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An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

reuters.com

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Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#191

Post by studentrob »

MarkPNeyer wrote: post #189
studentrob wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The virtue of fairness is at odds with the financial benefits of controversial wording. Agreed. You said someone was "painting all Chinese with a single stroke". I don't see that. Which words specifically do you find controversial? Or, do you just dislike the premise of the article? In that case, if you could rewrite an article like this, how would you write it, generally speaking?

Ken47's comment was in reply to another comment, not the article. The other comment said "cheating is just part of Chinese culture" and Ken47 was disagreeing.

Oh gotcha. My bad, thanks. I read "extreme headlines" in the wrong way, but I see what he meant now, that the comment above was piecing together the worst headlines about China. Fair criticism.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#192

Post by tallanvor »

jchiu1106 wrote: post #133

As a former Chinese international student graduated from one of the top Canadian universities with distinction, I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, the toxic culture permeated the Chinese visa student community is definitely responsible for the high rate of cheating. Most Chinese visa students came to study in the west did not came to pursue academic excellence. They (and their parents most likely) see it…

You're 100% correct that it's not a Chinese-only problem. But I don't think the media is focusing on Chinese students because they're Chinese, but because the businesses that specifically advertise to and help Chinese students are being exposed.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#193

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

studentrob wrote: post #166
leroy_masochist wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but they also want their young people to get the best quality education available, especially in STEM, which is currently (and probably not forever) disproportionately situated in America.

No free speech. It hurts their educational systems very deeply. They also have a culture of bribing/gifting, from middle school up into the business world and government. It all boils down to the government wanting to hold onto Asian culture, avoid conflict, keep control and save face. They view democracy as America's attempt to insert a US-friendly leader. Democracies are arguably the best peace keepers humanity has…

> Democracies are arguably the best peace keepers humanity has ever seen,

You might want to examine that belief, and how you acquired it. Evidence for it in the historical record is not exactly abundant.

(Feel free to dig back 25 centuries, and start by looking up how the Athenian democracy went around kicking their neighbors' butts, as told by one of the Athenian generals, a fair-minded bloke. Thucydides' Melian dialogue is the magic string.)

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#194

Post by studentrob »

ken47 wrote: post #178
Snargorf wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-Chinese students also have those same problems, but they don't cheat like the Chinese. Chinese students cheat because cheating is part of Chinese culture. Go to China and you'll be shocked at how little people care about others in public, or society at large. This is a place where bystanders will watch cars swerve wildly around an open manhole cover over and over, nearly getting in accidents, doing nothing to hel…

I went to a privileged American school where cheating was not uncommon. I watched at least two students openly cheat their way into Ivy League colleges, whose rich parents ensured they were unscathed when they were caught. I watched students with inferior intellect, but superior connections, finesse their way into colleges beyond their pay grade. I sure as heck hope foreigners don't judge me based on their encounters…

I don't think cheating is a part of Chinese culture, however, gifting seems to have been as recently as 2013/2014 in education [1] [2]. In business, it's still common to give your boss a gift in order to get a promotion [3].

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-china-parents-bribe-...

[2] http://www.chinasmack.com/2014/stories/teacher-scolds-class-...

[3] https://www.rnw.org/archive/what-give-chinese-boss-who-has-i...

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#195

Post by tallanvor »

abrookewood wrote: post #105
howlingfantods wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not about cheating, but my friend runs a education consulting service in China and he recently got a call from a father saying that his 20 year old daughter was in the USA studying English but found it too difficult. The father wanted to know if my friend could help his daughter transfer to a school in a country speaking easier English, like Australia. He and his daughter apparently thought Australia spoke some sort…

As an Australian, I can confirm that in some parts of the country this is probably true! Seriously, our elocution is nothing short of atrocious: we drop words, use frequent contractions and then just roll everything into one mumbling, rolling wall of noise. Witness "owzigoin?". Known in more respectable locations as "How are you doing?". FWIW I'm just as guilty as the rest.

A linguist once pointed out to me that this is really common everywhere. She used the example "dijaeet?" Written that makes no sense, but it really is how a lot of people ask the question "Did you eat?"

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#196

Post by eli173 »

xviia wrote: post #56
yeowMeng wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone else like Bob Dylan... If people cheat, I believe there is a slow train comming. Example: I had a friend who had an interview for company XYZ, "Write a program that clicks the first link in a wikipedia entry and exits when you reach the philosophy page (implement in the language of your choice). You have 15 mins"... My friend was a really hard working, intelligent, and honest guy and he could not do it... i do…

How would this be done? What kind of language, etc. would enable this?

I decided to try it.

https://gist.github.com/eli173/c089c27db9c1302fe4e003716b402...

Perhaps I am the kind of person they are trying to avoid, but I did this in a bit less than an hour. I am very ignorant of the Python library ecosystem, so if I had known the request library better and if I knew an html parsing library, I may have been able to complete this in the time limit. I also suspect there are a few cases which break my solution.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#197

Post by Nokinside »

Snargorf wrote: post #143
kirrent wrote: post #12

Australia is also a popular destination for Chinese students and sees high rates of cheating for many of the same reasons as those given in the article. Poor language skills allowed by lax student visa requirements, isolation, and the high penalties for failing a course when your family is paying full price creates desperation. 4 corners did a pretty good story on it and the smh investigation into MyMaster was also p…

Non-Chinese students also have those same problems, but they don't cheat like the Chinese. Chinese students cheat because cheating is part of Chinese culture. Go to China and you'll be shocked at how little people care about others in public, or society at large. This is a place where bystanders will watch cars swerve wildly around an open manhole cover over and over, nearly getting in accidents, doing nothing to hel…

Countries like India, Vietnam, Indonesia etc. have the same cheating problems in their countries.

I think I know why. Asian countries value education very high. It's way out of poverty and improves your status. In that kind of culture it's no surprise that people who should not go to university want to get there.

So you have admirable cultural thing of valuing education and it comes with negative side effect where people try to get it even when they don't have the ability.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#198

Post by killerpopiller »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #149
Snargorf wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-Chinese students also have those same problems, but they don't cheat like the Chinese. Chinese students cheat because cheating is part of Chinese culture. Go to China and you'll be shocked at how little people care about others in public, or society at large. This is a place where bystanders will watch cars swerve wildly around an open manhole cover over and over, nearly getting in accidents, doing nothing to hel…

> Chinese students cheat because cheating is part of Chinese culture. Go to China and you'll be shocked at how little people care about others in public, or society at large. I am Chinese and I would respectfully disagree that cheating is some part of Chinese culture. The only example you gave was basically the bystander effect in action, which you then ascribe to... cheating somehow? Moral depravity of millions of p…

I this cheating aspect of the chinese Culture very believable for several reasons. - china is a highly competitive culture (extremely densly populated, need to competing aout ressource) - china acts economically like Borg, they sold solar panels for less than the production costs to crush the European market (which they successfully did), the same is now happening with Steel btw. > I call that cheating as well - china manipulates it's own currency - china steels intelectual property notoriously

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#199

Post by studentrob »

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #193
studentrob wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No free speech. It hurts their educational systems very deeply. They also have a culture of bribing/gifting, from middle school up into the business world and government. It all boils down to the government wanting to hold onto Asian culture, avoid conflict, keep control and save face. They view democracy as America's attempt to insert a US-friendly leader. Democracies are arguably the best peace keepers humanity has…

> Democracies are arguably the best peace keepers humanity has ever seen, You might want to examine that belief, and how you acquired it. Evidence for it in the historical record is not exactly abundant. (Feel free to dig back 25 centuries, and start by looking up how the Athenian democracy went around kicking their neighbors' butts, as told by one of the Athenian generals, a fair-minded bloke. Thucydides' Melian dia…

25 centuries is a lot of research..

Can you save me the time and tell me which form of government is the best?

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#200

Post by Nokinside »

pnathan wrote: post #154
jchiu1106 wrote: post #133

As a former Chinese international student graduated from one of the top Canadian universities with distinction, I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, the toxic culture permeated the Chinese visa student community is definitely responsible for the high rate of cheating. Most Chinese visa students came to study in the west did not came to pursue academic excellence. They (and their parents most likely) see it…

As a former grad student who has interacted with both the good and the bad of your group, I understand the differences... and regret the unfortunate realities. I remember a Chinese PhD student who could not function in spoken English . Nice guy. Always smiled, bobbed his head, and said "hi", and that was the extent of his verbal vocab. Still don't know how he got into an American graduate school. Really brings the de…

I attended a conference where young Chinese PhD was giving presentation and nobody could understand what he was saying. Finally one of the organizing professors interrupted him and requested that he should speak English. "But I'm speaking English." he replied with desperation in his voice.

He knew his stuff and could write and read English well, but it was very hard to understand what he was saying.

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