Cheating at University.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by HelloHockeyFans

It always pissed me off because I knew that these idiots did zero work and would still end up passing the exam, albeit most of the time with worst marks than those who actually put in the effort.

Another thing that pissed me off when I was in school were the freaking copying of assignments. Some of these assignments took 8-10 hours to do and you'd get groups of asshats who get together at the start of the year and agree to split up the assignments for the rest of the year so each person only does one.

You sound like the typical wet blanket that would ask questions during lecture just to try and impress the prof by sounding smart.

You're complaining about cheaters that got lower marks than you anyways. Who cares? As long as the people doing work do better than them, the system works just fine.

Same with students who split up assignments. Do you not think you learned more by doing them yourself and either got a better mark or had less studying to do for the final because of it?

In my opinion if you go through engineering and never bend the rules a bit, you're just plain stupid. You are going to end up being the type of worker that spends 10 hours a day at work and gets pissed off by the slacker who is there for 7 hours and spends 2 of them on the Internet. That same slacker is probably doing just as much work as you because they learned how to be efficient in University.

I think that's part of the reason Engineering is so lax on cheating/group work for assignments. There was a day set up at the beginning of every year to distribute people's old lab manuals. If you did engineering 201 without a 'road map', you are terrible at time management.

When you get a job after university it's not important that you come up with the answers yourself, it's important to come up with the correct answer in a timely fashion. If you have to work with others around you, look at other's work published on the Internet, it doesn't matter. I honestly think cheating your way through engineering helps you develop a good chunk of the skill set that you'll use for future problem solving.

[albertGQ]

I've looked over at other peoples' test numerous times at the UofC. But I never knew if they were smart or not so maybe I got worse marks from cheating. I'll never know

[burn_this_city]

To me the people who cheat and get away with it are smarter than the people who followed every rule in the book. If by the time you get to university you havent figured out bending the rules a bit makes life easier, well feel free to learn that lesson. My friends and I knew every trick in the book to get through school on minimal effort. The biggest advantage of all is having really good eyesight. 20-15 vision allowed me to cheat on most of my high school exams so I could ditch class and have fun.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

To me the people who cheat and get away with it are smarter than the people who followed every rule in the book.

That's what inside traders say. Then they go to jail.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by troutman

That's what inside traders say. Then they go to jail.

White collar resort jail!

[wpgflamesfan]

Originally Posted by troutman

That's what inside traders say. Then they go to jail (aka Club Med Jail Edition), after which they move to the Caribbean and live of the money they quietly stashed away in a Swiss Bank Account.

Fixed

[cKy]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

I spent more time campaigning then studying!

Somehow I'm not surprised one bit by this.

[Locke]

My retirement plan involves stealing someone else's retirement plan...maybe even many someone elses....

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by Locke

White collar resort jail!

With a golf course!

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by Locke

White collar resort jail!

We're not going to white collar resort prison. No, no, no. We're going to Federal pound me in the ass prison.

[Kidder]

Originally Posted by Locke

My retirement plan involves stealing someone else's retirement plan...maybe even many someone elses....

Don't forget to steal someone else's wife... or if the polygamy thing is legal by then... maybe even many someone elses....

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

The biggest advantage of all is having really good eyesight. 20-15 vision allowed me to cheat on most of my high school exams so I could ditch class and have fun.

I'd never do it, but I don't have the option of copying off of other people's papers with my eyesight. I'd have to be so close to their paper that it would be impossible for everyone to not know that it was happening.

I realize that it probobly wouldn't work for all subjects, but I think tests could be made pretty cheater proof by changing their format. I had some exams that were totally open book, you could bring whatever you wanted into the test. The tests are then formatted so that the questions involve interpretting whatever data you brought in (with essay questions, this is totally possible) I had a couple like that, and IMO, it really serperates the people who know their stuff form the people that don't.

My brother talked about the exam he had for his "Critical Thinking" class one time. The total value of the test was 200%, and it was made up of various essay questions worth various amounts. In the two hour time period, you had no hope of answering much more then half of the questions given. The catch was, the exam was completely open book, you didn't even have to stay in the exam room. You were free to leave the room, talk to the other people in class, talk to anyone you wanted, research whatever you needed, etc. You just had to be back in two hours to hand your work in. For a course in critical thinking, I think that exam was pretty appropriate.

I had one prof pause the exam roughly half way through, and he took the whole class to the coffee shop and bought drinks for the whole class, and we had a ten or fifteen minute break. This was an exam that clearly wasn't going to take anyone the whole alloted time. He was the kind of prof that had an exam made up of mostly true or false questions, and could make the exam really hard.

For another exam with a different prof, the Prof had given us an outline of what was to be on the test beforehand the kind of outline, that if you really wanted to, you could be very well prepared to get a good mark if you put in the work. Anyway, we get to the exam, and he puts up on the overhead projector (the movie "The Matrix" had just come out several weeks before) "you can take the blue pill, and take the exam just as had been discussed, or you can take the red pill - do something completely different - follow the white rabbit to what is unknown. If you take this path there will be no return." The prof expected that roughly 10 (out of 80 or so) people would "take the red pill." Half the class gets up and follows the white rabbit to the library, myself included. We get the mission that we must write a 1000 word essay by the next afternoon and the subject is "the gospel of the Matrix vs the gospel of Christ." (this is a Bible college) I was somewhat lucky, as I had already seen the movie on Easter Weekend back at home. Those people who hadn't seen the movie had to go to the late showing of the Matrix so that they knew what they were talking about. A few people told the prof that they had flights leaving for home the next morning, and thus must be required to go back and do the original test, which the prof obviously had to allow.

For my one literature class, the prof told us exactly what the test was going to be - 10 quotes from works we had studied in the class. For each quote, we had to give the name of the work, the author, what happens in that work, what happens immediately around the quote, etc. The prof then also gave us a list of 30 quotes (with no background information), and said that 10 of the 30 quotes would be on the exam. No notes were allowed to be brought into the exam however (for obvious reasons). So, if you had the time and desire, you could go through the entire list of quotes, find them all, and toally prepare yourself. Searching for 30 somewhat obscure quotes was no easy task in the days before the internet could do it quickly.

[onetwo_threefour]

Originally Posted by FurnaceFace

I had a micro-econ final that I knew nothing about. I did the classic "if you don't know the answer go onto the next question". I got to the last page, flipped it over, and started again with a blank exam.

This happened to me in ENGG 209 Chemistry for Engineers. I wrote down a few forumlae and scribbled some guesses.... I got an F. I should perhaps have spent less time in the pool hall and more in class. I literally didn't know anything. Barely even cracked my book or went to class for that class. Aren't you all glad I'm not designing bridges??

But I didn't cheat, I took my lumps.

[Nancy]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

...
In my opinion if you go through engineering and never bend the rules a bit, you're just plain stupid. You are going to end up being the type of worker that spends 10 hours a day at work and gets pissed off by the slacker who is there for 7 hours and spends 2 of them on the Internet. That same slacker is probably doing just as much work as you because they learned how to be efficient in University.

I think that's part of the reason Engineering is so lax on cheating/group work for assignments. There was a day set up at the beginning of every year to distribute people's old lab manuals. If you did engineering 201 without a 'road map', you are terrible at time management.

When you get a job after university it's not important that you come up with the answers yourself, it's important to come up with the correct answer in a timely fashion. If you have to work with others around you, look at other's work published on the Internet, it doesn't matter. I honestly think cheating your way through engineering helps you develop a good chunk of the skill set that you'll use for future problem solving.

This is why things engineered in North America are built so well.

[soulchoice]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

You sound like the typical wet blanket that would ask questions during lecture just to try and impress the prof by sounding smart.

You're complaining about cheaters that got lower marks than you anyways. Who cares? As long as the people doing work do better than them, the system works just fine.

Same with students who split up assignments. Do you not think you learned more by doing them yourself and either got a better mark or had less studying to do for the final because of it?

In my opinion if you go through engineering and never bend the rules a bit, you're just plain stupid. You are going to end up being the type of worker that spends 10 hours a day at work and gets pissed off by the slacker who is there for 7 hours and spends 2 of them on the Internet. That same slacker is probably doing just as much work as you because they learned how to be efficient in University.

I think that's part of the reason Engineering is so lax on cheating/group work for assignments. There was a day set up at the beginning of every year to distribute people's old lab manuals. If you did engineering 201 without a 'road map', you are terrible at time management.

When you get a job after university it's not important that you come up with the answers yourself, it's important to come up with the correct answer in a timely fashion. If you have to work with others around you, look at other's work published on the Internet, it doesn't matter. I honestly think cheating your way through engineering helps you develop a good chunk of the skill set that you'll use for future problem solving.

Good post! When in University, I could care less who cheated. I have more worries in my life than what other people choose to do to theirs. So what if they got higher marks than me from cheating. Who cares.

If i saw someone cheating and they aced an exam, good for them, had no bearing on whether I graduated or not. It is none of anyones business what they do with respect to cheating. People need to mind their business more.

[onetwo_threefour]

Originally Posted by soulchoice

Good post! When in University, I could care less who cheated. I have more worries in my life than what other people choose to do to theirs. So what if they got higher marks than me from cheating. Who cares.

If i saw someone cheating and they aced an exam, good for them, had no bearing on whether I graduated or not. It is none of anyones business what they do with respect to cheating. People need to mind their business more.

That's a load of crap, you get curves, you get scholarships based on achievement, and there's the not so small matter of ethics.

Only an idiot calls somebody a wet blanket for wanting to uphold academic standards. Cheaters pissed me off in school, because it makes your own achievements stand out less if you do well in a class when cheaters can slide by. If your goal is to get into grad school, you need to be able to stand out from your peers and an artificialy high average from cheating doesn't allow for that.

If people can't get by without cheating, then perhaps they shouldn't be there in the first place.

As much as I may agree that memorizatio nexams are ridiculous, everybody's at least supposed to be on the same playing field.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by soulchoice

Good post! When in University, I could care less who cheated. I have more worries in my life than what other people choose to do to theirs. So what if they got higher marks than me from cheating. Who cares.

If i saw someone cheating and they aced an exam, good for them, had no bearing on whether I graduated or not. It is none of anyones business what they do with respect to cheating. People need to mind their business more.

There's a difference between "cheating" on assignments/labs and exams. Exams, throw the book at them. Assignments - doesn't everyone work together on assignments? It did annoy me when other students had the solutions manual or previous years homework that were the exact same Q's though, but I just joined that group that had the homework solutions. Can't say it felt right or anything, but assignments are worth nothing anyways so profs don't really care.

[HelloHockeyFans]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

You sound like the typical wet blanket that would ask questions during lecture just to try and impress the prof by sounding smart.

Nope. Actually, I'm quite far from that type of guy, but please continue to make assumptions.

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

You're complaining about cheaters that got lower marks than you anyways. Who cares? As long as the people doing work do better than them, the system works just fine.

And how about those who struggle with the material, do the assignments on their own, yet get the same marks as the cheaters who copied the assignment in an hour?

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

Same with students who split up assignments. Do you not think you learned more by doing them yourself and either got a better mark or had less studying to do for the final because of it?

Do I think I learned more by actually doing? Yes, I do.

And no, it didn't give me less time to study for finals - that, I think you refer to it later, is called time management.

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

In my opinion if you go through engineering and never bend the rules a bit, you're just plain stupid. You are going to end up being the type of worker that spends 10 hours a day at work and gets pissed off by the slacker who is there for 7 hours and spends 2 of them on the Internet. That same slacker is probably doing just as much work as you because they learned how to be efficient in University.

Actually, I would wager that the guy who does everything on his own and still succeeds, has quite likely mastered just how to be efficient in a high pressure environment better than the cheater because he didn't have to defer to shortcuts, and achieved the same through honest effort. As for the type of worker "I am", I won't even address it, since it's the second time in your post that you've turned to personal attacks which I tend to ignore.

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

I think that's part of the reason Engineering is so lax on cheating/group work for assignments. There was a day set up at the beginning of every year to distribute people's old lab manuals. If you did engineering 201 without a 'road map', you are terrible at time management.

You seem to have severe tunnel vision when it comes down to how you think time management is achieved. Shortcuts and let's face it, cheating is different from real planning.

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

When you get a job after university it's not important that you come up with the answers yourself, it's important to come up with the correct answer in a timely fashion. If you have to work with others around you, look at other's work published on the Internet, it doesn't matter. I honestly think cheating your way through engineering helps you develop a good chunk of the skill set that you'll use for future problem solving.

You're presenting a misleading argument when you try to tie good things like 'working with others' and 'working efficiently' with cheating through school and eventually succeeding as a professional.

Collaboration and teamwork are most definitely necessary traits in the real world as a working professional. Cheating through university though, isn't a pre-requisite for attaining these skills.

[GGG]

I worked as a student advocate while at the U of S and dealt with issues between Profs and Students. Many of these included cheating. An interesting policy and the university was that a prof has no right to give a student a zero on an assignment. It is against univerisity policy for a professer to do it. Now that profs would still do it and a lot of times people would come to me complaining about it.

The proper procedure was to hold a hearing where both sides get to present evidence and a tribunal of a professor from the college, a professer within the college and a student from the college would decide the penalty based on the evidence.

The results of these hearings were quite interesting if the tribuanl found the student guilty it was always the students on the comittee who recomended the stiffest punishment. The severity of the punishment was always more then a zero on an assignment or exam and at a minimum included an additional 10% penalty on the final mark in the class to a 0 in the class or a Withdrawal Fail (30%) in the class.

The logic behind the more severe punishment is that if they didn't cheat you assume they would have failed so giving them a zero isn't really punishment. So then there is only upside to cheating. And it isn't fair to students who failed the exam without trying to cheat so an additional penalty needs to be applied.

The most interesting case I dealt with involved 3 engineering students who did all of their research together when preparing a geography paper. the resulting papers were very similar as each had the same sources and basically the same thesis. The students ended up winning because they were able to prove a) the prof never stated they couldn't work together on the research and since all did the research together they all owned the work. Origninally the prof had tried to give them each 1/3rd of the grade arguing that it was a research paper and working alone should be common sense. It really illustrates the different way engineeing students in general approach assignments compared to other students.

If the expectations are established early I say throw the full power of the university at them. Letting them off with a zero only penalizes the people who are failing honestly.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by HelloHockeyFans

Do I think I learned more by actually doing? Yes, I do.

That was my point. You non-cheaters have everything fly over your head

People that cheated in that manner would have way more studying to come time for the final exam. When you only do one of 8 assignments for the year, you don't know much come the end of the course. If you do them yourself, you can study quite a bit less because you learned it throughout the year doing assignments.

It is also technically cheating in some courses to look at your friends assignment because you are stuck on a problem. You could either not get the answer, not learn how to do it, and lose the marks like you are supposed to, or you could look at your friends, figure out how it's done, get the marks on your assignment. I stand by the fact you won't do as well in the working world if you are the type of person who chooses the first option.

P.S. "You sound like..." != "You are...". Just because you sounded a bit like a weenie in your post, doesn't mean I was accusing you of being one.

As for the type of worker "I am", I won't even address it, since it's the second time in your post that you've turned to personal attacks which I tend to ignore.

When I reference 'you' I'm referring to the reader, not yourself specifically. Hence the use of 'if' before 'you' all over the place.