4 ms·

As someone who went there (albeit many decades ago) I can tell you FWIW when I was there folks took it seriously. I literally knew of no one who ever cheated on

As someone who went there (albeit many decades ago) I can tell you FWIW when I was there folks took it seriously. I literally knew of no one who ever cheated on an exam. And I'm pretty sure that anyone I knew who observed cheating would have taken it seriously enough to bring it to the process. It was pretty much a fixture of how students thought about things. So it worked (near as I could tell) back then. But institutions take awhile to adjust to new realities, and it while looks like Princeton may have been a bit behind the curve on this one, I can understand why they were reluctant to abandon this practice. Living in an honest community cuts a lot of extra effort out - crap that you don't even have to think about. Princeton will be a less productive place to learn going forward.

bix6 5mo ago
The stats beg to differ. ⅓ admitted to cheating. Cheating was rampant at my uni and we also had an “honor code”
- jgalt212 5mo ago
  recent stats.
  - bix6 5mo ago
    Ok what do the old ones say?
    - jgalt212 5mo ago
      much lower
      - bix6 5mo ago
        Yeah show me
        jgalt212 5mo ago
        www.google.com www.bing.com
- ccortes 5mo ago
  Bad argument. All countries have laws yet criminality rates varies a lot from country to country. It’s all about the culture.
  - breezybottom 5mo ago
    The accuracy of measuring criminality also varies, yet you seem to take it at face value that those stats are accurate.
  - bix6 5mo ago
    O and one person’s anecdote is better? I’ll take the stat if we’re wagering (500 Princeton seniors).
  - catlikesshrimp 5mo ago
    El Salvadorians (from The country) would starkly disagree with you. It took a dictator and a martial state (no human rights) to end maras in less than five years. The culture is the same.
    - autoexec 5mo ago
      They just replaced the street gangs with a single state operated gang. El Salvadorians still have to live in fear for their lives, but it will be the government coming for them.
    - thaumasiotes 5mo ago
      > El Salvadorians Salvadorans.
  - yongjik 5mo ago
    "Culture" works by having a system that collectively punishes cheaters, so that people learn from their own (or others') experiences and internalize that cheating is bad and won't pay off in the long term. That's how you get a culture against cheating. You ensure that cheating doesn't pay, and eventually people learn that cheating doesn't pay. The enforcement is part of the culture.
remixff2400 5mo ago
I'd wager the main difference between "many decades ago" and mid 2000s onwards is the perceived stakes of college. My time in college (around that time) was perceived by most as "make or break": either you did well in college, or you were doomed to a sub-standard lifestyle (not to mention the debt of college tuition). Obviously, whether this was true or not is a whole discussion, but the attitude did lead to a lot more cheating (due to desperation) than I'd imagine past generations had. A midterm being worth 25-33% of a grade, plus some classes only being offered in fall or spring semesters meant a bad test could roughly cost you tens of thousands of dollars, since the next time you could retake the class would be in a year, and it often was a prerequisite for another class. It just leads to an environment that encourages desperate "survival" behavior.
esafak 5mo ago
And you will think less of the people who go there. 30% cheated!!
gavinsyancey 5mo ago
Which is bad, someone who cheats on a test or someone who rats out their friend for cheating on a test? It really is a cultural thing, and that sort of culture is primarily passed down from upperclassmen to underclassmen. I went to a different college with an honor code (Harvey Mudd) and when I graduated in 2019 it was still doing relatively well, but from what I've heard COVID really killed students caring about / adhering to the honor code.
- ericmay 5mo ago
  > Which is bad, someone who cheats on a test or someone who rats out their friend for cheating on a test? Obviously the first. How is this even a question?
  - thaumasiotes 5mo ago
    > Obviously the first. The more usual perspective would be that they're both bad.
    - JCTheDenthog 5mo ago
      Only in certain fucked up moral systems. Though I guess Confucianism would be one of those: >The Duke of She said to Confucius, “Among my people there is one we call ‘Upright Gong.’ When his father stole a sheep, he reported him to the authorities.” >Confucius replied, “Among my people, those who we consider ‘upright’ are different from this: fathers cover up for their sons, and sons cover up for their fathers. ‘Uprightness’ is to be found in this.” -from the Confucian Analects
    - ericmay 5mo ago
      That would be a very unusual perspective, at least in the western world and specifically the United States which has a legal and moral system broadly constructed on a mixture social trust and rule of law and we take into consideration both intent and effect in our moral judgements. There are certainly cases, for example someone cheated on a test but that test allowed them to achieve some greater good, that we can modify our moral beliefs on but there's no clear perspective that would suggest both would be bad. That really doesn't make sense.
jiqiren 5mo ago
I wasn't at Princeton, but I remember blatant cheating going on and 'study groups' in CS classes that were mere passing around of completed code. (1997-2001) I'd asked them what they expected would happen when they tried to get jobs or landed one. Like how do you fake work? They just said all jobs are group-based like their study group. (Keep in mind they were soliciting my code as their group was struggling to find solutions to assignments.) The answer is a one of them works at a grocery store as a cashier, another one I saw now manages a bagel store (didn't know all of them). A waste of time, money, and effort to get a CS degree then just not be able to use it.
- Lucasoato 5mo ago
  Maybe he's happier managing a bagel store rather than dealing with Kubernetes.
  - GuinansEyebrows 5mo ago
    the longer i stay, the more i think "amen to that". ...yeah, yeah, greener grass, i know.
  - pests 5mo ago
    Honestly. I do more with my hands and spend more time outside post-degree, post-reality, than I ever did when in school.
- CobrastanJorji 5mo ago
  When I was at Georgia Tech back around 2002, the freshman Java CS course introduced a brand new and improved cheat detector, and they immediately caught over half of the class for cheating. It was disastrous. The penalty for being caught cheating was so onerous that they simply couldn't do it to the whole class. To the school's credit, they responded as best they could. They considered each case, interviewed the students, and punished them on a sliding scale based on how much cheating, ranging from a zero on that one assignment up to suspension. Then, for the next semester, they simply changed the rules. You were now officially allowed to cheat all you wanted on homework, but it now only counted for 5% of your grade. That was REALLY bad for people who weren't doing the homework, but it also sucked for people who were just lousy test takers.
contubernio 5mo ago
I'd guess this is selection bias and naivete more than anything else. I went to a school with an honor code and cheating was rampant among the premeds and future Obamas.

bix6 5mo ago

The stats beg to differ. ⅓ admitted to cheating. Cheating was rampant at my uni and we also had an “honor code”

jgalt212 5mo ago
recent stats.
- bix6 5mo ago
  Ok what do the old ones say?
  - jgalt212 5mo ago
    much lower
    - bix6 5mo ago
      Yeah show me
      - jgalt212 5mo ago
        www.google.com www.bing.com
ccortes 5mo ago
Bad argument. All countries have laws yet criminality rates varies a lot from country to country. It’s all about the culture.
- breezybottom 5mo ago
  The accuracy of measuring criminality also varies, yet you seem to take it at face value that those stats are accurate.
- bix6 5mo ago
  O and one person’s anecdote is better? I’ll take the stat if we’re wagering (500 Princeton seniors).
- catlikesshrimp 5mo ago
  El Salvadorians (from The country) would starkly disagree with you. It took a dictator and a martial state (no human rights) to end maras in less than five years. The culture is the same.
  - autoexec 5mo ago
    They just replaced the street gangs with a single state operated gang. El Salvadorians still have to live in fear for their lives, but it will be the government coming for them.
  - thaumasiotes 5mo ago
    > El Salvadorians Salvadorans.
- yongjik 5mo ago
  "Culture" works by having a system that collectively punishes cheaters, so that people learn from their own (or others') experiences and internalize that cheating is bad and won't pay off in the long term. That's how you get a culture against cheating. You ensure that cheating doesn't pay, and eventually people learn that cheating doesn't pay. The enforcement is part of the culture.

remixff2400 5mo ago

I'd wager the main difference between "many decades ago" and mid 2000s onwards is the perceived stakes of college. My time in college (around that time) was perceived by most as "make or break": either you did well in college, or you were doomed to a sub-standard lifestyle (not to mention the debt of college tuition). Obviously, whether this was true or not is a whole discussion, but the attitude did lead to a lot more cheating (due to desperation) than I'd imagine past generations had. A midterm being worth 25-33% of a grade, plus some classes only being offered in fall or spring semesters meant a bad test could roughly cost you tens of thousands of dollars, since the next time you could retake the class would be in a year, and it often was a prerequisite for another class. It just leads to an environment that encourages desperate "survival" behavior.

esafak 5mo ago

And you will think less of the people who go there. 30% cheated!!

gavinsyancey 5mo ago

Which is bad, someone who cheats on a test or someone who rats out their friend for cheating on a test? It really is a cultural thing, and that sort of culture is primarily passed down from upperclassmen to underclassmen. I went to a different college with an honor code (Harvey Mudd) and when I graduated in 2019 it was still doing relatively well, but from what I've heard COVID really killed students caring about / adhering to the honor code.

ericmay 5mo ago
> Which is bad, someone who cheats on a test or someone who rats out their friend for cheating on a test? Obviously the first. How is this even a question?
- thaumasiotes 5mo ago
  > Obviously the first. The more usual perspective would be that they're both bad.
  - JCTheDenthog 5mo ago
    Only in certain fucked up moral systems. Though I guess Confucianism would be one of those: >The Duke of She said to Confucius, “Among my people there is one we call ‘Upright Gong.’ When his father stole a sheep, he reported him to the authorities.” >Confucius replied, “Among my people, those who we consider ‘upright’ are different from this: fathers cover up for their sons, and sons cover up for their fathers. ‘Uprightness’ is to be found in this.” -from the Confucian Analects
  - ericmay 5mo ago
    That would be a very unusual perspective, at least in the western world and specifically the United States which has a legal and moral system broadly constructed on a mixture social trust and rule of law and we take into consideration both intent and effect in our moral judgements. There are certainly cases, for example someone cheated on a test but that test allowed them to achieve some greater good, that we can modify our moral beliefs on but there's no clear perspective that would suggest both would be bad. That really doesn't make sense.

jiqiren 5mo ago

I wasn't at Princeton, but I remember blatant cheating going on and 'study groups' in CS classes that were mere passing around of completed code. (1997-2001) I'd asked them what they expected would happen when they tried to get jobs or landed one. Like how do you fake work? They just said all jobs are group-based like their study group. (Keep in mind they were soliciting my code as their group was struggling to find solutions to assignments.) The answer is a one of them works at a grocery store as a cashier, another one I saw now manages a bagel store (didn't know all of them). A waste of time, money, and effort to get a CS degree then just not be able to use it.

Lucasoato 5mo ago
Maybe he's happier managing a bagel store rather than dealing with Kubernetes.
- GuinansEyebrows 5mo ago
  the longer i stay, the more i think "amen to that". ...yeah, yeah, greener grass, i know.
- pests 5mo ago
  Honestly. I do more with my hands and spend more time outside post-degree, post-reality, than I ever did when in school.
CobrastanJorji 5mo ago
When I was at Georgia Tech back around 2002, the freshman Java CS course introduced a brand new and improved cheat detector, and they immediately caught over half of the class for cheating. It was disastrous. The penalty for being caught cheating was so onerous that they simply couldn't do it to the whole class. To the school's credit, they responded as best they could. They considered each case, interviewed the students, and punished them on a sliding scale based on how much cheating, ranging from a zero on that one assignment up to suspension. Then, for the next semester, they simply changed the rules. You were now officially allowed to cheat all you wanted on homework, but it now only counted for 5% of your grade. That was REALLY bad for people who weren't doing the homework, but it also sucked for people who were just lousy test takers.

contubernio 5mo ago

I'd guess this is selection bias and naivete more than anything else. I went to a school with an honor code and cheating was rampant among the premeds and future Obamas.