, you are not used to the pace or structure of the course so you are struggling to stay afloat in the class and are beginning to second guess your future in computer science. You fear that if you continue as you are you will fail the course and start off your college career with a low GPA and in poor academic standing. 

You email the CS50 course staff and explain that you are a first year interested in concentrating in computer science and that you come from a low-performing school district so you don’t have any prior coding exposure nor do you have the problem solving skills or critical thinking skills needed to solve the problem sets or understand the material, and you fear you will fail the course as you continue to submit problem sets past the due date as you need extra time to work on them. 

**Email from Faculty:** 
Template 1
Dear student,

Thank you for your email. I am sorry to hear that you are having a difficult time matriculating into this semester. Unfortunately, as the syllabus outlines: late work is not permitted and extensions are not approved under any circumstances. This rule is implemented to ensure equality among the students. The due date is final. 

Thanks,
Professor

**Action Choices in Response to Email from Faculty:** 
- Drop the Course
- Email a different course staff
- Continue with the course and hope you get the hang of it

**Development of Circumstance:**
You email your academic advisor and tell them that you are struggling with CS50 and want to drop the course. Your academic advisor warns you of the consequences such as having a WD on your transcript and needing to make up the credits later on in your college career. You’d rather not risk failing so you drop the course anyway and email the course staff to inform them that you will be dropping the course and you hope to take it again in the future. 
You notice the response you received was sent by a TF that you’ve heard is new this semester. You hope that directly emailing the course head instead will give you a different outcome as they likely have more experience with students and a lot more control over extensions and grades. You email the course head explaining the same situation and anxiously wait for a response. 
You hope that if you continue with the course and attend office hours you will learn what you need to excel in the course. After a month nothing has really changed and you’re dangerously close to burning out already so soon into your first year. 

**Email from course head:**
Template where faculty says something along the lines of “if you can’t handle the class maybe you shouldn’t concentrate in CS, it only gets harder from here” or “it is too late in the semester to make it up so they should talk to their advisor about dropping and taking it at another point in time.”

**Action Choices in Response to Email from Faculty:** 
 Next choices for 1
After some crying and serious rethinking of your future plans you decide to go through with dropping the course and you give up on a CS concentration since the course staff is probably right and you’re just not cut out for CS. You start thinking about what other concentrations you might pursue. 
You feel hurt by the email but are also angry that the faculty are not supporting you and are instead bringing you down. Instead, you aim to prove them wrong by continuing with the course and instead drop a different course so you have more time to dedicate to this class.
Next choices for 2
You are very frustrated with the response and you feel it is unfair. As an FGLI student, you are frustrated with the expectation that is being held over you that you should know the course of action for everything despite never having been in this environment before. Since the course staff are not helping you, you choose to drop the course and ensure that you do not fail. 
You are very frustrated with the response and you feel it is unfair. As an FGLI student, you are frustrated with the expectation that is being held over you that you should know the course of action for everything despite never having been in this environment before. You choose to continue with the course since dropping a class feels like admitting failure although you’re aware that you won’t be ending the semester with a great GPA. 
Next choices for 3
You are frustrated since it feels like you haven’t been given much of a chance to breathe. You got thrown into college courses without preparation and now feel overwhelmed that you can’t seem to get anything right. You choose to drop the class and also start rethinking your concentration choices and even if college is right for you. 
You are frustrated since it feels like you haven’t been given much of a chance to breathe. You got thrown into college courses without preparation and now feel overwhelmed that you can’t seem to get anything right. You choose to continue with the course since dropping a class feels like admitting failure although you’re aware that you won’t be ending the semester with a great GPA. 
Final: 
In any of the choices you made, the constant doubting of your place in CS or even in college was in the back of your mind. As an FGLI student, you were unaware of how to navigate spaces like office hours so you didn’t, where to seek extra academic help so you couldn’t, and even who to talk to about your struggles so you held it all in. Your mental health is deteriorating and you really feel too stupid to continue with CS despite it being incredibly interesting to you. The lack of resources and support have made it feel like you’ll never be able to make it in computer science and whether you continue to try and push through or you give up and choose a different path, this doubt, frustration, and sadness will always be with you. 


#### An Unusual Circumstance
**Situation:**
You are a first-generation, low-income first-year student who comes from a low-ranking high school where you weren’t taught the hidden curriculum such as office hours, facilitating communication outside of the classroom, and other useful methods for ensuring a good relationship with your professors. You are very passionate about your studies. Despite your lack of academic experience, you have been performing well and managed to stay afloat. You receive a call from your mother that there has been a shooting in your neighborhood and several of your childhood friends and brother are involved. Two of your friends are in critical condition and your brother is nowhere to be found. She tells you this unaware that you have a huge final in two days. Receiving this news has several unintended consequences you did not expect as it is the first time an incident like this has occurred while away from home. For the next two days you are struggling with focusing, sleeping, and eating. As a result, you are completely unprepared for the exam and unconfident that you will be able to perform well during the exam. 

You choose to not reach out to the professor as you are unsure of how to properly communicate what happened out of fear of alienation and oversharing. You follow through with the exam despite knowing that you are unprepared. 
You fail the exam despite trying to do everything to prepare for it. You are unable to ask for help and even more embarrassed and alienated.

**Next choices:**
Your professor is concerned with your score, but because you did not reach out to him he has no additional context. You schedule an office hours visit with him to talk about ways to potentially increase your grades. 
You visit your professor. He asks about what caused you to perform in the manner in which you did. You inform about what is going on and he grants you a few opportunities to increase your grade. 
Your professor is concerned with your score, but because you did not reach out to him he has no additional context. Your bad score pushes you into an even deeper rut causing you to decline more over the semester.
Your final grade in the class is barely passing. You never reached out to your professor or any other supervisor leaving you with nobody to advocate for you.

You tell your friend about your dilemma because she comes from a similar background and attended a top boarding school. She tells you to tell the professor you had a family emergency and that you do not believe you can do well on the exam with your current mental state. 
You sent an email telling the professor you had a family emergency and do not believe you can do well on the exam with your current mental state. You had a conversation with your friend the day before because she came to visit you while you were isolating yourself. You send the email the morning of the exam. The professor responds saying that there are not any make-up options and you will have to come to the exam.

**Next choices:**
You take the exam as told and barely pass the exam. Your professor notices how much lower your score is and reaches out to you to come in to discuss. 
The professor tells you that he notices that you have not been performing as well as you usually do. He asks what has contributed to this decline. You tell him what is going on and he gives you an opportunity to drop this exam and make the following exam worth double. 
You choose not to come to the exam despite being instructed to by the professor. The anxiety coming from multiple parts of your life is too debilitating for you to confront an exam as well. 
The professor and your residential dean reach out to you out of concern. You tell your residential dean what has been going on and he encourages you to take a leave of absence and offers little help concerning the exam. You go to class the following week and stay after. You tell the professor what has been going on. He gives you the opportunity to make up missed points in other forms because he has a zero tolerance policy for missed exams.

#### Final:
[TBD]

#### Aesthetics for the Game
Kaysia and Jailene both liked the illustration style of [Episode](https://www.episodeinteractive.com/) and thought it would work well for the Harvard Life game.
