Writing papers for American college students has become lucrative overseas • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by TrackerFF » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 4:58 PM UTC

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…

Well, academically speaking, the reason students learn to write papers the way they do, is probably to prep them best for academia - not the professional world (though many jobs are not mutually exclusive from what you do in academia - i.e research)

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

#42

Post by TrackerFF » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

GnarfGnarf wrote: post #34

The Decline and Fall of the American Empire. Will the students who purchased these essays go on to build bridges, rockets to the moon, cure cancer? Hah... Interestingly, there is probably little or no supply of German, Dutch, Scandinavian bootleg essay mills.

Can just speak for Norway; There are few (if any) essay mills I can think of, but then again I haven't used them.

The biggest hurdle over here seems to be get accepted to your study or college of choice - because as our system is, the only thing that counts during admission are your grades from HS or Undergrad. We have no interviews, essays, entrance exams, etc. only your GPA.

And on top of your GPA, some studies require a certain grade in specific classes. For example, to get admitted to the top Engineering school, you'd need a 3.0 in AP Math classes from HS (well, translated to American equivalent).

I'm still active on some homework forums, and I've been contacted quite a few times by posters that want to pay me for doing their homework, and even exams, because they needed to pass a minimum grade.

And in college / universities, there's an equivalent to the US "frat files" system, where senior students hand down previous HW and exam solutions to junior students.

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

#43

Post by mathattack » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

TrackerFF wrote: post #25

When I studied business in college, I'd say that half of my senior year class were gunning for the same banking and consulting gigs. In either case, it was known and understood that those types of employers were obsessed with your grades. Unless you happened to have the most amazing and prestigious internship / experience, your GPA would make or break your chances at such firms. At the same time, we knew from interns…

And these same folks continue gaming the system once employed by these banks. Go figure.

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

#44

Post by 6thaccount2 » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 5:12 PM UTC

SeanBoocock wrote: post #36

MegaButts wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing it varies a lot by school. I went to a top engineering school as an undergrad and cheating was rampant - probably something like 1/3 of the graduating class participated in cheating to some extent. I then went to another top engineering school as a graduate student and I never saw anyone cheat.

Yeah I think so. I was shocked to discover that over a 1/3rd of the computer science classes I TA'd as a grad student were cheating, repeatedly, on homework assignments and tests. I had come from a culture as an undergrad (and graduate student at another university) where cheating even once was a potential expellable offense. At the very least you would fail the class. In the comp sci classes I TA'd the professor wou…

Interesting. At my university it was most certainly fail the course and possibly expulsion.

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

#45

Post by pembrook » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

TrackerFF wrote: post #25

When I studied business in college, I'd say that half of my senior year class were gunning for the same banking and consulting gigs. In either case, it was known and understood that those types of employers were obsessed with your grades. Unless you happened to have the most amazing and prestigious internship / experience, your GPA would make or break your chances at such firms. At the same time, we knew from interns…

"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

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

#46

Post by mannykannot » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 5:22 PM UTC

SeanBoocock wrote: post #36

MegaButts wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing it varies a lot by school. I went to a top engineering school as an undergrad and cheating was rampant - probably something like 1/3 of the graduating class participated in cheating to some extent. I then went to another top engineering school as a graduate student and I never saw anyone cheat.

Yeah I think so. I was shocked to discover that over a 1/3rd of the computer science classes I TA'd as a grad student were cheating, repeatedly, on homework assignments and tests. I had come from a culture as an undergrad (and graduate student at another university) where cheating even once was a potential expellable offense. At the very least you would fail the class. In the comp sci classes I TA'd the professor wou…

Perhaps the differences could be explained by differences in how the institutions ranked their teaching staff?

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

#47

Post by cco » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 5:31 PM UTC

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…

You've never had to read and understand some data, analyze it, and then communicate your results via written word in your career? I'm totally willing to grant you that the majority of careers do not require this skill but most white collar work does.

Agreed that essays are overused but I'm just surprised to hear you downplay them so much.

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

#48

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #38

wallflower wrote: post #21

Fraternities and sororities have kept libraries of old graded exams and essays for decades. How is it fair if one group can see the Chemistry 101 exam from the previous year? This is probably the reason why you never see your final exam or even other exams after you take it during the exam period.

It screws everyone out of the know because it screws up the curve.

[deleted]

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

#49

Post by landryraccoon » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 5:45 PM UTC

MegaButts wrote: post #31

6thaccount2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineering is a bit different. I found that most of the classes had professors that switched up the problems significantly every year to where old tests didn't help much. Memorization is useless when there are a nearly infinite amount of different circuit problems that can go on the test. You have to actually understand the material and how to apply it in diverse situations. You also typically find that most require…

I'm guessing it varies a lot by school. I went to a top engineering school as an undergrad and cheating was rampant - probably something like 1/3 of the graduating class participated in cheating to some extent. I then went to another top engineering school as a graduate student and I never saw anyone cheat.

Cheating in engineering is pointless. At every tech company I’ve interviewed at (on either side of the table) as soon as you get into the interview what school you went to and what grades you got don’t matter. If you can’t whiteboard some technical problems you aren’t getting in.

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

#50

Post by Mountain_Skies » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 5:46 PM UTC

wallflower wrote: post #21

Fraternities and sororities have kept libraries of old graded exams and essays for decades. How is it fair if one group can see the Chemistry 101 exam from the previous year? This is probably the reason why you never see your final exam or even other exams after you take it during the exam period.

The student chapters of ACM and IEEE-CS at my university kept test banks with full knowledge of the CSE and EE departments. It was allowed by the honor code as long as the tests had previously been used. The university basically neutralized the advantage Greeks had with their test banks by requiring professors to come up with unique tests each time.