Take-home exams? Really??

<p>^ that’s not the impression I got when visiting</p>

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We didn’t get that opinion while visiting either, but then one day and a few students isn’t much. KnowYourRole, are you affiliated with Caltech? Please PM me if you’re worried about outing yourself, but I’d love to know. My son is very interested in Caltech and this is worrisome. Thanks.</p>

<p>Don’t take what I say as a stricture on the school so much as a censure of the honor system.</p>

<p>I wouldn’t be any more worried about your son going to Caltech as I would with him going off to any other school. Academic dishonesty will rear its head wherever you go, whether it be Annapolis (see the 1994 scandal) or your local community college. Personal experience and a firm grounding in reality have made me of the opinion that the ‘honor system’ is fatally flawed and students would be much better off taking in-class exams proctored by the professor or TA. Caltech students would never have that though as they are quite obstinate with regards to the freedoms afforded them by the honor code.</p>

<p>In the end if you’re a good student you’ll get to where you want to be, irrespective of the actions of others. That said if you’re willing to sacrifice a bit of your own integrity you can get to where you want to be whilst putting forth a lot less effort - and Tech makes it easy to do so.</p>

<p>Cheating occurs at Tech probably no more or no less than at other top schools. I happen to simply find the system ridiculous however. Cheating is made easier simply so people have have a few frivolities that they tend to massively overvalue. It’s not an epidemic - but it’s an issue.</p>

<p>What do you mean by “fatally flawed”? Ultimately fatal to the school or to the students or what?</p>

<p>The thing is, the consequences are much more severe for cheating at Caltech. I mean, look at their online example of an honor court proceeding; a guy gets put on indefinite leave for copying homework. Sure, that’s basically never going to really happen, but at what other school would anyone suggest it might?</p>

<p>Of course, honor codes aren’t perfect. Cheating is going to happen no matter what you do. But if you can get about the same amount of cheating with a lot fewer restrictions on students, why is that not a good thing?</p>

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<p>Sounds a little dubious to me – are these take-home exams things you can easily look up online and get the answers to or something? I’d not think so…</p>

<p>I’m a huge skeptic of how moral students can really get myself, but the way things are structured at Caltech, at least as has been described, I’m not sure if it can be called a joke at all. Where does your concern stem from specifically?</p>

<p>My honest belief is that if you give take-home work, it should be treated more like a report than an exam, which means things like time-restrictions seem a little out of place and waiting to be broken. I think, though, that difficult take-home work with no pretenses is probably the best way to get students to learn their stuff.</p>

<p>Exams which have time restrictions usually have a lot of extra time. It’s usually more to prevent you from spending all day on it than anything.</p>

<p>There’s plenty of exams without time restrictions. Most higher level ACM courses have unlimited time exams. They’re basically just more difficult problem sets.</p>

<p>^^ Yeah, then I see no problem or reason for complaint from all the folks around here. I approve of that system.</p>

<p>I would like to echo the point that for most courses you take after the first year or two, cheating becomes very difficult. First off, my self estimation may be off, but I would say, I was average to slightly above average in my qualitative understanding of concepts taught here, but my algebra is significantly slower and more error prone than the average at tech. Most exams give plenty of time, and it is rarely an issue for me. A recent exam did surprise me in that I wrote nonstop and finished with about 10 minutes of the four hours to spare. Most of the time I will go through the portions I know well quickly then slug through the remainder as best I can. Checking answers after the exam has been turned in, but before results have been returned quickly shows how difficult it would be to cheat. I realise people pull it off, but from what I have experienced it must take a fair amount of foreplanning. Whats more, I have had a small number of questions that concern ongoing research (some to my knowledge as yet unpublished). </p>

<p>There is an odd culture in my house at least regarding the quality of a test objectively. Small amounts of algebra are fine, but it is often wondered why classes outside ACM (possible Math as well) have so much algebra and calculus, especially when they disallow computation tools. It occurs to me now that this may in part be to prevent teaching. It also occurs to me, however, that clever use of Mathematica could get around this to some degree. Regardless, cheating on the conceptual side would still be a time consuming process. The only way I see it working is if you already know the material and sought out reminders, otherwise you would go over time to an obvious and noticeable degree. </p>

<p>I’d also like to note that while honor code statements are usually clear, they sometimes leave ambiguity, in which case a written note in the exam is a good way to communicate to the grader how you interpreted it in case it was incorrect.</p>

<p>This was much longer than I originally intended. Also, I don’t recall ever signing anything regarding the honor code, its perhaps even more organic than you know. Does anyone know anything about the lifetime or strength of BoC precedents?</p>

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<p>Laughing at the accuracy of the slip there. ;)</p>

<p>@ RacinReaver Wow, that really was a slip, didn’t even notice it when I read it.</p>

<p>In any case I meant to say cheating, even so I think some of the tests are unnecessarily math intensive especially when they deny you math tools you would have when using the knowledge in your life.</p>

<p>Science suffered a huge setback after 9/11, with the banning of Al-Gebra’s tools of math instruction.</p>