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An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

reuters.com

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Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#141

Post by studentrob »

jchiu1106 wrote: post #133

As a former Chinese international student graduated from one of the top Canadian universities with distinction, I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, the toxic culture permeated the Chinese visa student community is definitely responsible for the high rate of cheating. Most Chinese visa students came to study in the west did not came to pursue academic excellence. They (and their parents most likely) see it…

> The media singling out a group such as the Chinese visa students is certainly a popular thing to do to gain clicks

There are a lot of Chinese in American schools. They account for a greater proportion of students.

There are also ton of really bright Chinese like yourself who work hard. News articles don't tell the full story, but I think most readers understand and can identify stereotypes. If they can't, well, that's their loss.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#142

Post by throwaway5321 »

jchiu1106 wrote: post #133

As a former Chinese international student graduated from one of the top Canadian universities with distinction, I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, the toxic culture permeated the Chinese visa student community is definitely responsible for the high rate of cheating. Most Chinese visa students came to study in the west did not came to pursue academic excellence. They (and their parents most likely) see it…

Life is unfair and people are racist, and I don't think it would change in the future. But at least you will earn much more money than the average person (especially compared to the world), which can compensate for the problems you had somewhat.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#143

Post by Snargorf »

kirrent wrote: post #12

Australia is also a popular destination for Chinese students and sees high rates of cheating for many of the same reasons as those given in the article. Poor language skills allowed by lax student visa requirements, isolation, and the high penalties for failing a course when your family is paying full price creates desperation. 4 corners did a pretty good story on it and the smh investigation into MyMaster was also p…

Non-Chinese students also have those same problems, but they don't cheat like the Chinese.

Chinese students cheat because cheating is part of Chinese culture. Go to China and you'll be shocked at how little people care about others in public, or society at large.

This is a place where bystanders will watch cars swerve wildly around an open manhole cover over and over, nearly getting in accidents, doing nothing to help. When the Westerner comes by and closes the manhole cover, the Chinese are surprised. They'd never consider doing anything like that, because - what's in it for them?

This is a country where people pay others to go to prison for them. If they clip a child with their car, they'll deliberately run over the child again and again to make sure he dies and doesn't create hospital bills.

I was never more staggered by rampant, blatant cheating, plagiarism or dishonesty than when I spent a semester studying in a university there. For someone raised in the West, Chinese callousness and dishonesty towards strangers is unbelievable until you experience it.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#144

Post by studentrob »

kirrent wrote: post #12

Australia is also a popular destination for Chinese students and sees high rates of cheating for many of the same reasons as those given in the article. Poor language skills allowed by lax student visa requirements, isolation, and the high penalties for failing a course when your family is paying full price creates desperation. 4 corners did a pretty good story on it and the smh investigation into MyMaster was also p…

The Chinese pay full tuition.

Unless schools start getting more strict, this trend will continue

I believe schools have some charter with the government about this. In exchange for federal money, schools agree to uphold some standard of quality. If they are failing at that, it could be grounds for other students to sue the school.

This happened at UNC when athletes were taking bogus classes [1], but the judge tossed out the case because the students waited too long to sue [2]

FIRE is a firm whose stated goal is to defend individual rights in education [3]. I'm sure they'd be interested.

[1] http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/01/sport/ncaa-response-to-law...

[2] http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/articl...

[3] https://www.thefire.org/

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#145

Post by superuser2 »

kodablah wrote: post #128
superuser2 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think you can assess whether they've "got the chops" in an interview better than a university can assess competency in four years?

Because having chops in one area doesn't necessarily correlate to having them in another (i.e. student vs employee). Couple that with individual valuation and personality evaluation, and it seems foolish to accept the university's assessment. Maybe if you were hiring in groups and needed impersonal metrics it would be different.

Why do you believe whiteboarding skills are more highly correlated with success as an employee than academic performance?

Or are you referring to something other than the standard coding interview?

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#146

Post by studentrob »

Cyph0n wrote: post #129
qrendel wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're not part of a fraterntiy/sorority that archives coursework/tests of previous students or part of an international student in-group then you can easily fall through the cracks from this grade deflation effect. That is a huge problem for a lot of us more introverted types, especially if you're a transfer student from another school. I remember taking a bunch of classes where I didn't know anyone and had no…

I'm also introverted, but it was my choice not to take the easy way out. >90% of students in my classes cheated on everything - if there was no way to cheat, the world would end for these guys. It's hilarious when you see students sharing answers on an ethics exam! Cheating may get you the degree and a good GPA, but you really won't learn that much. I for one came to university to learn as much as possible. In the en…

> I like to think it's all thanks to doing things ethically rather than cheating my way through college, but perhaps I'm just lucky.

No way, take credit for your hard work. Congrats.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#147

Post by [deleted] »

coredog64 wrote: post #31
Afton wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've taught university classes, and failed students on the class for cheating. But it's true that I haven't seen anyone kicked out of a program or a university for cheating.

Anecdote: Foreign student where I went to school flat out cheated on the final. When caught, he copped to it. A humanities prof then went to bat for him, saying that it was okay to cheat where he came from. They didn't expel him.

[deleted]

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#148

Post by kabdib »

superuser2 wrote: post #110
kabdib wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just interview people. I really don't care where they went to school, or if they have a degree. If they've got the chops, that's all I care about. In a small company it's pretty easy to avoid the automatic filters of large companies, the ones that screen out applicants without degrees, or from "wrong" universities, or who have low GPAs. Most of these metrics don't seem to matter in the long run (but they are easy f…

Why do you think you can assess whether they've "got the chops" in an interview better than a university can assess competency in four years?

Candidate A stuck it out for four years. They took all the right classes. But they didn't do much of anything else.

Candidate B dropped out after three years. But they've done some quite interesting side projects, they know a bunch of languages, and stuff outside the coursework, and the courses they took were the harder ones.

Generally, and for openers, 'A' is gonna struggle explaining what the heck an XOR is, while 'B' is going to toss off the answer in a couple of seconds. And their skills just keep diverging from there. I'll have confidence that 'B' will keep growing and learning, and they're going to be a handful, while 'A' is going to need to be told what to do, and that will be tiresome.

This ^^^ is kind of a parody, but you can tell what I'm looking for, early on. (People with more experience, I look for significant contributions to hard problems, and I'm really interested in how people decide what to work on).

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#149

Post by SolaceQuantum »

Snargorf wrote: post #143
kirrent wrote: post #12

Australia is also a popular destination for Chinese students and sees high rates of cheating for many of the same reasons as those given in the article. Poor language skills allowed by lax student visa requirements, isolation, and the high penalties for failing a course when your family is paying full price creates desperation. 4 corners did a pretty good story on it and the smh investigation into MyMaster was also p…

Non-Chinese students also have those same problems, but they don't cheat like the Chinese. Chinese students cheat because cheating is part of Chinese culture. Go to China and you'll be shocked at how little people care about others in public, or society at large. This is a place where bystanders will watch cars swerve wildly around an open manhole cover over and over, nearly getting in accidents, doing nothing to hel…

> Chinese students cheat because cheating is part of Chinese culture. Go to China and you'll be shocked at how little people care about others in public, or society at large.

I am Chinese and I would respectfully disagree that cheating is some part of Chinese culture. The only example you gave was basically the bystander effect in action, which you then ascribe to... cheating somehow? Moral depravity of millions of people?

Chinese callousness towards strangers is shocking. Wait till you see what some us politicians have to say about foreigners!

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#150

Post by mrep »

tdeck wrote: post #89
mrep wrote: post #53

I went to a public university with a large international population and this doesn't surprise me in the slightest. A lot of the international students were extremely poor at english. One of the guys on my software project team was an international student who confirmed that it was very easy to pay someone to take the english proficiency exam. Us Americans aren't so innocent though. The amount of adderall/vyvanse/rita…

These types of discussions always depress me. You'd think from reading them that everyone has cheated or popped some Adderall at some point, and it's a normal part of college. Is that really true? I never have, unless you count making up excuses for turning in the occasional thing late. I worked hard in school and got decent but not amazing grades (3.7 something). When I hear this shit it makes me feel like I was pla…

Don't feel bad. Cheating is like taking on technical debt. It's a short term reward, but it usually comes back to haunt you. After graduating, their employer will learn that they aren't nearly as good as their resume said they were and with your greater knowledge and word ethic, you'll probably come out ahead.
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