Cheating in College

[deserat]

Hmm - I remember working in groups to do homework, etc, so the homework would look similar, but not very often getting access to previous exams - and I went to a public suniversity. However, Dad had gone to West Point and drilled that honor code into me, so I tended to shy away from any cheating (I tend to get caught breaking rules in general for some reason - not a very good liar, I guess).

I was also a TA and graded student homework for several different classes. I remember one time I caught three students blatantly cheating - it was for a numerical analysis class and they had to turn in a computer program - they didn't even bother to change their names on the program - just copied, so basically, whoever the guy was that did the work, the others only changed the name of the file, not the information in the program - very stupid. When I told the professor, he was very serious about dealing with this and quite angry - I was a bit blase, I guess, as I knew people did that a lot. I figured it would affect them later when they actually had to use the information someday.

For graduate school, I read everything and did every homework problem, etc. I was a sponge and loved what I was studying. I still remember most of the information I studied in grad school and it's 20 years later.

 

[Sesq]

I was in college in the early 90s, and was shocked when I found out the frats had files of old tests. I was studying with a few frat and sorority types - actually, I was tutoring, and I was shocked at how poorly they were doing with some basic math (graph an equation). But I thought I had them understanding.

The next day when we sat down for test it was word for word the same test. I was shocked, but got a 100%. I was stunned that none of my tutoree's matched my grade. I think they did high 80s, but still. Guess I wasn't that great a tutor.

Turns out this prof was famous for not updating his tests. I only saw that one test, but I was one of the only ones to get an A in the class.

I guess I should have joined a frat at that point, but really wasn't my style.

 

[easysurfer]

Update on the original post.

Good news! Got a call from my brother today. The guy who tricked my niece into providing him with school labs "sang like a canary" to the school authorities and fessed up. My niece and her friend (another one who this guy tricked) is 100% cleared from any wrongdoing.

Didn't even need the email which I helped my niece recover from her deleted messages. I'm sure she is a bit more cautious now -- can't believe everything she reads. Sad in a sense -- wiser, but innocence lost.

I'm happy that it all turned out right

 

[KB]

That's great that it all turned out ok. I'm sure she will be more cautious....good thing he confessed.

 

[kramer]

I am happy her name was cleared.

I was taking an undergraduate computer science weeder class about 1993. It was not a required class for me, a physics major, but I knew my future was in computers.

I handed in an electronic assignment. Apparently, several students had copied almost verbatim my computer program, I had printed out a slightly non-working version to study it when I was doing some last minute modifications -- I threw the printout in the trash can.

The professor announced to the class about a week later that there was a cheating episode in the class, discovered by a program that electronically compares all the assignments, and that the following students should report to a meeting, and my name was one of the names. I was shocked because I was getting an A+ in the class. I quickly figured out that my work had been copied. The Teaching Assistants had daily backups of everyone's file system, and when reconstructed a couple of days later, saw that I had actually created a working copy of the solution on the day the homework was assigned, over a week before this incident. And so I was completely cleared and it was clear that my assignment was the original source.

As far as I know, the other students (I think about 5), only got an F on that assignment even though they were caught red-handed. The teaching assistants later showed me the code turned in by the others, and it was almost funny, these guys literally could not program their way out of a paper bag.

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

When I was in school, I knew about the frat crib files, but never used them, not being a frat boy. No study groups either. Had to make it on my own, with a little paid tutoring for physical chemistry (for the test question: derive the Schroedinger equation for hydrogen ).

Intellectual cheating is a touchy subject for me.

Once upon a time, a new hire took credit for some original and rather creative test work that I did. He is now president of the company. I also discovered (by doing the math, trying to duplicate the results because I had to do design based on that data) that the SIL of the old president dry-labbed some published testing for a major client, but I never disclosed it. I left them long ago.

 

[Bestwifeever]

Thanks so much for posting the update, ES. I am sure your niece feels quite relieved to not have to worry about the whole situation! A valuable lesson learned the hard way.

 

[easysurfer]

You're welcome. That is good news indeed. From what my brother told me, the school had sent her a letter saying that she was 100% cleared and the guy had confessed. As I like to say, he sung like a canary