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YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

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Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were a professionally immoral person, so it not bothering you much is probably a shitty metric. Surely the people who gravitate to this work are the least reliable people to assess the impact, sort of like pimps and dealers.

I never claimed to be a 'reliable person' to assess the impact. Just sharing my thoughts and experiences.

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Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#212
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When visiting a university in China, I saw a prominently displayed list of students who were caught cheating in the most recent term. I haven't yet seen such lists in American universities.

That’s because American universities don’t put your name on a list when you cheat. They expel you.

Actually, not usually for first offenses (from my experience as college instructor)

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#213
post #126

A bit of chatter here about "it eventually catches up to people anyway" that I think misses the point. You want people to learn when the stakes are low. This is better for them, and it's better for all of us. School should gradually go from low stakes to higher stakes, not be a low-stakes zone the whole time that then tosses people into the real world. Otherwise you're presented with terrible choices like expelling a…

> You want people to learn when the stakes are low. I totally agree with this. However, I'm not sure that students in middle/high school realize that the stakes are, in fact, low. The teachers and programs emphasize exactly the opposite. "Oh this is going on your permanent record", whatever that is. "If you screw this up there's no way you'll be ready for university-level classes." On and on, and what a load of bull…

I think that they think the stakes are in fact higher than they are is the point.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#214
post #29

On a related theme - does anyone know how many people cheat on the initial round hiring tests? Seems pretty easy to outsource, but I'm not sure how common it is. I've always assumed our applicants did the work themselves but maybe I'm naieve. TBH if I was applying myself I'd be pretty tempted as usually its just a time suck.

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Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#215
post #209
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When are the stakes low vs. high when it comes to academic plagiarism? I would think that the stakes are always quite low, at least until you get to post-graduate academic work where plagiarism can have legal or serious ethical (e.g. medical research) problems. You seem to be claiming that at some point the stakes become "truly" high, and thus we ought to artificially punish plagiarism so that people learn that there…

A recent TIFU (Today I Fucked Up) on Reddit, depending if you believe it - I'm inclined not to, described such a situation: https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/8g33nv/tifu_by_plagia... They were allegedly expelled for plagiarising a 500 word essay. > She sent me to the dean with the recommendation that I be expelled. Now the dean told me I can't graduate. I spent 4 years working on an engineering degree. I have ov…

Agreed. But nothing special about it. People's lives are ruined for stupid mistakes all the time. Some of those mistakes cost a hell of a lot more too. I'm talking of course about encounters with the criminal justice system

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#216
post #183

I think the solution to this is...classes have homework assignments throughout the semesters, but your final paper is one that you write in class. And it's like 50% of your grade. The purpose of the homework assignments throughout the semester is to prepare for the final. If you ace the final, even having paid for essays - then congrats you were able to learn. Cheating is too easy now. There's a website where you can…

> I think the solution to this is...classes have homework assignments throughout the semesters, but your final paper is one that you write in class. And it's like 50% of your grade. The purpose of the homework assignments throughout the semester is to prepare for the final. If you ace the final, even having paid for essays - then congrats you were able to learn.

Isn't this a blue book exam?

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#217
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A results-only education system would be preferable and would make some forms of cheating irrelevant. But it suffers from practical cost and scalability obstacles. We're already struggling to adequately fund public education. Are politicians willing to budget for additional teachers to evaluate student projects rather than relying on cheap and simple exams?

Maybe not, but companies are capable of assessing prospective employees. For the sake of my future children, that's all that matters to me. Fuck academia.

If you think the only important part of your children’s future is their ability to get hired, then you’re already setting them up for a life of misery and disappointment.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#218

I paid my rent and living expenses when pursuing my Masters degree by writing papers for services that helped undergrads cheat on class/term papers. I don't regret it at all. It helped me become a faster, more efficient author, and in my experience, the sort of student that would pay someone else to buy a paper will end up failing out one way or another regardless. I knew people that paid for papers in undergrand, an…

> I don't regret it at all.

I don't believe you. I think you do regret it and that's why you're spending so much time here today talking to people about it.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#219
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying "stealing isn't morally wrong - inventory control is retailers' responsibility and therefore it's their job to reduce loss".

Academic cheating is NOT morally wrong in a general sense. We only think it is because it's drilled into us from a young age by the educational system. But there's really no equivalent of "cheating" in real world industries where it's the results that matter. e.g. nobody cares if you took wrote the software yourself or got it from someone else's library, as long as the software product works. If cheating happens, it…

Attitudes like this are why we can't have good things.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheating can take from others. Merit scholarships are given based on class rank. If the #11 student cheats to get to #10, then they took scholarship money that someone else actually earned. This is a very real problem in my school district. Additionally, if you cheated to get good grades and got into a good university because of them, then you probably took the seat of someone that didn't cheat and was not accepted b…

Yes, precisely!!!! The system is. broken. to. begin. with. And not just with cheating, with a number of different factors. What incentive, as a student, do I have to NOT cheat if I won't get caught?

Learn. Which is the whole poiny of education in the first place.
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