Doing a homework assignment with other people, when its intended to be an individual assignment, is a form of cheating...no?
You're acting like the fat girl who complains about the eating habits of skinny chicks because you lack the disciplined approach to try it yourself. Why not give up the refined sugars for a couple weeks and see what that does for you, fatty? This is the problem I have with cheaters. You operate based on a victim mentality and fail to look at things conceptually. Economics isn't about memorizing a few paragraphs here and there, it's about understanding market dynamics based on concepts. I guarantee you your professor views it that way. If your goal is to memorize the supply and demand curve rather than understand and apply it to other questions, then you're just going to make things harder for yourself. It reflects on a lack of pride in what you're doing when you call cheating a "vital" tool to have. And that **** carries over to the "real" world, trust me. For every notorious Gordon Gekko character out there, there are 3-4 unheard of guys who do **** the right way and make very good money. But this is a rat race - you have a few lions, a lot of p***y cats, and a ton of rodents. The majority does whatever it takes and I can understand that. But advertising cheating as vital, necessary or a "real world" trait, I can't.
LOL. I like how it went to working on a homework assignment together from this: I have nothing against people work together on a homework assignment--the key word being work. Just about everyone I know has done or does that. There's nothing wrong with working on something together, unless the professor explicitly says not to, which is not something I've ever experienced. And to an earlier poster, of course I would not outright refuse treatment from someone if I knew he/she had cheated. Would it make me uncomfortable? Probably. I didn't say that cheating equated to a certain skill level--I'm just saying that it's not something I approve of, and I think it's silly to try and justify it when other people get through school just fine without cheating. Btw, what I do and my level of education are irrelevant to the discussion. You may assume from that what you will.
I think you're thinking a little too much into it. At the end of the day, people in professions such as medicine have to go through board exams to prove that they are qualified. These are exams are virtually IMPOSSIBLE to cheat on. In America, they have very stringent standards on these exams and passing these tests prove that you are qualified to practice medicine. Everything else comes down to things that you don't learn in books like having good hands in surgery. And I don't know how exactly a doctor would "cheat on your surgery". Any doctor's ultimate goal is to produce the best possible outcome for the patient so that they won't get slapped with a malpractice suit...academic cheater or not. So at the end of the day I would want a cheater who is a better practitioner in a clinical setting then a person who didn't cheat that may not have as good attention to detail or some other flaw that does not make them as good in practice as the academic cheater.
You said "all forms of cheating" and that includes homework, projects, oral exams, etc... I mentioned that in one of my earlier posts before I mentioned the oral exam. Reading comprehension would help you...and that exam thing was one time in my life, not that it justifies anything, but I know for a fact that it has had no impact on my eduation. And yes, your education level matters because the more involved you are in school and the more experience you gain with upper level education, the more you will get an understanding for what takes place in graduate level education.
You still have tests in some classes. These tend to the very hard classes where a lot probability, programing, and graph theory are involved.
worse karma for cheating in grad school, which in most schools is an ethical violation which would get you kicked out. and again, if the professor grades on a curve than cheaters are actually hurting you.
Most professors aren't stupid. Especially if you jump from an F to an A. I was taking an anatomy test yesterday (undergrad) and I noticed this girl had her cheat sheet. It was really small but she faces me at the lab station across from me so I looked up noticed her using it. My professor walked up right behind her, and my heart stopped. He didn't say anything. He just stood there for a while. I could see how scared she was. I'm too chicken to cheat in that class. I work too hard and get no sleep for cheater to be put on my transcript. I'm not going to lie and say I haven't cheated in a class before, but its very rare that I do. It baffles me how a lot of people spend more time making cheat sheets and thinking of diabolical schemes to cheat instead of studying. Reading isn't hard at all. I'm not a snitch though. I'm not the one who has to answer for their actions.
Oh, so if my level of education is higher, then I will know about the pressures and be more likely to cheat? Is that what you're saying? Please... I highly doubt that anyone here considers working on a homework assignment with a fellow classmate cheating. If one person did all the work and the other one copies it, yes, that's cheating. But if they are helping each other to understand the material (like one would from a TUTOR), I'm betting the professor would not care.
i was just responding to a poor analogy. It's a bad analogy to start off with, as some of your comments point out. But given that it was being used in the thread multiple times, I thought it should at least be pointed out. All else being equal, I'd want the doctor who didn't cheat. "Cheat on your surgery" = takes short-cuts in life, etc. Just a broad comment. Yeah, that's what I said. In reality, though, when are you as a patient ever confronted with that choice? Never. Hence, bad example.
Let cheaters cheat. They're really cheating themselves at that level; chances are that they will need that knowledge at some point when they're hired and their fallacy will be uncovered.
No, I'm not necessarily talking about 2 students working together. I'm talking about 20 students in a room...3 students actually doing the work while the rest just circle a, b, c, or d on a scantron. And since we are all close friends, nobody really cares as long as everyone turns in the assignment. There is literally 100% class participation with things like this, specially in an intense grad school program. I never was a part of anything like this in undergrad. And yes, not being in grad school makes it less likely that you know exactly what you are dealing with. I went from taking 15 hrs of credit per semester and 2 science classes...to taking 12 science classes per semester while sitting in 45 hours of lecture per week. It's a completely different dynamic...you are getting hammered with information, you are dealing with the stress and pressure bc of lack of time, and you have multiple exams, projects, and assignments every single week. Pretty hard to jungle...so when you are in a situation that can net you a couple free answers to a homework assignment that makes up 2% of your grade, then it's not that hard of a decision when you have so much other stuff going on...I think if you were in a situation like that, you'd know better than to call all cheaters ****ing scumbags.
This is what I'm gathering. Apparently everyone does it. Well, since you're so adamant about my education level, I'm pursuing a masters degree this fall. Guess I'll have to get off my high horse and join the rest of the cheating masses
Some people just have a very weird sense of entitlement. Class participation, tutoring each other is not cheating, it is something encouraged by most prof. Some people just want to confuse others by muddling with the definitions. This is not a gray area. Cheaters = scumbags. Graduate level cheaters = scumbags on luck streak. Luck is not a dependable skill. What's next? Lying on resume? Cheating on board exam if there is a way? However, whether someone should report cheater is a slightly different question. It comes down to how much you value the integrity. Not only for yourself, but integrity of your program, your school, your field, etc. Whether or not you should shut up is up to you, but definitely don't join them.