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My students cheated... a lot

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Re: My students cheated... a lot

#151

Post by UmbertoNoEco »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #58

This is a widespread problem. The inevitable outcome is that university education loses more and more prestige. Maybe this is the way it has to be. Self-taught people with impressive portfolios start becoming more and more attractive while well-qualified people become less and less attractive - or even suspect.

This is just partially true.

University education has lost a lot of its appeal, that's correct, some sort of tragedy of the commons. But that part of "Self-taught people with impressive portfolios " is hilarious, navel gazing to the max. Nobody would deal with a self-taught cardiologist or structural engineer.

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#152

Post by bumby »

wormer wrote: post #121
jmull wrote: post #64

I honestly don’t get widespread cheating like this… You’re paying so much money for these courses — probably a ridiculous amount, so much you may never recoup — … so at least get everything out of it you can. Otherwise, why sign up in the first place? Let me tell you: essentially no one cares what grade you got in your courses. (Sure, there are cases, but over time they quickly attenuate from “sometimes” to “never” a…

I feel like people who say that "it's so much money, so try and get something out of it" are people who have never had the experience of being a "bad student" and have an immense passion for learning. I really can't say the same. I'm currently in undergrad for electrical engineering, and I do not give a single fuck about the classes I'm in. I have no passion for electrical engineering - I don't wake up excited to mak…

>I'm just going to cheat to save time and effort.

I totally understand the pressure, and the idea that these choices are a means to an end. And this isn't meant to sound condescending so please don't take it that way, but please PLEASE do not take this attitude into industry. Especially into a safety-critical industry. Believe it or not, it's more prevalent than you may think and humans are always good at rationalizing taking the easy way out.

I know the knee-jerk reaction will be "yeah, I won't do it when it matters" but these types of choices tend to become habits, and as the saying goes, habits become one's character and character becomes one's fate.

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#153

Post by WalterBright »

tartuffe78 wrote: post #74
jmull wrote: post #64

I honestly don’t get widespread cheating like this… You’re paying so much money for these courses — probably a ridiculous amount, so much you may never recoup — … so at least get everything out of it you can. Otherwise, why sign up in the first place? Let me tell you: essentially no one cares what grade you got in your courses. (Sure, there are cases, but over time they quickly attenuate from “sometimes” to “never” a…

If I go to school for computer science, but have to take chemistry, statistics, etc. And get stuck with a bad professor who spends half the class time ranting about irrelevant topics, cheating makes sense so I can spend my time focused on the classes that matter to me.

Lots of students switch majors after taking classes in other subjects. Besides, if you laser focus on one specialty, you lose all the serendipity that comes from knowing multiple fields.

I was trained as a mechanical engineer. Yet I write compilers. And yeah, a lot of things I learned from ME have made it into the seemingly utterly different compilers. I see a lot of mistakes SE's make because they are completely unaware of other fields.

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#154

Post by chociej »

Look, I was a pretty crappy student in a lot of ways. But this thread has a few instances of folks implying that, especially at more "elite" schools, blatant cheating is practically routine and everyone does it. Again, I was not a model student, but it's pretty maddening to hear that. I didn't cheat to get my degree. I'd ask that you all not rationalize your cheating to the point of making your successors feel comfortable doing so, or worse, feel like outcasts for not doing so.

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#155

Post by colinmhayes »

jmull wrote: post #64

I honestly don’t get widespread cheating like this… You’re paying so much money for these courses — probably a ridiculous amount, so much you may never recoup — … so at least get everything out of it you can. Otherwise, why sign up in the first place? Let me tell you: essentially no one cares what grade you got in your courses. (Sure, there are cases, but over time they quickly attenuate from “sometimes” to “never” a…

The students aren't paying for the courses though, they're paying for the degree. Most students are at university to get a job and expand their network, education is a sidebar, a nice to have.

> if you’re cool with cheating, after school is over, just lie when anyone asks your gpa

Tons of employers require transcripts, especially for new grads.

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#156

Post by paulpauper »

tartuffe78 wrote: post #74
jmull wrote: post #64

I honestly don’t get widespread cheating like this… You’re paying so much money for these courses — probably a ridiculous amount, so much you may never recoup — … so at least get everything out of it you can. Otherwise, why sign up in the first place? Let me tell you: essentially no one cares what grade you got in your courses. (Sure, there are cases, but over time they quickly attenuate from “sometimes” to “never” a…

If I go to school for computer science, but have to take chemistry, statistics, etc. And get stuck with a bad professor who spends half the class time ranting about irrelevant topics, cheating makes sense so I can spend my time focused on the classes that matter to me.

agree. composition and anthropology were such a waste of time. the composition class was harder than the stem classes though because the teacher was pretty meticulous about writing.

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#157

Post by colinmhayes »

beebmam wrote: post #73
jmull wrote: post #64

I honestly don’t get widespread cheating like this… You’re paying so much money for these courses — probably a ridiculous amount, so much you may never recoup — … so at least get everything out of it you can. Otherwise, why sign up in the first place? Let me tell you: essentially no one cares what grade you got in your courses. (Sure, there are cases, but over time they quickly attenuate from “sometimes” to “never” a…

I totally agree with you. It is a cliche, but truly, they are only cheating themselves. Careers eventually filter out (most of) the cheaters. From my observations, only the students who were committed to understanding the material went on to have superb careers, with maybe a few exceptions. The rest ended up in dead-end mostly-mindless work, or dropped out of STEM-related fields all together. I have a concern for the…

> only the students who were committed to understanding the material went on to have superb careers

For STEM, sure. This guy is a psych professor though. I suspect that most of their jobs will have absolutely nothing to do with this class. Obviously being truly successful instead of cheating will help in their careers, but I doubt anything they learn in this class would.

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#158

Post by paulpauper »

beebmam wrote: post #73
jmull wrote: post #64

I honestly don’t get widespread cheating like this… You’re paying so much money for these courses — probably a ridiculous amount, so much you may never recoup — … so at least get everything out of it you can. Otherwise, why sign up in the first place? Let me tell you: essentially no one cares what grade you got in your courses. (Sure, there are cases, but over time they quickly attenuate from “sometimes” to “never” a…

I totally agree with you. It is a cliche, but truly, they are only cheating themselves. Careers eventually filter out (most of) the cheaters. From my observations, only the students who were committed to understanding the material went on to have superb careers, with maybe a few exceptions. The rest ended up in dead-end mostly-mindless work, or dropped out of STEM-related fields all together. I have a concern for the…

if a good job pays 100-300k/year, does it matter if you eventually get filtered out if you already made good $ and keep expenses low.

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#160

Post by grog454 »

wormer wrote: post #121
jmull wrote: post #64

I honestly don’t get widespread cheating like this… You’re paying so much money for these courses — probably a ridiculous amount, so much you may never recoup — … so at least get everything out of it you can. Otherwise, why sign up in the first place? Let me tell you: essentially no one cares what grade you got in your courses. (Sure, there are cases, but over time they quickly attenuate from “sometimes” to “never” a…

I feel like people who say that "it's so much money, so try and get something out of it" are people who have never had the experience of being a "bad student" and have an immense passion for learning. I really can't say the same. I'm currently in undergrad for electrical engineering, and I do not give a single fuck about the classes I'm in. I have no passion for electrical engineering - I don't wake up excited to mak…

>I don't wake up excited to make schematics or lay out a PCB. I do it because it's a good job and I want money,

I see this a lot in computer science / SWE too. I realize you don't have the life experience to answer these questions well so maybe they're just rhetorical: do you think you will be successful when you get a job laying out PCBs and designing schematics? What will your competence level be given that you cheated your way through the relevant schooling? How long until you burn out?

Part of the reason colleges force you to take a lot of courses irrelevant to your major is so the students like you have a slightly higher chance of finding something they ARE passionate about.

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