4 ms·

One of my family members paid their way through school writing papers for others... in the 80s. I don’t think this is a new thing. I used to do consulting / tu

One of my family members paid their way through school writing papers for others... in the 80s. I don’t think this is a new thing. I used to do consulting / tutoring for programming. Tutoring was $50 per hour, consulting was $100 per hour. Probably 50% of the students I tutored asked me to write programs for them. I’d tell them my consulting rate, in an attempt to persuade them against this path and most wouldn’t bat an eye. Cheating is way more common than people think.

abfan1127 7y ago
what I don't understand is how they get through the tests.
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  Anecdotally, more than half the classes I've taken at GT (OMSCS) so far have graded entirely on homework, projects, and participation, with no tests.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- leetcrew 7y ago
  at my school, the weighting was usually designed to emphasize the projects. the projects and homework combined would often be 50% of the grade right there. the homework would be softball questions or stuff you could just look up the answers for on the internet; almost everyone who bothered to do it would have a near perfect homework average. once you pay someone to also get you near perfect scores on the projects, you just needed to get about half the points on exams and quizzes to pass the course.
  - mieseratte 7y ago
    That's how my old college buddy got through, leaning on me and a few other friends for tutoring and help on the big projects and memorizing enough to get through the tests, forgetting the relevant material soon after. As they say, C's get degrees. We used to joke his diploma should come with an asterisk.
- meowface 7y ago
  Often it's more about laziness and motivation than lack of skill. A high percentage of college students can write a mediocre or above 10 page paper but also just really don't want to. They'd rather do something fun and pay someone if it doesn't cost them much. Answering (typically) multiple choice questions and short-response questions is a totally different thing. I never used such a service, but I do see the appeal. I did kind of similar things, in my own way, to reduce time spent on courses I didn't like (skipping class, skipping or skimming material, exam cramming). Not saying it's a good thing, and it probably hurts one's already poor work ethic, but life is short and I don't really blame them that much.
  - throwawaysea 7y ago
    That suggests that these assignments are more like busy work, since the students are otherwise talented and qualified? Maybe it is a good thing after all?
    - michaelt 7y ago
      Perhaps doing the assignment improves the student's understanding of the course material, which the professor thinks is a good thing, but it's possible to pass the course with only a mediocre understanding of the material?
      - leetcrew 7y ago
        > but it's possible to pass the course with only a mediocre understanding of the material probably this. the most time-efficient strategy for studying that I found in college was simply retyping all the bullets from the powerpoints 2-3 times. I didn't understand what I was writing, but I basically trained myself to be a "chinese room" for test questions. I got As on all the tests for classes I didn't care about this way.
        meowface 7y ago
        Pretty much exactly what I did, as well. And I'd usually do it an hour or two before each test.
maxerickson 7y ago
If you were really trying to be persuasive you would have said no.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
woopwoop 7y ago
Instructors are often unbelievably naive about this, saying things to the effect of "Cheaters are really obvious, so there can't be that much of it." No, the cheaters that you catch are really obvious.
- ineedasername 7y ago
  I occasionally teach a college course as an adjunct (fun, and a little extra spending money). I don't know how wide spread cheating is, though if it were extremely common then students wouldn't struggle so much with some of the material. But personally, while I have an "instant F" policy if caught, I didn't really care: My philosophy and that of many other instructors is not one of indignant, "surely I'd know!" about cheating, It's that it's the student's time, their future debt. If they want to waste it, that's on them.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    > It's that it's the student's time, their future debt. If they want to waste it, that's on them. I mean, it is pretty unfair to the kids who actually do honest work. if enough people cheat and get near perfect scores, it makes it hard for the instructor to understand what a reasonable two week project is. grades are also (unfortunately) pretty important for internships. on the other hand, sometimes people who cheat are really bad at it. in one of the courses I TA'd, there were two groups of 3-4 students who would always sit together in labs. they would always turn in nearly identical labs and homeworks, including all the same mistakes! it looked like the only differences came from transcription errors. I never bothered to report them because they failed all the assignments anyway.
    - ineedasername 7y ago
      I've never had a problem determining what a reasonable project length or level of difficulty should be. I don't adjust it if I have a particularly apt group of students. Students who really shine are given direction to support that ability but that is case by case, not baked into the overall difficulty of the course. These things can be rubric driven based on what material should be learned and not just improvised based on perceived class characteristics. There's no unfairness to an honest student who gets just as much out of a course with or without cheaters. Perhaps more if I'm not trying to put together complicated "gotcha" assignments and tests to catch potential cheaters. Besides, I didn't say I ignored cheating. My fault if I gave that impression. I put in reasonable effort to look out for it, but don't obsess over it. if it went on without me finding out then by definition it wasn't something I could act on, and neither I nor the honest students were the ones losing time and money.
davebindy 7y ago
>One of my family members paid their way through school writing papers for others... in the 80s. I don’t think this is a new thing. It isn't. In the mid-1970s I worked in the office of a company that sold term papers to students. We had a huge catalog of them, on about every conceivable topic. And we weren't the only company in that particular business. It wasn't a particularly lucractive business, and the guy who owned the company closed it fairly quickly. He was an interesting guy - after that company, he spent a year or so developing a solution that would fade denim in your washing machine (I worked for him in that company as well), which he sold for a bundle (at the time) to a major detergent company. Later he became a mover and shaker in the autograph/original document field.
dehrmann 7y ago
> Probably 50% of the students I tutored asked me to write programs for them How does this play out after school? These students obviously have no passion for programming and are probably just there for the money after school. But once they get that job--and I'm not even sure they can land that FAANG job they want; you're not going to cram your way to being a competent whiteboard coder--do they just hope they'll just stumble into a job where they don't do much work, and the work isn't very difficult, and are ok with getting fired from every other job?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- imesh 7y ago
  In my experience, those guys end up as IT workers at highschool, hospitals,offices in non tech companies, etc.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  You adapt. Most tech jobs aren’t very technical. Usually these folks are savvy, come in and latch on to someone’s work and pivot quickly into a more abstract role or management role. Sometimes they are even good at those roles.
mark_l_watson 7y ago
I accepted a ‘do my computer science homework’ gig from a student in China about 15 years ago, but when I was done, I decided to not do it anymore. A few years later, a married couple (two professors in Saudi Arabia) hired me to remotely tutor their daughter who was an under graduate in CSand that was fun, and I hoped I helped her. I have a niece who has two masters degrees(literature and screenplay writing) and she has never hit it big with her own writing but she works helping exchange students polish their application essays and the money from that pays her bills and lets her write creatively and she gets by with relatively small income from her creative works.
- rahimnathwani 7y ago
  "helping exchange students polish their application essays" Do those assessing the applications care if the applicants have had this type and extent of help?

abfan1127 7y ago

what I don't understand is how they get through the tests.

rootusrootus 7y ago
Anecdotally, more than half the classes I've taken at GT (OMSCS) so far have graded entirely on homework, projects, and participation, with no tests.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
leetcrew 7y ago
at my school, the weighting was usually designed to emphasize the projects. the projects and homework combined would often be 50% of the grade right there. the homework would be softball questions or stuff you could just look up the answers for on the internet; almost everyone who bothered to do it would have a near perfect homework average. once you pay someone to also get you near perfect scores on the projects, you just needed to get about half the points on exams and quizzes to pass the course.
- mieseratte 7y ago
  That's how my old college buddy got through, leaning on me and a few other friends for tutoring and help on the big projects and memorizing enough to get through the tests, forgetting the relevant material soon after. As they say, C's get degrees. We used to joke his diploma should come with an asterisk.
meowface 7y ago
Often it's more about laziness and motivation than lack of skill. A high percentage of college students can write a mediocre or above 10 page paper but also just really don't want to. They'd rather do something fun and pay someone if it doesn't cost them much. Answering (typically) multiple choice questions and short-response questions is a totally different thing. I never used such a service, but I do see the appeal. I did kind of similar things, in my own way, to reduce time spent on courses I didn't like (skipping class, skipping or skimming material, exam cramming). Not saying it's a good thing, and it probably hurts one's already poor work ethic, but life is short and I don't really blame them that much.
- throwawaysea 7y ago
  That suggests that these assignments are more like busy work, since the students are otherwise talented and qualified? Maybe it is a good thing after all?
  - michaelt 7y ago
    Perhaps doing the assignment improves the student's understanding of the course material, which the professor thinks is a good thing, but it's possible to pass the course with only a mediocre understanding of the material?
    - leetcrew 7y ago
      > but it's possible to pass the course with only a mediocre understanding of the material probably this. the most time-efficient strategy for studying that I found in college was simply retyping all the bullets from the powerpoints 2-3 times. I didn't understand what I was writing, but I basically trained myself to be a "chinese room" for test questions. I got As on all the tests for classes I didn't care about this way.
      - meowface 7y ago
        Pretty much exactly what I did, as well. And I'd usually do it an hour or two before each test.

maxerickson 7y ago

If you were really trying to be persuasive you would have said no.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

woopwoop 7y ago

Instructors are often unbelievably naive about this, saying things to the effect of "Cheaters are really obvious, so there can't be that much of it." No, the cheaters that you catch are really obvious.

ineedasername 7y ago
I occasionally teach a college course as an adjunct (fun, and a little extra spending money). I don't know how wide spread cheating is, though if it were extremely common then students wouldn't struggle so much with some of the material. But personally, while I have an "instant F" policy if caught, I didn't really care: My philosophy and that of many other instructors is not one of indignant, "surely I'd know!" about cheating, It's that it's the student's time, their future debt. If they want to waste it, that's on them.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  > It's that it's the student's time, their future debt. If they want to waste it, that's on them. I mean, it is pretty unfair to the kids who actually do honest work. if enough people cheat and get near perfect scores, it makes it hard for the instructor to understand what a reasonable two week project is. grades are also (unfortunately) pretty important for internships. on the other hand, sometimes people who cheat are really bad at it. in one of the courses I TA'd, there were two groups of 3-4 students who would always sit together in labs. they would always turn in nearly identical labs and homeworks, including all the same mistakes! it looked like the only differences came from transcription errors. I never bothered to report them because they failed all the assignments anyway.
  - ineedasername 7y ago
    I've never had a problem determining what a reasonable project length or level of difficulty should be. I don't adjust it if I have a particularly apt group of students. Students who really shine are given direction to support that ability but that is case by case, not baked into the overall difficulty of the course. These things can be rubric driven based on what material should be learned and not just improvised based on perceived class characteristics. There's no unfairness to an honest student who gets just as much out of a course with or without cheaters. Perhaps more if I'm not trying to put together complicated "gotcha" assignments and tests to catch potential cheaters. Besides, I didn't say I ignored cheating. My fault if I gave that impression. I put in reasonable effort to look out for it, but don't obsess over it. if it went on without me finding out then by definition it wasn't something I could act on, and neither I nor the honest students were the ones losing time and money.

davebindy 7y ago

>One of my family members paid their way through school writing papers for others... in the 80s. I don’t think this is a new thing. It isn't. In the mid-1970s I worked in the office of a company that sold term papers to students. We had a huge catalog of them, on about every conceivable topic. And we weren't the only company in that particular business. It wasn't a particularly lucractive business, and the guy who owned the company closed it fairly quickly. He was an interesting guy - after that company, he spent a year or so developing a solution that would fade denim in your washing machine (I worked for him in that company as well), which he sold for a bundle (at the time) to a major detergent company. Later he became a mover and shaker in the autograph/original document field.

dehrmann 7y ago

> Probably 50% of the students I tutored asked me to write programs for them How does this play out after school? These students obviously have no passion for programming and are probably just there for the money after school. But once they get that job--and I'm not even sure they can land that FAANG job they want; you're not going to cram your way to being a competent whiteboard coder--do they just hope they'll just stumble into a job where they don't do much work, and the work isn't very difficult, and are ok with getting fired from every other job?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
imesh 7y ago
In my experience, those guys end up as IT workers at highschool, hospitals,offices in non tech companies, etc.
Spooky23 7y ago
You adapt. Most tech jobs aren’t very technical. Usually these folks are savvy, come in and latch on to someone’s work and pivot quickly into a more abstract role or management role. Sometimes they are even good at those roles.

mark_l_watson 7y ago

I accepted a ‘do my computer science homework’ gig from a student in China about 15 years ago, but when I was done, I decided to not do it anymore. A few years later, a married couple (two professors in Saudi Arabia) hired me to remotely tutor their daughter who was an under graduate in CSand that was fun, and I hoped I helped her. I have a niece who has two masters degrees(literature and screenplay writing) and she has never hit it big with her own writing but she works helping exchange students polish their application essays and the money from that pays her bills and lets her write creatively and she gets by with relatively small income from her creative works.

rahimnathwani 7y ago
"helping exchange students polish their application essays" Do those assessing the applications care if the applicants have had this type and extent of help?