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Harvard Forced Dozens to Leave in Cheating Scandal

nytimes.com

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Re: Harvard Forced Dozens to Leave in Cheating Scandal

#41

Post by fnbr »

intended wrote: post #8
SagelyGuru wrote: post #4

Good god! Final exams at Harvard are 'take home'? I really thought that at least Harvard was a little more testing than that... Aside from the standard that sets, it is naive to the extreme to suppose that students allowed to take an important exam home will still write it just off the top of their head.

A take home exam can be as taxing as any other test you can take and often is more difficult than your generic test. In some ways more so, at least on campus you have access to resources and other students. If students, act according to an honor code, then professors can get on with the work of teaching. If people have to spend all their time fighting cheating, which is a non trivial task, it creates a very different…

Panos' piece can be found here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2774254

Re: Harvard Forced Dozens to Leave in Cheating Scandal

#42

Post by rkuykendall-com »

GabrielF00 wrote: post #28
michael_miller wrote: post #23

I find it a little disingenuous that students who are subject to "forced withdrawal" are allowed to re-enter after 2-4 semesters. This sends a horrible message to students - that you can cheat, and the worst case scenario is taking a couple semesters off. No mar on their transcript of starting a degree at Harvard, and suddenly transferring to another, probably academically inferior, school. No explaining to employers…

My understanding is that forced withdrawals at Harvard work like this: 1. If you want to come back you have to leave Cambridge and get a job for something like 6 months, and it has to be a real job, not a job at your Dad's company or something. 2. Any letter of recommendation that Harvard issues will note that you've been required to withdraw. I don't see this as a forced vacation. The intent is that you have to have…

I was under the impression that the de-facto penalty for cheating was expulsion. Without coming back. Without ANY "recommendation letters." You cheated, fuck you, get out.

Then again, I went to a school which is struggling to raise itself up in the ranks ( or into the ranks at all ), so maybe Harvard doesn't have to take cheating seriously for people to take their graduates seriously.

Re: Harvard Forced Dozens to Leave in Cheating Scandal

#43

Post by codex »

michael_miller wrote: post #23

I find it a little disingenuous that students who are subject to "forced withdrawal" are allowed to re-enter after 2-4 semesters. This sends a horrible message to students - that you can cheat, and the worst case scenario is taking a couple semesters off. No mar on their transcript of starting a degree at Harvard, and suddenly transferring to another, probably academically inferior, school. No explaining to employers…

This is because Harvard prides itself on its graduation rate; any decline in that rate would cause it to fall in the popular rankings of colleges.

Re: Harvard Forced Dozens to Leave in Cheating Scandal

#44

Post by cynest »

cynicalkane wrote: post #27
michael_miller wrote: post #23

I find it a little disingenuous that students who are subject to "forced withdrawal" are allowed to re-enter after 2-4 semesters. This sends a horrible message to students - that you can cheat, and the worst case scenario is taking a couple semesters off. No mar on their transcript of starting a degree at Harvard, and suddenly transferring to another, probably academically inferior, school. No explaining to employers…

If so many kids, proportionally, are cheating, the reasonable conclusion is not that there's an abundance of 'bad seeds' but perhaps that Harvard isn't very good at getting students to take ethics seriously. At your typical university, cheating on take-home exams is common, pressure is high, and ethics are underemphasized--is it your place to say a student reacting in the obvious and ordinary way deserves expulsion?…

I've also wondered if the incentives with regards to cheating have changed. It's certainly easier to cheat. And if grades are perceived as having a greater effect on standing, the rewards have increased as well.

Re: Harvard Forced Dozens to Leave in Cheating Scandal

#45

Post by raverbashing »

beloch wrote: post #7
SagelyGuru wrote: post #4

Good god! Final exams at Harvard are 'take home'? I really thought that at least Harvard was a little more testing than that... Aside from the standard that sets, it is naive to the extreme to suppose that students allowed to take an important exam home will still write it just off the top of their head.

Take home exams can actually be quite brutal, but are rarely encountered in large (i.e. 100+ student) classes because they usually result in an correspondingly brutal amount of marking. I've had them only in a few senior undergrad courses and grad school. Why are they brutal when you have your notes, books, the web, etc. available? They're usually not based on spitting back answers you were given or can look up. You…

In truth, this is the way it should go

University should not be about a memory test. Not memorizing all the formulas, etc but building on knowledge, doing something you would be expected to do 'in real life', and of course with all the resources you have.

Unfortunately it seems this kind of work is more appropriate to math/engineering/science type of problems.

Most of work in other areas is bibliographical research.

Re: Harvard Forced Dozens to Leave in Cheating Scandal

#46

Post by protomyth »

SagelyGuru wrote: post #4

Good god! Final exams at Harvard are 'take home'? I really thought that at least Harvard was a little more testing than that... Aside from the standard that sets, it is naive to the extreme to suppose that students allowed to take an important exam home will still write it just off the top of their head.

I had a take home exam in Combinatorics that was 9 questions. I had 20 days to turn it in and worked on it each day for about 8 hours. I finished 5 questions with a mountain of paper turned in. I was pretty depressed thinking I had blown it. Turns out someone answered 7 (Math PhD), 6 (Physics PhD), 5 (two of us) and the rest 4 or under (6 or 8 students I think).

I never ever wanted a take home final like that again.

Re: Harvard Forced Dozens to Leave in Cheating Scandal

#47

Post by GabrielF00 »

rkuykendall-com wrote: post #42
GabrielF00 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that forced withdrawals at Harvard work like this: 1. If you want to come back you have to leave Cambridge and get a job for something like 6 months, and it has to be a real job, not a job at your Dad's company or something. 2. Any letter of recommendation that Harvard issues will note that you've been required to withdraw. I don't see this as a forced vacation. The intent is that you have to have…

I was under the impression that the de-facto penalty for cheating was expulsion. Without coming back. Without ANY "recommendation letters." You cheated, fuck you, get out. Then again, I went to a school which is struggling to raise itself up in the ranks ( or into the ranks at all ), so maybe Harvard doesn't have to take cheating seriously for people to take their graduates seriously.

Actually, when I talk to people who teach or TA at other universities, they tell me that Harvard's policies are comparably harsh. If you plagiarize a paper at many universities, you are likely to get a zero for the assignment. That means that you might lose a letter grade in one class. At Harvard, professors were until recently required to report students to the Ad Board which generally led to being forced to withdraw.

Re: Harvard Forced Dozens to Leave in Cheating Scandal

#48

Post by coldarchon »

slurry wrote: post #33
blablabla123 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not so much difference to exercises in difficult courses I encountered. But we called that homework. (Germany)

Which is why German universities are consistently at the top of international rankings, right? Oh, wait...

Do you really come here just to flame people? That comment was so useless like you being here ..

Re: Harvard Forced Dozens to Leave in Cheating Scandal

#49

Post by 7402 »

codex wrote: post #43
michael_miller wrote: post #23

I find it a little disingenuous that students who are subject to "forced withdrawal" are allowed to re-enter after 2-4 semesters. This sends a horrible message to students - that you can cheat, and the worst case scenario is taking a couple semesters off. No mar on their transcript of starting a degree at Harvard, and suddenly transferring to another, probably academically inferior, school. No explaining to employers…

This is because Harvard prides itself on its graduation rate; any decline in that rate would cause it to fall in the popular rankings of colleges.

This is a silly remark. Harvard doesn't care at all about the popular rankings of colleges, because no one picks Harvard just because they read it got a good rating in US News. And Harvard isn't proud of itself because it has a high graduation rate; Harvard is proud of itself because, whatever anyone else may think, Harvard thinks it's the best university in the world.

Re: Harvard Forced Dozens to Leave in Cheating Scandal

#50

Post by blablabla123 »

slurry wrote: post #33
blablabla123 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not so much difference to exercises in difficult courses I encountered. But we called that homework. (Germany)

Which is why German universities are consistently at the top of international rankings, right? Oh, wait...

I thought the international top 20 equal the U.S. top 20.

Seriously, think about it, it just cannot make sense. Nobel price winners come from all countries. A university does not need to belong to the U.S. Ivy League to have smart alumni.

However... The Ivy League is really expensive and well-known. In fact people like George W. Bush studied there. It is almost like a self-amplifying loop.

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