5 ms·

I was lucky to spend my childhood and college years in peer groups where cheating was incomprehensible. Nobody would cheat in a math competition, for instance.

by knzhou 6y ago

I was lucky to spend my childhood and college years in peer groups where cheating was incomprehensible. Nobody would cheat in a math competition, for instance. That would just be a loud, lame declaration of stupidity. When I went to the other side and started having to enforce the rules, I realized that while the top decile could be trusted, everybody else was suspect, and enforcement of the rules was incredibly hard. What do you do when you grade a string of tests containing the exact same silly mistakes? What about a group of students that suddenly jumps to high performance on one exam and then immediately crashes back down? Remote proctoring is even harder. I once saw a student fabricate an entire school with the aid of his parents, complete with website, address, and fake teacher information, so he and his parents could do the exam together. How are you supposed to vet hundreds or thousands of people like this? I really hope that I get a faculty position where I can just teach low-pressure graduate-level seminars, and never have to learn the answer. Mass education is damn hard.

naveen99 6y ago
Educating and testing are separate issues. If you are testing to see what to teach next, and the student cheats, well they just cheated themselves out of learning what you were going to teach if they failed the test.
- chongli 6y ago
  In isolation, maybe. But in reality students are competing for limited educational resources. Cheating can mean the difference between admission and rejection to courses, majors, scholarships, and matriculation at top schools. It’s no different from cheating in sports. Yeah, the sports cheater is probably damaging their body and potentially harming their natural potential. At the same time, cheating may let them make the team and even the big leagues. That can change a person’s entire career, just as cheating to get into Harvard can.
  - searchableguy 6y ago
    <incoherent rant> Everytime, I end up with the same conclusion. Overpopulation and imbalanced distribution of resources is the root cause for everything wrong with this world. I keep doubting myself. The problem shouldn't be that visible. People don't seem to blame overpopulation... maybe it's not a problem but everytime, it is the problem. Look at education systems of smaller countries. They are way better than what you get as the number of people in your country increases despite bigger spending. Stopping overpopulation shouldn't be hard. We haven't tried anything. How can people be so sure? Why not disincentivise having kids by making it too expensive? Maybe use a tax cut equivalent to someone's wealth so rich people are as much affected as poor people (albeit a bit less in the grand scheme). Free birth control for everyone - poor people in less developed countries are responsible for most kids. Force longer education period so fertility rate goes down by the time people settle down. There are so many ways you can push the average marriage age faster than it is happening naturally now. Why not do it for less developed countries? Isn't it better if there is less suffering collectively in this world? How about paying people to not have kids and adopt? What's the problem with it? Taxes are used for so many other useless things. </incoherent rant> I am okay with downvotes but please provide a reason. I really want to know. Maybe my thoughts are unhealthy.
    - de_watcher 6y ago
      You'll have the same shit but on a smaller scale.
      - searchableguy 6y ago
        See - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23170398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23170398 Please explain more.
    - brigandish 6y ago
      There will always be scarcity. That doesn't make all kinds of scarcity the same, morally or in other ways, nor does it mean there will be the same objects of scarcity, nor scope, nor distribution of scarcity at differing population levels. Still, it will always be a "problem" but that also makes it an opportunity. Lack of opportunity or access to the things needed to even take an opportunity are worse than scarcity (in itself).
  - crankylinuxuser 6y ago
    Do you honestly think there's education when a uni teaches cattle class of 200 people for calculus 101, and intends to flunk 80% of them? This could easily be a set of videos recorded from a real lecture. Problems could be assigned from problem sets (plug n chug from schematics). What someone would pay for is 1 on 1 time from a professional. And there's NO reason to fail someone, as in retake and pay a pound of flesh again. If you don't get it, go to a different degree that doesn't require it.
grawprog 6y ago
> I realized that while the top decile could be trusted, everybody else was suspect, That is until the top decile is stuck in a required course they're not very good at and aren't interested in, then suddenly they have no problem handing in the same, slightly modified assignment the rest of the class handed in that was emailed by 'some classmate' who enjoyed stats programming in R.
- knzhou 6y ago
  Definitely. That's another type of course that I hope to avoid having to teach. The ideal course has only students that are relaxed, engaged, well-prepared, and who actually want to be there.
  - Loughla 6y ago
    Are you working in higher ed yet? Because for 99.999% of new faculty, your experience will be as follows: Adjunct (part-time) teaching of introductory courses to earn your stripes (students definitely don't want to be in this class, and you will need a second and/or third job). Full-time teaching of introductory courses after 5-7 years of part-time, because now you're not tenure track, and you still have to earn your stripes. Full-time, tenure track teaching of introductory courses with a couple of 300 levels thrown in to test your merits during the 3 year tenure process. Tenured full time faculty status, teaching where you finally get to teach the classes that students want to take. It's a garbage system.
    - ipunchghosts 6y ago
      I can agree with the "it's a garbage system" sentiment. I think its even worse in engineering fields because many of the non-tenured faculty are incentivized to be that good -- if they were good, they would be working in industry making at least double of what they make now.
    - knzhou 6y ago
      I'm a graduate student. Yes, I know about all of this -- I'm holding out hope to be one of the 0.001%. ;-) They do exist!
DFHippie 6y ago
In high school I ended up the "president" of a team involved in academic competitions. We worked on the assumption that at this level no one would cheat. Every week we'd do a contest in the group, among other things. The scores on the contest determined who made the A team that competed with other schools. One student was a rampant cheater and made it onto the A team, which we didn't discover until the intermural competition began and this student dragged us all down. I guess she got something to put on her college applications, though.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

by knzhou 6y ago

naveen99 6y ago

Educating and testing are separate issues. If you are testing to see what to teach next, and the student cheats, well they just cheated themselves out of learning what you were going to teach if they failed the test.

chongli 6y ago
In isolation, maybe. But in reality students are competing for limited educational resources. Cheating can mean the difference between admission and rejection to courses, majors, scholarships, and matriculation at top schools. It’s no different from cheating in sports. Yeah, the sports cheater is probably damaging their body and potentially harming their natural potential. At the same time, cheating may let them make the team and even the big leagues. That can change a person’s entire career, just as cheating to get into Harvard can.
- searchableguy 6y ago
  <incoherent rant> Everytime, I end up with the same conclusion. Overpopulation and imbalanced distribution of resources is the root cause for everything wrong with this world. I keep doubting myself. The problem shouldn't be that visible. People don't seem to blame overpopulation... maybe it's not a problem but everytime, it is the problem. Look at education systems of smaller countries. They are way better than what you get as the number of people in your country increases despite bigger spending. Stopping overpopulation shouldn't be hard. We haven't tried anything. How can people be so sure? Why not disincentivise having kids by making it too expensive? Maybe use a tax cut equivalent to someone's wealth so rich people are as much affected as poor people (albeit a bit less in the grand scheme). Free birth control for everyone - poor people in less developed countries are responsible for most kids. Force longer education period so fertility rate goes down by the time people settle down. There are so many ways you can push the average marriage age faster than it is happening naturally now. Why not do it for less developed countries? Isn't it better if there is less suffering collectively in this world? How about paying people to not have kids and adopt? What's the problem with it? Taxes are used for so many other useless things. </incoherent rant> I am okay with downvotes but please provide a reason. I really want to know. Maybe my thoughts are unhealthy.
  - de_watcher 6y ago
    You'll have the same shit but on a smaller scale.
    - searchableguy 6y ago
      See - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23170398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23170398 Please explain more.
  - brigandish 6y ago
    There will always be scarcity. That doesn't make all kinds of scarcity the same, morally or in other ways, nor does it mean there will be the same objects of scarcity, nor scope, nor distribution of scarcity at differing population levels. Still, it will always be a "problem" but that also makes it an opportunity. Lack of opportunity or access to the things needed to even take an opportunity are worse than scarcity (in itself).
- crankylinuxuser 6y ago
  Do you honestly think there's education when a uni teaches cattle class of 200 people for calculus 101, and intends to flunk 80% of them? This could easily be a set of videos recorded from a real lecture. Problems could be assigned from problem sets (plug n chug from schematics). What someone would pay for is 1 on 1 time from a professional. And there's NO reason to fail someone, as in retake and pay a pound of flesh again. If you don't get it, go to a different degree that doesn't require it.

grawprog 6y ago

> I realized that while the top decile could be trusted, everybody else was suspect, That is until the top decile is stuck in a required course they're not very good at and aren't interested in, then suddenly they have no problem handing in the same, slightly modified assignment the rest of the class handed in that was emailed by 'some classmate' who enjoyed stats programming in R.

knzhou 6y ago
Definitely. That's another type of course that I hope to avoid having to teach. The ideal course has only students that are relaxed, engaged, well-prepared, and who actually want to be there.
- Loughla 6y ago
  Are you working in higher ed yet? Because for 99.999% of new faculty, your experience will be as follows: Adjunct (part-time) teaching of introductory courses to earn your stripes (students definitely don't want to be in this class, and you will need a second and/or third job). Full-time teaching of introductory courses after 5-7 years of part-time, because now you're not tenure track, and you still have to earn your stripes. Full-time, tenure track teaching of introductory courses with a couple of 300 levels thrown in to test your merits during the 3 year tenure process. Tenured full time faculty status, teaching where you finally get to teach the classes that students want to take. It's a garbage system.
  - ipunchghosts 6y ago
    I can agree with the "it's a garbage system" sentiment. I think its even worse in engineering fields because many of the non-tenured faculty are incentivized to be that good -- if they were good, they would be working in industry making at least double of what they make now.
  - knzhou 6y ago
    I'm a graduate student. Yes, I know about all of this -- I'm holding out hope to be one of the 0.001%. ;-) They do exist!

DFHippie 6y ago

In high school I ended up the "president" of a team involved in academic competitions. We worked on the assumption that at this level no one would cheat. Every week we'd do a contest in the group, among other things. The scores on the contest determined who made the A team that competed with other schools. One student was a rampant cheater and made it onto the A team, which we didn't discover until the intermural competition began and this student dragged us all down. I guess she got something to put on her college applications, though.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]