Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

dailycal.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

821–828 of 828 posts

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#821

Post by Altern4tiveAcc »

etiam wrote: post #805
Altern4tiveAcc wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then you either really haven't tried very hard to notice them or have been in an academic environment with severe defects. Sure. (?) > Does college even work for future economic prospects, by the way? Where I live, a college degree is a legal requirement for a lot of professions that pay more than entry level jobs (although not all of them). So, people go to college to get a better paying job in a few years than th…

> Sure. (?) Most of the universities I've been in have had well above the occasional one. I'm certainly not saying that has to be true everywhere, but for academic level studies it's pretty sad if the fraction is zero. > Where I live, a college degree is a legal requirement for a lot of professions that pay more than entry level jobs (although not all of them). So, people go to college to get a better paying job in a…

> Most college degrees are a dead loss economically compared to starting work immediately in a craft profession with high demand, such as plumber or welder, which is the reason I question the motivation.

I think then the core difference could be in the places we live. Here, it's common for government jobs to require a college degree. Some of those do not require a specific degree, as the position itself doesn't need it, but you still need a degree to apply.

It's also common for pay grades to be tied to how far one went academically (graduate, masters, doctors, etc.). Again, speaking strictly about government jobs, which are a non-trivial part of the economy here.

> Most of the universities I've been in have had well above the occasional one. I'm certainly not saying that has to be true everywhere, but for academic level studies it's pretty sad if the fraction is zero.

That's fair and I believe you. I worded my post in the first person to make it clear I was talking about people I met, and others' experiences may be different.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#822

Post by etiam »

Altern4tiveAcc wrote: post #821
etiam wrote: post #805

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure. (?) Most of the universities I've been in have had well above the occasional one. I'm certainly not saying that has to be true everywhere, but for academic level studies it's pretty sad if the fraction is zero. > Where I live, a college degree is a legal requirement for a lot of professions that pay more than entry level jobs (although not all of them). So, people go to college to get a better paying job in a…

> Most college degrees are a dead loss economically compared to starting work immediately in a craft profession with high demand, such as plumber or welder, which is the reason I question the motivation. I think then the core difference could be in the places we live. Here, it's common for government jobs to require a college degree. Some of those do not require a specific degree, as the position itself doesn't need…

Thanks for the insights.

I'd say there are a fair bit of elements of that sort of gating for government jobs here as well actually, but here that's not so important for earning prospects since they're mostly not all that well paid (exception for C-suite and equivalents, but my impression is those are almosts always awarded more on the basis of contacts and CV achievements).

Sorry if my objection came across as overly antagonistic, but what I was trying get across is precisely that while your experiences are unassailable as your experience, it may not be very representative of what's out there.

I wonder whether the guy who botted the profitability question (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48428763) could do genuine interest too, or is that inaccessible for examination over the Internet...

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#823

Post by a96 »

caminante wrote: post #355
dmd wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You go to a university because you are deeply interested in understanding the subject that you study. This has not been true for something like 70 years now. People go to university because it is expected that that is what you do after high school.

Rest doesn't make sense either with the parent's tautologies and self-counters. They seem to argue for it and raise the challenges. ~"Speed doesn't matter unless you need it." ~"LLMs can be good, but if you don't use them properly™, then they become a crutch." It's hard to deny that "cognitive offloading" via LLMs is becoming a more acute problem [0]. The intelligentsia were supposed to be immune. [0] https://www.bbc…

Maybe they are immune, but it's just a very small group.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#825

Post by a96 »

jazz9k wrote: post #346
camelmel wrote: post #35

I have some sympathy for these kids. If LLMs were around when I was a student, I would've also used them to "speed up" my homework assignments then proceed to fail all my tests. Now I work mostly with PhDs who were at the top of every academic environment they've ever been in. And yet I can see their thinking skills rapidly declining as well; many of them can no longer brainstorm, code, think deeply, or write without…

I think this would be fine as an adult, if it meant using LLM to churn out the boring work required of you at a corporate gig, to spend more brain cycles on something you actually want to work on. The problem is that it sounds like many people are just using it for everything.

Well, there is the problem that a lot of people don't have things they actually want to work on. They don't know how to self actualize and/or don't want to spend brain cycles on things.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#826

Post by a96 »

kajecounterhack wrote: post #732
beej71 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I try to lecture as little as possible. No slides. Quick highlights discussion of the reading, maybe a coding demo, and then students work on coding challenges in class, in groups if they want. I circulate and help out. I'm lucky to have small class sizes at this university. I couldn't pull it off in a class of 300.

Wow Beej it's you!! I loved your guide to network programming in undergrad <3 you're probably not part of the problem here, lol.

Reading this I was just thinking I've seen that nick/name somewhere.

Then I noticed several bookmarks with the same name staring at me from the browser sidebar.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#827

Post by throwawaypath »

umeshunni wrote: post #792
throwawaypath wrote: post #790

[flagged]

no - they blame it on AI

That is the new scapegoat!

My original GP flagged post:

Many warned that "math is racist" and "equitable math" were going to be a disaster. Now that we know it was a disaster, will leftists admit they were wrong and revert the changes?

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#828

Post by Altern4tiveAcc »

etiam wrote: post #822
Altern4tiveAcc wrote: post #821

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most college degrees are a dead loss economically compared to starting work immediately in a craft profession with high demand, such as plumber or welder, which is the reason I question the motivation. I think then the core difference could be in the places we live. Here, it's common for government jobs to require a college degree. Some of those do not require a specific degree, as the position itself doesn't need…

Thanks for the insights. I'd say there are a fair bit of elements of that sort of gating for government jobs here as well actually, but here that's not so important for earning prospects since they're mostly not all that well paid (exception for C-suite and equivalents, but my impression is those are almosts always awarded more on the basis of contacts and CV achievements). Sorry if my objection came across as overly…

> Sorry if my objection came across as overly antagonistic

Apologies accepted, no worries.

> while your experiences are unassailable as your experience, it may not be very representative of what's out there.

Of course. I try to speak in the first person when talking about my experiences, as a way to make that point (that they may not be representative of what's out there) more explicit.

Post reply on HN