Current Events > Cheating continues to be a massive problem in my program.

(+) Yeah! (+)

People coordinating cheating between each other, using ChatGPT/OpenAI to generate code for assignments, and passing projects between each other to copy off of.

We had to have one of the Deans come in to class to explain that anyone caught cheating from this point on will be expelled.

Literally as soon as he finished his speech and left, I glanced over at one of the dude's near me and saw ChatGPT open on his computer.

It blows my mind lol. A lot of the folks getting caught up in this stuff have literally flown across an ocean to be here. Just fucking do the work or find a different major lol.

How many classes are you taking? 5 is extreme and semesters are shorter than ever

They just need to change how school works. Get me Dewey II

What field?

Seems like a great time in history to go get that second degree...

Supersex420 posted...

How many classes are you taking? 5 is extreme and semesters are shorter than ever

This semester I have 6.

Definitely a pretty heavy workload but this is probably going to be the worst semester for that. The others should be lighter. Or so I've heard.

WingsOfGood posted...

What field?

Computer Programming

Doom_Art posted...

This semester I have 6.

Definitely a pretty heavy workload but this is probably going to be the worst semester for that. The others should be lighter. Or so I've heard.

Computer Programming

I tried to take 6 classes in university and had to drop 2

voldothegr8 posted...

Seems like a great time in history to go get that second degree...

Honestly I'm pissed lol

The market is gonna be flooded with these amateurs who won't know how to code for shit and that makes the degree I'll be getting that much worthless.

"Oh this guy has a degree from THAT school? Lol"

Not that many of the folks cheating and Gumping their way through the program are going to be staying here after it's finished, but still.

Supersex420 posted...

I tried to take 6 classes in university and had to drop 2

6 classes and they're all 3 hours long lol

Though a good chunk of that is lab time.

The program is DENSE but it's definitely manageable. I'm a complete scatterbrain and I manage.

I might try school again in the summer... Idk... I have no will power at this point

Are they using the AIs on the class computers? If so lol, they should at least do that on their on hardware and outside the class

I wouldn't worry about it and just focus on your own studying. They can only get so far using this before they weed themselves out. Its also happening at every university so its not like you'd get singled out from jobs just because a lot of idiots in your program tried to bullshit their way through.

Doom_Art posted...

People coordinating cheating between each other, using ChatGPT/OpenAI to generate code for assignments, and passing projects between each other to copy off of.

We had to have one of the Deans come in to class to explain that anyone caught cheating from this point on will be expelled.

Literally as soon as he finished his speech and left, I glanced over at one of the dude's near me and saw ChatGPT open on his computer.

It blows my mind lol. A lot of the folks getting caught up in this stuff have literally flown across an ocean to be here. Just fucking do the work or find a different major lol.

Work smart not harder is my philosophy.

There's no special reward for busting your ass more than the guy successfully excelling at cheating life. Also being in IT myself, I can't tell you how many clueless individuals get paid to know nothing.

Doom_Art posted...

The market is gonna be flooded with these amateurs who won't know how to code for s*** and that makes the degree I'll be getting that much worthless.

Honestly this is how CS has been for awhile.
Before ChatGPT it was people googling code or stealing it from the one dude who knew how to actually do it.

I know this because I used to be a tutor. They would sometimes outright ask me to write for them and I had to send them away. We had dudes in our advanced classes who didn't grasp the concept of a for loop and that showed they cheated to get into that class.

If you aren't a cheater though you should get further.

MrSonic posted...

Are they using the AIs on the class computers? If so lol, they should at least do that on their on hardware and outside the class

On class computers and on their own personal ones.

One prof instituted a policy of randomly calling up students during lab time, having them show him their work, and giving them a 0 if they can't articulate what they code does/why they coded it like that.

Shadow_Don posted...

I wouldn't worry about it and just focus on your own studying. They can only get so far using this before they weed themselves out. Its also happening at every university so its not like you'd get singled out from jobs just because a lot of idiots in your program tried to bullshit their way through.

Oh I know I'm just a bit of a worrywart lol. It's in my nature haha.

Looking at the drastically smaller class sizes in the second year courses for the program, I think they'll definitely be weeding themselves out lol.

t5yvxc posted...

Work smart not harder is my philosophy.

But they're not working smart, that's part of the problem lol.

Listening to the lectures/reading the slides contains the answers to every assignment. Just read that shit and whip up the code based on it.

It's literally less work than trying to articulate a prompt to ChatGPT and piece together what it gives you.

That's zoomers for ya.

Can't blame them too much. They lost 2 years of their formative years due to the pandemic.

LordFarquad1312 posted...

That's zoomers for ya.

Can't believe they invented cheating, kids these days

Gwynevere posted...

Can't believe they invented cheating, kids these days

Gonna assume you're in your early 20's at most given how reading the rest of my post was too much work for you.

You don't learn anything useful by "implement a tree of doubly linked lists" in some compsci class. As best, all you learn is what to specifically ask google to get to the solution to your problem on stackexchange or something.

People want the easy way out, when they cant show they have the skills they will fail pretty quick.

There's no such thing as cheating when you're programming, 75% of your work will be google and stackoverflow.

Were_Wyrm posted...

There's no such thing as cheating when you're programming, 75% of your work will be google and stackoverflow.

The karma comes back in the end though.
After you've copy-pasted enough stackexchange code without having any idea what it does, you're going to end up with an unmaintainable mess for the next guy after you're fired when your thing is broken for a month and you can't google the right solution.

Questionmarktarius posted...

You don't learn anything useful by "implement a tree of doubly linked lists" in some compsci class. As best, all you learn is what to specifically ask google to get to the solution to your problem on stackexchange or something.

Were_Wyrm posted...

There's no such thing as cheating when you're programming, 75% of your work will be google and stackoverflow.

I mean this is fair, but the thing is you can't just copy/paste. That's a horrible habit to get into.

Like I'll google certain concepts that give me trouble, but I'll use Google/Stackoverflow as a reference. I'm not just copying what I get from them.

That's what I did in my Unity days. No more.

Is this like a 4 year university with college aged students or is this like a third party trade school program with lots of adults with full-time jobs and families?

I could see the latter having more cheaters.

LordFarquad1312 posted...

Gonna assume you're in your early 20's at most given how reading the rest of my post was too much work for you.

Rest of the post assumes the first part to be true, so what's the point?

Doom_Art posted...

Like I'll google certain concepts that give me trouble, but I'll use Google/Stackoverflow as a reference. I'm not just copying what I get from them.

If you actually know what you're doing, you'll take the two or three lines you actually need from the overly-complex wrapper function google takes you to.
I swear its almost always:
absurd_function_that_maybe_does_what_i_want(arg, arg, arg...){
[meaningless code]
inbuilt_function_that_I_didnt_know_exists(var);
[two or three lines that finesse the output of that inbuilt function into exactly what I needed]
[more piles of meaningless code]
return $something_irrelvant;
}

Classes need to adapt around it, using design-centric approaches and be more open to the usage of tools.

If they need you to memorize something, they can use word problems.

I feel your pain, and I'm sorry so many others are dismissing it. I don't think people grasp just how awful the pretenders in CS are, or how much time and energy they spend banding together to cheat and lie and make themselves feel like they are smart and capable. And to some degree it must work, because for years folks who can't write any code or solve any problems have been getting degrees in CS without having sufficient self-reflection to understand why they can't get jobs, or if they somehow survive the interview process, can't keep them.

I once tried to help a guy several week into his first computer science class who couldn't figure out why copying and pasting all of the text from the assignment document didn't result in a working program (literally didn't even know what code was versus regular text). He got angry and called me stupid for not knowing how programming "actually worked", and bizarrely insisted that this worked every time on his laptop and that the computer in the lab was a broken piece of shit. I once spent over an hour trying to help a guy install the JDK who then blocked me after insisting I didn't know what I was talking about and that he and his friend who were learning to code would be millionaires soon. Worse than either of these was the time I tried to help a guy write a guess the number game in Java. I spent over three hours to no avail. Even giving him multiple working versions didn't help because he'd modify them to "make them better" (one his points of contention--and the thing that made me just give up--was that neither his professor nor I could understand that he was special and needed respect for his special sensibilities).

But beyond CS specifically, ChatGPT is dangerous. People will in the same breathe laugh at the bizarre mistakes it confidentially makes while excitedly discussing the new subjects they think ChatGPT is teaching them, or the new factual insights about things they are learning (hint: these are probably wrong too and you won't know the difference!). Or what happens when stakeholders in the product change the kind of answers it can give for sensitive political questions? What happens when the government or government agencies do the same? ChatGPT and the clones big companies are working on could soon become powerful tools for deceiving the public and nobody will know the difference.

Doom_Art posted...

But they're not working smart, that's part of the problem lol.

Listening to the lectures/reading the slides contains the answers to every assignment. Just read that s*** and whip up the code based on it.

It's literally less work than trying to articulate a prompt to ChatGPT and piece together what it gives you.

This just sounds like you being against cheating. What's considered easier varies with each individual.

If it makes the job easier for them, it's most definitely working smarter and not harder.
You'd be surprised just how many in the IT world are totally clueless to doing the things they were hired to do. Googling how to solve problems, stealing techniques and codes from the internet.

I get you have a romanticized idea that everyone with amazing jobs actually know their shit, but in reality many just know how to fake it until they make it. Many network their way into a position through various means and keep their job through various means.

The ones who can't fake it will flop, but the ones who can will do just fine.

You do you on what's easier for you. I'm just saying don't get to caught up in thinking the one who works the hardest will excel over people who are great at faking it until they make it. Especially don't get caught up in thinking society rewards the people who work the hardest the most.

The industry of cheating has just reached its next level.

Don't worry so much about the cheaters and just focus on improving your skill set. The people who are incapable or incompetent might be able to cheat their way through an interview or two, but they're not going to stick around in that company for long. Any CS job worth holding is going to see right through somebody who has no idea what they're talking about, leaving these folks to fill out mid-level tech support job positions and writing tools for local banks or some other endless grind with no reward.

Like 75% of being a dev, at least in the early stages, is knowing how to figure out how to do what you want to do

no one is going to know the ins and outs of every framework, its all about googling or reading the documentation efficiently

I've never understood the cheating mentality

Do they have no pride in their work?

s0nicfan posted...

Don't worry so much about the cheaters and just focus on improving your skill set. The people who are incapable or incompetent might be able to cheat their way through an interview or two, but they're not going to stick around in that company for long. Any CS job worth holding is going to see right through somebody who has no idea what they're talking about, leaving these folks to fill out mid-level tech support job positions and writing tools for local banks or some other endless grind with no reward.

sometimes they become managers....

TheGoldenEel posted...

Like 75% of being a dev, at least in the early stages, is knowing how to figure out how to do what you want to do

no one is going to know the ins and outs of every framework, its all about googling or reading the documentation efficiently

That is the thing though. If they knew how to figure stuff out they wouldn't be cheating.

Cheating is the ultimate "I can't figure this out from googling or reading stack overflow"

TheGoldenEel posted...

Like 75% of being a dev, at least in the early stages, is knowing how to figure out how to do what you want to do

no one is going to know the ins and outs of every framework, its all about googling or reading the documentation efficiently

Knowing what you want to do is where the cheaters are going to suffer. If you have no idea what you're doing and you're interacting with a messaging framework that is dropping messages, you might flail around on Google and end up tweaking quality of service settings or something, when the actual solution might be to implement a circular queue as a buffer and take advantage of threading to parallelize your input processing.

WingsOfGood posted...

That is the thing though. If they knew how to figure stuff out they wouldn't be cheating.

Cheating is the ultimate "I can't figure this out from googling or reading stack overflow"

I guess from my perspective a person cheating using ChatGPT or whatever would actually test and make sure whatever theyre submitting works, but maybe thats too much

all Im saying is if you use your resources and end up with the right answer it means you know how to find the right answer

I'm in the boat of not caring how you got your product to work, just make sure it works. Lean on whomever or whatever resource gets the job done.

I was in class during the remote learning and a lot of people had the answers for the test next to their computer. Or would just google it.

alphagamble posted...

I've never understood the cheating mentality

Do they have no pride in their work?

Pride for what?

There's no special reward for working harder for something you can excel at by working easier.

If this something you are prideful about, you do you. I don't mean that in a negative way, do what makes you happy.

But there's no special reward for the guy busting his ass making 100k/year to know his stuff as opposed to the 2nd guy making 100k a year bullshitting with the same exact job as the 1st guy.

MelbuFrahma4 posted...

I was in class during the remote learning and a lot of people had the answers for the test next to their computer. Or would just google it.

Let's be honest here.
A college degree is maybe 10% getting learnt, but 90% career gatekeeping. This is why lawyers need to pass a test after college to be an actual lawyer.

Once a former student literally copy/pasted their work from Google but we had to give a presentation about it. They shared their screen and you could still the copyright on their work (which they forgot to remove, if they even read it before presenting). The whole class noticed and the teacher didnt or didnt care...

Counterpoint: why not learn to utilize AI properly, considering in 20 years your job is either going to be managing an AI, fixing a robot, or being unemployed

KTG2 posted...

Counterpoint: why not learn to utilize AI properly, considering in 20 years your job is either going to be managing an AI, fixing a robot, or being unemployed

ChatGPT is not the magical all knowing being that you think it is.

COVxy posted...

ChatGPT is not the magical all knowing being that you think it is.

I don't think that, actually

But acting like AI isn't going to surpass our productivity within our working lives as 20-30somethings is pretty stupid, too. People should be prepared as early as possible.

RlP posted...

Once a former student literally copy/pasted their work from Google but we had to give a presentation about it. They shared their screen and you could still the copyright on their work (which they forgot to remove, if they even read it before presenting). The whole class noticed and the teacher didnt or didnt care...

Well, I mean, "real world" programing is rather a lot of "download some giant library so you only need to code three lines instead of ten".
Have we already forgotten the left-pad disaster? https://www.theregister.com/2016/03/23/npm_left_pad_chaos/

KTG2 posted...

I don't think that, actually

But acting like AI isn't going to surpass our productivity within our working lives as 20-30somethings is pretty stupid, too

I think ChatGPT like "AI" will find themselves in history as fun toys but that's more or less it.

I think it's entirely reasonable to expect fundamentally new frameworks to pop up to get over the impossible hurdles that currently exist, but really it's just betting in total darkness with some vague "but look at how quickly things have progressed!" notion.

If other people want to cheat their way through university and learn nothing along the way let them and do your own thing. The IT field has a higher regard for people who have necessary certifications over someone who only has the degree, but having both is great as well. If someone is cheating their way through classes, it's not going to be easy for them to obtain certifications if they don't know anything.

t5yvxc posted...

But there's no special reward for the guy busting his ass making 100k/year to know his stuff as opposed to the 2nd guy working the same position making 100k a year bullshitting and everyone loves all the same.

When the revolution happens, I hope these types are amongst the first with their backs against the wall

This reminds me of what my Calc 2 professor told the class years ago (ironically when I was taking it in prep for a cs degree) "I don't allow calcuators, because you need to learn the fundamentals of calc and why it works. People who use calculators are inevitably the last ones to finish a test, banging the buttons in hopes of getting an answer."

Same applies here, folk who don't actually understand the fundamentals of programming will be the ones banging at the keyboard in hopes of making a wayward program cooperate.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Well, I mean, "real world" programing is rather a lot of "download some giant library so you only need to code three lines instead of ten".
Have we already forgotten the left-pad disaster? https://www.theregister.com/2016/03/23/npm_left_pad_chaos/

Keep in mind this was college, the goal of doing the work is to practice what you learnt on a practical example. The goal is not just to make money (which would happen if it is a real job).

For example, it is as if you were learning how to do sums. The homework is to solve 142+678 so that you can practice how to carry the sum properly. Sure you can use a calculator and in the real world you would do that. But the goal of the homework is not to solve a real world problem, just to make sure you understand the basics so that in the real world you know what the calculator you are going to use is doing behind the scenes.

Why would you care how the calculator is doing sums? Because it opens up the possibility for new ideas and gives you tool to be more efficient. Lets assume that in the real world you need to sum 1739 seven times because there were 7 purchases. If you never usterdood math you'd input 1739, seven times on your calculator. If you have that bit of extra understanding you would immediately realize you can just do 1739x7. You still use a calculator but it took you less time and its more efficient. Similar stuff happens on other areas and it is difference between being able to do a job and being efficient at your job.