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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

#161

Post by Terr_ »

darawk wrote: post #57
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…

To be fair, there is a difference between adderall and actual cheating. One of these is a thing that helps you do your own work better, and the other is hiring someone else to do your work for you. One of these things is fraudulent, and the other is simply performance enhancement. Taking Adderall to study doesn't make you less competent at the subject in question, whereas cheating your way through tests does.

> Taking Adderall to study doesn't make you less competent at the subject in question

1. Is exam-cram really the same as knowledge?

2. Test performance can often a zero-sum game, when curved. So dopers may have better performance, but they are indirectly harming all the honest kids.

3. Is it desirable to tie better-performance to having money/connections and weak ethics? (Whether similar to full-time work or not.)

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

#162

Post by studentrob »

fatman13gg wrote: post #93

> U.S. universities offer an easier way to get ahead, with a quality education and better job prospects. The better job prospects part might not be true. Those came back to China for jobs will get their current position with or without a U.S. degree.

.... with the US degree they have a chance to get a job in the US with a higher salary

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

#163

Post by studentrob »

davidmr wrote: post #5
IndianAstronaut wrote: post #4

I am sure they could stop it but the money the students bring is too valuable.

I have no relevant experience in academic finance, but I sincerely doubt it. The brand and reputation of the universities are what allows them to charge so much for tuition and get prestigious faculty (i.e. grant money). Besides, at a large research University, tuition is usually not the majority of their income ( http://www.uiowa.edu/homepage/about-university/budget )

> The brand and reputation of the universities are what allows them to charge so much for tuition and get prestigious faculty (i.e. grant money).

The effects of this issue are not widely understood by the general public. The general public think this kind of thing doesn't hurt the quality of education in the US. We know better.

Only we know because we all attended schools for science which are inundated with Chinese students, particularly at the graduate level.

The schools' reputations will not be hurt until someone sues them. I'm convinced someone in this thread could bring a case against their school and do a lot of good for the US educational system.

http://thefire.org/

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

#164

Post by gumby »

xviia wrote: post #56
yeowMeng wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone else like Bob Dylan... If people cheat, I believe there is a slow train comming. Example: I had a friend who had an interview for company XYZ, "Write a program that clicks the first link in a wikipedia entry and exits when you reach the philosophy page (implement in the language of your choice). You have 15 mins"... My friend was a really hard working, intelligent, and honest guy and he could not do it... i do…

How would this be done? What kind of language, etc. would enable this?

A simple shell script with curl piped through sed or awk...

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

#165

Post by Cyph0n »

studentrob wrote: post #146
Cyph0n wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thanks man!

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

#166

Post by studentrob »

leroy_masochist wrote: post #72
netheril96 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should the Chinese government help Chinese apply to American universities and companies? They certainly want the best and brightest to stay home.

True, but they also want their young people to get the best quality education available, especially in STEM, which is currently (and probably not forever) disproportionately situated in America.

No free speech. It hurts their educational systems very deeply. They also have a culture of bribing/gifting, from middle school up into the business world and government.

It all boils down to the government wanting to hold onto Asian culture, avoid conflict, keep control and save face.

They view democracy as America's attempt to insert a US-friendly leader. Democracies are arguably the best peace keepers humanity has ever seen, however, China does not view it this way.

This is my perspective after living in SE Asia for 2 years and Taiwan for 2 years. I travel through China occasionally.

Visit China, you can see for yourself

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

#167

Post by studentrob »

thesimpsons1022 wrote: post #96
netheril96 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only a small fraction of the Chinese admitted into Harvard, MIT, Princeton and Stanford return after their education. Neither does most of Google and Facebook employees who are born in China. The brightest talents of China serve the United States mostly (even though the US places a lot of handicap on them, e.g. the cap on H1B). Can you now imagine why Chinese government is not incentivized?

what you have to consider is they will send money home and have many connections in China

That's not as good for China as these students building businesses within China, however.

We all see the benefits of China preparing its students better. China isn't fully on the same page yet.

Since reopening trade relations with the US in the 70s after Kissinger's visits, they've only gradually benefited from increased relations. Their growth is constrained by the government's stranglehold on the internet and media. People are constantly jailed for speech that would be considered innocuous in the West.

Many native English speakers will go to China to work as English teachers, but there are not enough teachers to cover all of China. There are so many Chinese people that huge swaths of them will never be directly educated by a native English speaker. Some of these kids enter into American schools, and this post and thread is the result. Students cheat as they realize they're in way over their heads, and the rest of us get annoyed at the devaluation of our degrees and industries. Industries are hurt when unqualified folks are hired based on a supposedly legitimate degree.

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

#169

Post by studentrob »

hoodoof wrote: post #13

I know its naive but I find it really hard to understand why people value the piece of paper more than the knowledge. The good news is that you can't cheat as a software developer. Or maybe you can? Depressing thought.

> I know its naive but I find it really hard to understand why people value the piece of paper more than the knowledge.

It's used as a filter. On paper, you look good, so you get an interview.

When many applicants are "fake" degrees, industries get the impression that there simply isn't good talent out there. Employers don't have a reliable means of knowing the likelihood someone is a good engineer. Employers could try to filter based on Asian-sounding last names, but that would be illegal and cheating themselves out of candidates who actually did work hard in school.

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

#170

Post by studentrob »

MichaelGG wrote: post #123
redcap wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's the story about a developer who outsourced his work to China so that he could browse reddit: http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2013/01/16/verizon-finds-de...

Doesn't the IRS view that if you cannot substitute labour, then you are not a contractor? http://art.mt.gov/artists/IRS_20pt_Checklist_%20Independent_... "Services rendered personally." (Couldn't find the same simple checklist on irs.gov). So it seems quite within his rights to outsource, no? Unless there's some clearance restriction or I'm just misunderstanding these guidelines?

He FedEx'ed his rotating RSA key fob to China. The Chinese worker used it to access the company network daily for 6 months.

I imagine the company could press some heavy charges if it wanted to.

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