<p>A good third of the students in my graduation class are a bunch of frauds.</p>
<p>They copy off each other for homework, skip class, and worse of all, they manage to get the old tests from previous semesters and memorize the answers. The majority of our professors recycle SIMILAR questions for exams. Some professors are so lazy, their exams and quizzes are EXACTLY the same as previous semesters, so all these little buggers do is just memorize the answers and write them down on test day like a robot.</p>
<p>What REALLLLY gets me, is these kids are messing up the curve for everyone and pulling off A's! These A's is what's getting them all the internships and employment before graduation.</p>
<p>It upsets me! Most times, we cannot prove what they are doing, so it's hard to make a case to the professor. It becomes obvious when you hear word of mouth what they're doing and even after an exam, the guys don't even remember what topics the test was even on. I kid you not, a student raised his hand towards the end of our quiz the other week and asked, "is nano 10 to the -6?" SERIOUSLY!?!?! This kid has a 3.8 GPA, a full time engineering job with a utility company, and is about to graduate this semester, yet he has to honestly ask that question!?!?!?</p>
<p>This is why I think the education system is flawed. All these straight A students are fake and they manage to get through the system without consequences. Grades is what an employer looks at, but because of these guys, GRADES ARE USELESS!</p>
<p>I don't know what to do. I feel like the rest of us are screwed because we are not in their circle. And even if I was, I just think it's flat out wrong to just BS your way through a college degree like that, especially one as important as engineering.</p>
<p>I’ll give you one tidbit of advice: don’t count other people’s money. It will never do you any good. But given the fact that this is a rant, you’d probably shrug off that suggestion without an explanation. So here it is:</p>
<p>You don’t know how things are; not entirely. Maybe they’re just straight up cheaters, or maybe there’s more going on that you just don’t realize. I know from personal experience that asymmetry in results (i.e. in grades) tends to breed much more than a fair share of resentment for the more successful. </p>
<p>And even if you’re spot on about the cheating, it’s still not enough. The fact is, there’s never a level playing field. There are some people who simply do disproportionately better than anyone else with far less effort (smart people, extremely efficient people, quite a few others), and it does suck to not be on the top of that pile. But complaining about how everything conspires against you (professors are lazy, education is broken, can’t do anything about it) does absolutely nothing for you. </p>
<p>Learn to deal with it. If they’re really as incompetent as you say, employers will figure it out pretty quickly. If not, that means you were wrong and they got a leg up in that regard. Once again, deal with it - it’s really not that bad if someone was a bit more lucky at one point in time than you were.</p>
<p>Don’t count other people’s money. Nothing good will come of it.</p>
<p>Can’t beat them?, join them. no but seriously, sometimes you just gotta learn to ignore, karma is ***** my friend, they’ll get what’s coming to them.</p>
<p>I once had an Ivy League BSEE intern Junior who could not identify a Logic Analyzer… and who spent her entire internship creating an awesome user interface that did nothing (no functionality). She used her awesome, ehem, demographics to land a full company MSEE fellowship with little understanding of what an EE does…</p>
<p>Be careful here, because there is a fine line between working together on something and copying. Most professors are fine with or even encourage working together, but copying is obviously frowned upon. Are you sure they are actually copying? If not, then stop fretting.</p>
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<p>This shouldn’t concern you in the least. They are paying for an education, and if they want to skip classes, it is their own money they are wasting.</p>
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<p>This happened during my undergraduate studies as well, and most if not all professors are aware that it goes on, knowing full well that no matter what you do, some kids are simply going to find a way to cheat. The bottom line is that at some point, that lack of understanding that the cheaters get is going to come back to bite them. In the meantime, all you can do is worry about yourself.</p>
<p>I also wouldn’t get too bent out of shape about asking whether nano- was 10^-6, as it is is one of those things that, in my opinion, is so simple and mundane that it is easy to forget sometimes, especially in the middle of the crunch time of an exam. It is a much bigger problem if they are asking questions that are simple/fundamental to the class that anyone should know for that class.</p>
<p>I’ve never understood the notion that using old tests is somehow cheating. Once the professor hands the test back, it is now in public domain. If the professor didn’t recycle questions, there would be no reason to memorize the answers.</p>
<p>Probably the best advice given on the forum.</p>
<p>For one (like previously mentioned), you do not know the whole entire story. Secondly, there will be times in YOUR career (academic or professional) when you will get some sort “extra benefit”.</p>
<p>My class partner during my final term as an undergrad pretty much did most of our CS project because I was conducting interviews. I already had accepted an offer but went on a few more interviews because it was free flights, free hotel stays, etc.</p>
<p>Hell, I even remember as a sophomore, my RA heard who I had for Physics and said “Man…I think I have his exams from last year” and gave them to me. The exam was not much different than the one I was given in class.</p>
<p>I knew of fraternities and tutors of athletes who received some academic perks but I looked at it as “none of my business”.</p>
<p>I could on and on about “perks”…having a CS lab partner whose girlfriend would “leave a back door unlocked after hours” so that we could do our CS lab projects all night.</p>
<p>At some universities, old exams are readily available on web sites of departments or campus-recognized student organizations. This keeps instructors honest about making new exam questions, and equalizes access to practice exams.</p>
<p>I am all too familiar with people at my school cheating in MS EE program. They email solutions to each other, text solutions to each other, and give out their papers receiving it back on the due date. Specifically on homework. Although there was one occupancy of exam trading on a midterm, looking at what other people wrote the trading back and copying.</p>
<p>I have a long letter to my deans written that I’m waiting till the end of the semester to send. Luckily, those that copy off of others on homework do badly on exams.</p>
<p>I generally don’t care, but it is frustrating that curves can be broken.</p>
<p>While not related to college, a recent ACT math section was apparently the same test used a few years ago. If the tests that professors write are readily available, them I see no problem with using recycled tests, although everyone should have access to the tests. Unfortunately ethics are long gone, and many will do whatever it takes to get ahead.</p>
<p>At my school, there are a lot of students in our aero department that cheat, though not all of them. </p>
<p>They sit around and copy each other’s homework pretty openly, find solutions for the homeworks and use those, copy old lab reports for the lab classes we have, etc. However, I have found that most of these students don’t do well on the exams, so it isn’t too tough to do better than them. There are a couple that do well, but only a couple. </p>
<p>We just need to accept the fact there are cheaters and try and do better than them. Me and one of my buds always make it a goal to beat all the cheaters.</p>
<p>In some schools it’s explicitly considered cheating to use old tests. I had a number of classes that also said it was against the rules to try and use things like the Internet Wayback Machine to access past assignments and solutions which were posted online (or other websites that may aggregate this information).</p>
<p>@boneh3ad. They literally copy each other. One dude gets it from the solutions manual, then hands it to his buddies the day of and they just jot down what they wrote. I’ve seen them do this is the computer lab and they brag about it like it’s some kind of joke.</p>
<p>@Dreburden. I’m sorry I had to expose your cheating kind over the Internet. You should’ve picked a different degree if you think this is okay. As a matter of fact, quit the field before you kill someone.</p>
<p>Whether the professor gives out old tests or not, it’s the principle of the idea that’s wrong. The grade you get is a description on how well you learned the material, not how well you can BS it or get it from others. </p>
<p>This isn’t something you can’t just ignore because it affects me. They are screwing the curve. My grade is going lower because of them and I do it the honest way! The only way to get a good grade it seems, is to do what they are doing, which is NOT how the education system should be. If me and one of those guys are applying to the same job, the GPA filter on the online application is going to favor him over me. Once again, not something you can just ignore.</p>
<p>Even back when I was in college, exam files of copies of paper exams that students could check out were available to all students at a student group, with full knowledge of the department. Presumably, they knew that access to old exams could not be controlled completely, so it was better to make them available to all, and put instructors on notice to not recycle old exam problems.</p>
<p>As far as homework is concerned, usually it is not a big part of the grade, and students who cheat a lot on the homework are less likely to learn the material well enough to do well on the exams that are a bigger part of the grade. I.e. it can be a self-solving problem.</p>
<p>As a former TA at a fairly large state university, 1/3 seems like a very conservative - no, in fact it sounds like a clownishly optimistic - estimate of the number of students who are academically dishonest on most, if not all, assignments. If you go to a non-elite school and aren’t cheating, you’re in the minority.</p>
<p>Look on the bright side, though: those people don’t amount to anything outside of school. I think the sweet spot is honest people who can do well if they work hard, and are willing to put forth the effort. People who have it come so naturally that they’re never challenged, or talented but lazy people, or honest hard-working people who just aren’t cut out for it… most of them do OK.</p>
<p>Seriously, though, if you think I’m off-base about the prevalence of cheating, I’m not; I don’t blame you for being doubtful, because I would have doubted it too, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Putting up with academic dishonesty was just one of the many joys of being a TA.</p>
<p>OP, I suggest that you step down from your high horse before you fall and get hurt. I’m not a cheater, however, you sound like a grade schooler running to the teacher about what someone else did. If you are just now realizing that people lie to get ahead, then I hope you can grow up and learn to get accept that which you can’t change. Otherwise you’re going to have a long and unhappy lie</p>
<p>Honestly, I fully understand your frustration here.
But there’s nothing complaining about it will do other than offer a very clever excuse for not making enough progress. Just learn to deal with it because that will help you more in the long run.
Sometimes you get the short end of the stick, and it’s not always fair. You’ll still be best off if you just work hard with a slight disadvantage than give up because you didn’t get ahead as much as they did.</p>
<p>I knew three kids in college. they had the same major and took the same classes year after year. They never talked to anyone else. They roomed together and ate together. Their scores on tests and homework was nearly identical. It was the ultimate study group. But was it cheating?</p>