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Harvard investigates 125 students for cheating on final exam

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Re: Harvard investigates 125 students for cheating on final exam

#61

Post by danielweber »

chc wrote: post #41
waterlesscloud wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, let's keep the responsibility for this where it belongs- on those who actually cheated.

People have such weird logic. When 80% of the population is criminalized, we see that as a surefire sign of a bad government. But that completely changes when the population is "students" — then it's all their fault and the administration is just helpless against all these lazy kids. Without necessarily absolving the students of responsibility for their actions, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that rampant che…

If anything, it means the school didn't bring the hammer down soon/hard enough on smaller incidents of cheating.

The surest way to get most of your students to cheat is for the cheaters to get ahead of the class. The non-cheaters will eventually crumple just to keep up.

Re: Harvard investigates 125 students for cheating on final exam

#62

Post by stephencanon »

chc wrote: post #57
stephencanon wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you get all As but retain nothing, you are rewarded handsomely. I certainly haven't found this to be the case. Looking at my peers 11 years after graduation, the successful ones are by and large the ones who focused on learning, not the ones who focused on their GPAs.

> after graduation That is out of the school's control. It isn't really relevant to the incentives set by the school.

What handsome rewards do you imagine are heaped upon A students while still in school?

If the students in question are incapable of looking ahead 1-3 years, that doesn't exactly speak well of them either.

I won't pretend that there isn't pressure on students to get As. But that doesn't mean we should condone students doing whatever it takes to get an A; it may mean that we should reduce the pressure on the students to get them.

Re: Harvard investigates 125 students for cheating on final exam

#63

Post by chc »

danielweber wrote: post #61
chc wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have such weird logic. When 80% of the population is criminalized, we see that as a surefire sign of a bad government. But that completely changes when the population is "students" — then it's all their fault and the administration is just helpless against all these lazy kids. Without necessarily absolving the students of responsibility for their actions, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that rampant che…

If anything, it means the school didn't bring the hammer down soon/hard enough on smaller incidents of cheating. The surest way to get most of your students to cheat is for the cheaters to get ahead of the class. The non-cheaters will eventually crumple just to keep up.

I actually agree with this. I'm not saying it's definitely the case (never been to Harvard — the closest I've got is a friend who went to Wellesley), but rampant cheating is generally a sign of either poor communication or perverse incentives.

Re: Harvard investigates 125 students for cheating on final exam

#64

Post by lesterbuck »

Anechoic wrote: post #24

One thing that I really appreciated at MIT was that when we were given take-home tests or other take-home assignments, it was expected (and often encouraged ) that we collaborate with our classmates. Writing down the exact same answer as another classmate was fine, so long as you documented who you worked with and who contributed what to the assignment. It provided an important lesson since collaboration has been a h…

As a counterpoint, at Caltech during the 70s (at least) it was pretty standard to have a take home final that was (1) no collaboration, (2) closed book, and (3) timed. In fact, I very clearly remember screaming out loud on hard tests as time ticked away. Thank goodness I was in a deserted campus building in the middle of the night. You could study/cram all your notes and texts that you wanted before you put everything away for the test, but, alas, it usually didn't help. They weren't that kind of test.

For non-take home tests of any kind, the campus honor system specifically prevented the professor from staying in the room where the test was being given. They could force the students to collect in one place, but there was a strict rule against any kind of proctoring. The professor or TA with the test passed it out, hung around for a bit to answer any initial questions, and then left the room. They would typically return every fifteen minutes or so to answer any new questions, and then finally return at the time limit to collect the tests. The professor also could not prevent you from taking the test from the specified room and going, say, to the library to take the test. You missed any chance to clarify test questions, and you had to be back before time was up, but they could not force you to stay in a room packed with tense people.

It was pretty refreshing when trust and presumed integrity like that was integrated into the educational system.

Re: Harvard investigates 125 students for cheating on final exam

#65

Post by falcolas »

rayiner wrote: post #26

I think cheating is one of the signs of the crumbling of our civilized society. It is a scourge that doesn't stop at final exams, but as we can see in the financial sector one that continues on through life. That said, we lay all the blame on students, but universities themselves are also cheating. Multiple well-known universities in recent years have been exposed as lying,[1] about their enrollment statistics to ran…

Honestly, I don't think it's a failing of "Civilized Society", as much as it is a reflection of the value we place on academic scores over what a student actually knows.

South Korea has a terrible problem with cheating, and correspondingly harsh penalties for cheating - all because they have put such a high value on their student's scores; those scores determine a child's future.

If your future was on the line, and you didn't have the chops to make it on ability alone, what's to loose by cheating?

Re: Harvard investigates 125 students for cheating on final exam

#67

Post by BasDirks »

chc wrote: post #59
BasDirks wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No but in case I squander those opportunities, don't hesitate to fill up the gap.

You're on Hacker News expressing schadenfreude toward some college students instead of doing something that makes the world a better place. Congratulations — you're squandering your opportunities.

They need to get what's coming to them, and that is not schadenfreude. Don't compare cheating on an exam to my condemnation of it. "Doing something that makes the world a better place" Could you possibly be more general and irrelevant?

Re: Harvard investigates 125 students for cheating on final exam

#68

Post by bcbrown »

stephencanon wrote: post #62
chc wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> after graduation That is out of the school's control. It isn't really relevant to the incentives set by the school.

What handsome rewards do you imagine are heaped upon A students while still in school? If the students in question are incapable of looking ahead 1-3 years, that doesn't exactly speak well of them either. I won't pretend that there isn't pressure on students to get As. But that doesn't mean we should condone students doing whatever it takes to get an A; it may mean that we should reduce the pressure on the students t…

Better job prospects?

Re: Harvard investigates 125 students for cheating on final exam

#69

Post by stephencanon »

bcbrown wrote: post #68
stephencanon wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What handsome rewards do you imagine are heaped upon A students while still in school? If the students in question are incapable of looking ahead 1-3 years, that doesn't exactly speak well of them either. I won't pretend that there isn't pressure on students to get As. But that doesn't mean we should condone students doing whatever it takes to get an A; it may mean that we should reduce the pressure on the students t…

Better job prospects?

Of the jobs at which you've worked, do you think that you got the job because you were smart/well spoken/skilled in a particular area/had some sort of connection, or because of your GPA? If you have interviewed candidates, did you look at their GPA? If so, how my weight did you give it?

Personally, I interviewed about 30 college students last year for internship and full-time positions; I didn't even look at a single GPA.

Re: Harvard investigates 125 students for cheating on final exam

#70

Post by mikexstudios »

lesterbuck wrote: post #64
Anechoic wrote: post #24

One thing that I really appreciated at MIT was that when we were given take-home tests or other take-home assignments, it was expected (and often encouraged ) that we collaborate with our classmates. Writing down the exact same answer as another classmate was fine, so long as you documented who you worked with and who contributed what to the assignment. It provided an important lesson since collaboration has been a h…

As a counterpoint, at Caltech during the 70s (at least) it was pretty standard to have a take home final that was (1) no collaboration, (2) closed book, and (3) timed. In fact, I very clearly remember screaming out loud on hard tests as time ticked away. Thank goodness I was in a deserted campus building in the middle of the night. You could study/cram all your notes and texts that you wanted before you put everythin…

The majority of classes at Caltech still have take home exams like you described. For midterms and finals, the exams were handed out at the beginning of the week and due at the end of the week. More often than not, they were open book (although the joke was that those books weren't going to help you solve the problems anyway). The honor code at Caltech was taken very seriously and in my opinion, the students reciprocated with integrity. Cheating and dishonesty was a big social stigma there.
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