The Shadow Scholar
chronicle.com
The Shadow Scholar
1–10 of 115 posts
Re: The Shadow Scholar
#2"it's hard to determine which course of study is most infested with cheating. But I'd say education is the worst."
Re: The Shadow Scholar
#3This is why I like HN so much---the entire culture is aimed at getting rich by startup, which is a mercilessly meritocratic process. It's extremely focused on what can you do?
An hour spent hacking to make something useful or cool is never a wasted hour. But wouldn't it suck to realize that you spent years in grad school without even learning anything?
In any case, this sort of news---the rise of cheating---is both good news and bad news for founders. The good is that your competitors are probably hiring these people. Especially so for folks like AirBnB who are competing with hotel chains, etc.
The bad, of course, is that when hiring, you might run into people like this. But if your hiring process>your competitor's process, then this is very much a net gain for you.
Re: The Shadow Scholar
#4[deleted]
Re: The Shadow Scholar
#5I am involved with a startup working on this problem (http://GuruFi.com).
Fundamentally this problem is derives from the fact that it is difficult for people to learn how to write and structure their ideas. Hell thats basically the whole point of PhD programs, and people spend years finishing them.
With the internet, it becomes really easy to just pay someone else who already knows how to write to do the work for you.
The only real solution to this that I see is to make these services legitimate as a teaching outlet rather than as a cheating outlet. Force people to write a draft. In editing, don't rewrite, just comment and give people feedback as to how they can improve the structure of their document. In general have the people feel that they are getting taught rather than just getting a product.
My hope is that creating a legitimate service will encroach the market people like this target, and will actually force students to learn something through their writing assignments.
Re: The Shadow Scholar
#6Most telling quote: As long as it doesn't require me to do any math, I will write anything.
Re: The Shadow Scholar
#7This is good news for the education system. Now they have competition that magnifies the flaws in their practice.
Re: The Shadow Scholar
#8This is good news for the education system. Now they have competition that magnifies the flaws in their practice.
I don't know. Isn't this a subsystem that hides the flaws.
Writing the article exposes some flaws but even then, most professors who read this aren't going to be able to pick out of a line up which of their students have used such services.
Re: The Shadow Scholar
#9"Customers' orders are endlessly different yet strangely all the same. No matter what the subject, clients want to be assured that their assignment is in capable hands. It would be terrible to think that your Ivy League graduate thesis was riding on the work ethic and perspicacity of a public-university slacker. So part of my job is to be whatever my clients want me to be. I say yes when I am asked if I have a Ph.D. in sociology. I say yes when I am asked if I have professional training in industrial/organizational psychology. I say yes when asked if I have ever designed a perpetual-motion-powered time machine and documented my efforts in a peer-reviewed journal."
Lol.
Re: The Shadow Scholar
#10While the deficient student will generally not know how to ask for what he wants until he doesn't get it, the lazy rich student will know exactly what he wants. He is poised for a life of paying others and telling them what to do. Indeed, he is acquiring all the skills he needs to stay on top.
What's scary is how far the lazy rich kid will be able to go with this, with a promising career in management. I wouldn't want to work for someone like this, but it is easy to imagine him being very effective. (For all I know I could have worked under one of these before, and not even hated it.)