Observation: cheaters

**DJ Ms. White** · 09-27-08, 04:43 PM

I tried cheating once in the 1st grade when I wasn't sure of an estimation I did (by approximating the length of part of my thumb as an inch and using that to measure) so I cheated off of someone I thought was smarter. Turns out, I was right and should've had confidence in myself. Cheating is too hard anyway, and with me having to do jobs that put other people's livelihoods and actual lives in the hands of my work, I sure as hell want to actually know the material and know it well enough to apply it to any situation.
I can't stand that the other engineering students feel alright with just waiting for the professor to say, "Remember this equation that I just spent 20 minutes showing you how to derive." I also can't stand the professors who only expect their students to do that as well. Besides, what's easier, learning 50 million really specific equations and the rules about when to apply them or learning just a few equations and how to derive the equations you need for any situation from them? I'd rather do the one involving less work.

**PizzaSHARK!** · 09-30-08, 06:21 AM

I don't think it's a drive to succeed so much as plain laziness, and the fact that people aren't punished strongly enough for shit they do wrong. I do think that the law (and rules in schools, workplaces, whatever) are too lenient, but there's a fine line between strict and draconian.

**K0nTANK3Rous** · 09-30-08, 07:59 AM

I think for the most part it's lack of responsibility. I look at the generation gap between me and my other siblings. I consider myself pretty responsible. Did I finish high school? Yes, Did I go to college? Yes Did i graduate? eventually.

There is pressure, society pressure, not enough from parents. Parents are lacking the balls to slap the shit out of their kids now. If i did bad in school, i got spanked, grounded, shit taken away. As I moved on to college and watched how my parents handled my other 2 brothers and my sister, it was WAY to lax...They got away with way to much bullshit. My parents bought me my first car, yes, but that also gave them the right to impose restrictions on it's use, which they so often did. I think my parents had my car more than i did during my high school career.

Did I like school? HELL NO, i hate it, do i like learning? Yes, love it. I realize people learn different, I can't sit in a classroom and be bombarded with information as an instructor reads out of the book or off the projector from notes copied out of the book. School is bullshit, it's been politicized and turned into a business with politicians running the show. It's so sad that the amount of REAL WORLD experience is shielded from students. Nothing is like what's taught in the classroom. Out of all my business classes (when i changed from VetMed to MIS) 3 of them had real world experience, but utilized business scenarios that ALREADY happened YEARS ago, so i already KNEW what happened and had formed a hypothesis and my own idea of how to address or alleviate the "issues".

To those that say you'll never need something taught in a class...you're sorely mistaken. Sometimes it's not the SUBJECT matter you need, it's the principles behind the matter...take the one given above for instance...Calc or Algebra...do i use those on a daily basis, uh no, do I use the skills to solve those type problems (analytical) in my everyday life, you bet your ass I do.

The world is full of pressure, it's taking responsibility to DEAL WITH IT appropriately is whats not done. Parents, spank those kids and if they talk back, IVORY SOAP TASTES LIKE SHIT and they'll remember that too...thanks MOM and DAD!!!

**laggyNgroovy** · 09-30-08, 08:14 AM

Blending views from all over..... it is laziness, lack of self discipline, and pressure to have a "high score" all combined.

I've come to the point, I reeeeeaaaaaaaallllllyy don't care so much about my grades anymore. C or better is just fine for me. When I graduate, I'll be either 40 or 41. I've got the job, the experience and the certs. I am just now getting the degree. In my particular case, no one is going to care about my grades.

But, part of that view was tempered by the fact that I realized that my grades are not truly indicative of what I have done/can do. My grades are going against many people who cheated their way through. So, is my grade really accurate? It's not like I can add an asterisk to my GPA and have it say "* = grade obtained with no cheating/outside help or any other modifiers"

You've got places like www.pickaprof.com where you can register, look at various facets of information about different programs, the distribution of grades/drops that students made in those programs, the instructors for individual classes in that program, the distribution of grades/drops that students made in those classes. Students are now cherry picking the "easiest" instructors to build their GPAs.

And schools are just as bad. They are going to notice who the popular instructors are. Those that are bringing in the students (aka tuition, aka $$$) and those that aren't. So far, my favorite instructor of choice at the University of Houston has also been the hardest one who expects the most. Students are stuck with him because he is the only one who teaches several key classes that most of the program needs.

So.... I am starting to really look at becoming a social pariah/martyr and LOUDLY calling people out for cheating in tests. Hmmmmm........ maybe its time. But then you have that whole OTHER stigma about 'no snitches'. Hmmmmm

**PizzaSHARK!** · 09-30-08, 08:46 AM

Yeah, I'd agree that people are too concerned with what others will think and/or say when it comes to corporal punishment for their kids.

If I acted up, I got spanked. If I did something way out of line, I got the belt, and I can tell you that I did not do that shit ever again if it warranted the belt - not being able to sit down for the next 48 hours sucked.

If I brought home bad grades, or I did something really stupid, I got grounded. And I don't mean the kind of pussy grounding that happens these days where it basically means stay inside and watch TV. I mean where they take everything away; I remember I keyed my folks car once in a fit of early-teen emo-angst, and they even took the mattress off my bed. I spent the week sleeping on the floor. They also made me pay for the body work to repair the damage I did

I won't say that I'm perfect or even a great person. I'd imagine that by most standards, I'm one weird motherfucker. But I do believe that most of what I do is right and I can say that I have no unplanned/illegitimate kids (no kids that I'm aware of at all, really), I am not addicted or even into booze, drugs, or random sex, or any of the other shit that kids seem to be getting into all the time these days.

Just as an aside, I think something should be done to make people read for leisure more, particularly young people. I know that most of my friends and I did and still do read for pleasure; I'm a voracious reader, and can read more than 1500 pages in a week if I really like what I'm reading. I do think that, while TV has some great programming (personally, I love watching Dirty Jobs and MythBusters), the shit that TV funnels into you ultimately makes people even more stupid, and when you see fucking TVs and DVD players and shit in the headrests of cars, it makes me want to take the people out of that SUV or van or whatever and just smack the shit out of them. Stop watching the damn TV and look at the natural beauty around you, or at least read a goddamn book or something. Or... I dunno... talk to your fucking kids instead of having 50 Cent and those fuckheads raise them for you.

**jason_jinx** · 09-30-08, 08:54 AM

LOL

You know I always wondered if every American did what they were "suppost" to do.

Get straight A's then head to college and graduate.

If everyone succeeded like soceity wanted them to where the fuck would we be? There would be a shortage of coparate jobs.

Would most of these college grads do manual labor if they had to?

Laggy you have learned the way of society from the begining.

Low class.
Middle class.
High class.

Those cheaters are heading in a direction that was someone pre selected in this society.

Good observation.

**Braddoc** · 09-30-08, 09:46 AM

Originally Posted by laggyNgroovy

Blending views from all over..... it is laziness, lack of self discipline, and pressure to have a "high score" all combined.

i'll throw in another view for ya, laggy. for me, it was to see if i could do it.

when i was in jr. college, i took chemistry. we would study all week, and have lab on friday. before lab, you had to do what the prof called a "pre-lab", where you go into a room full of computers running a home-made dos app, connected to a netware network. the quicker you answered all of the multiple choice answers, the sooner you could get into lab, finish, and get out of there.

the drive was also compounded by my best friend, a computer geek as well, being in the class with me. since it was our last class of the day, we wanted to get out of there.

so not long into the class, we got this crazy notion to look into how the app worked, and try to get the answers from it, to fly through pre-lab and get to the good stuff. i downloaded all of the chemistry pre-lab network (about 40megs) onto a parallel iomega zip drive (back when they were cool), and figured out how it worked in about 10 minutes after getting home.

not one of my proudest moments, but just an example of another view. for me, it was that i was bored, and just wanted to see if i could do it.