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Writing papers for American college students has become lucrative overseas

nytimes.com

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Re: Writing papers for American college students has become lucrative overseas

#11

Post by spodek »

jpm_sd wrote: post #6
spodek wrote: post #5

Visiting a high school my friend founded to be inquiry-driven project-based learning from the ground up moved me away from teaching in ways divorced from regular life. From a systemic approach, it's hard not to look at the universities and professors creating the system that this article describes: assign homework irrelevant to their lives and they'll find irrelevant ways to do it. Since I've never written an analyti…

Tell us more! What's the name of your school? Can I send my kids there?

I teach at NYU. My courses are in book form too:

https://www.amazon.com/Initiative-Proven-Method-Bring-Passio...

https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Step-Become-Person-Others/...

My friend's school that inspired me is Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. He's given TEDx talks and keynotes online:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS2IPfWZQM4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FEMCyHYTyQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSE-eJAye5Y

Re: Writing papers for American college students has become lucrative overseas

#12

Post by meowface »

abfan1127 wrote: post #3
lettergram wrote: post #2

One of my family members paid their way through school writing papers for others... in the 80s. I don’t think this is a new thing. I used to do consulting / tutoring for programming. Tutoring was $50 per hour, consulting was $100 per hour. Probably 50% of the students I tutored asked me to write programs for them. I’d tell them my consulting rate, in an attempt to persuade them against this path and most wouldn’t bat…

what I don't understand is how they get through the tests.

Often it's more about laziness and motivation than lack of skill. A high percentage of college students can write a mediocre or above 10 page paper but also just really don't want to. They'd rather do something fun and pay someone if it doesn't cost them much. Answering (typically) multiple choice questions and short-response questions is a totally different thing.

I never used such a service, but I do see the appeal. I did kind of similar things, in my own way, to reduce time spent on courses I didn't like (skipping class, skipping or skimming material, exam cramming). Not saying it's a good thing, and it probably hurts one's already poor work ethic, but life is short and I don't really blame them that much.

Re: Writing papers for American college students has become lucrative overseas

#13

Post by [deleted] »

maxerickson wrote: post #7
lettergram wrote: post #2

One of my family members paid their way through school writing papers for others... in the 80s. I don’t think this is a new thing. I used to do consulting / tutoring for programming. Tutoring was $50 per hour, consulting was $100 per hour. Probably 50% of the students I tutored asked me to write programs for them. I’d tell them my consulting rate, in an attempt to persuade them against this path and most wouldn’t bat…

If you were really trying to be persuasive you would have said no.

[deleted]

Re: Writing papers for American college students has become lucrative overseas

#15

Post by rootusrootus »

abfan1127 wrote: post #3
lettergram wrote: post #2

One of my family members paid their way through school writing papers for others... in the 80s. I don’t think this is a new thing. I used to do consulting / tutoring for programming. Tutoring was $50 per hour, consulting was $100 per hour. Probably 50% of the students I tutored asked me to write programs for them. I’d tell them my consulting rate, in an attempt to persuade them against this path and most wouldn’t bat…

what I don't understand is how they get through the tests.

Anecdotally, more than half the classes I've taken at GT (OMSCS) so far have graded entirely on homework, projects, and participation, with no tests.

Re: Writing papers for American college students has become lucrative overseas

#16

Post by woopwoop »

lettergram wrote: post #2

One of my family members paid their way through school writing papers for others... in the 80s. I don’t think this is a new thing. I used to do consulting / tutoring for programming. Tutoring was $50 per hour, consulting was $100 per hour. Probably 50% of the students I tutored asked me to write programs for them. I’d tell them my consulting rate, in an attempt to persuade them against this path and most wouldn’t bat…

Instructors are often unbelievably naive about this, saying things to the effect of "Cheaters are really obvious, so there can't be that much of it." No, the cheaters that you catch are really obvious.

Re: Writing papers for American college students has become lucrative overseas

#17

Post by rootusrootus »

user764743 wrote: post #14

To counter this sort of cheating, one of my prof had us defend our papers in a one on one 'podcast' interview with him for 10-15 minutes and then graded the paper based on our performance.

Seems like that would work only in smaller classes. It quickly becomes a real headache when you have hundreds of students.

Re: Writing papers for American college students has become lucrative overseas

#18

Post by davebindy »

lettergram wrote: post #2

One of my family members paid their way through school writing papers for others... in the 80s. I don’t think this is a new thing. I used to do consulting / tutoring for programming. Tutoring was $50 per hour, consulting was $100 per hour. Probably 50% of the students I tutored asked me to write programs for them. I’d tell them my consulting rate, in an attempt to persuade them against this path and most wouldn’t bat…

>One of my family members paid their way through school writing papers for others... in the 80s. I don’t think this is a new thing.

It isn't. In the mid-1970s I worked in the office of a company that sold term papers to students. We had a huge catalog of them, on about every conceivable topic. And we weren't the only company in that particular business.

It wasn't a particularly lucractive business, and the guy who owned the company closed it fairly quickly. He was an interesting guy - after that company, he spent a year or so developing a solution that would fade denim in your washing machine (I worked for him in that company as well), which he sold for a bundle (at the time) to a major detergent company. Later he became a mover and shaker in the autograph/original document field.

Re: Writing papers for American college students has become lucrative overseas

#20

Post by throwawaysea »

meowface wrote: post #12
abfan1127 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what I don't understand is how they get through the tests.

Often it's more about laziness and motivation than lack of skill. A high percentage of college students can write a mediocre or above 10 page paper but also just really don't want to. They'd rather do something fun and pay someone if it doesn't cost them much. Answering (typically) multiple choice questions and short-response questions is a totally different thing. I never used such a service, but I do see the appeal…

That suggests that these assignments are more like busy work, since the students are otherwise talented and qualified? Maybe it is a good thing after all?
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