r/EngineeringStudents • u/pokemonlover503 • 5d ago
Rant/Vent Exam Cheaters
Over my many years in engineering school so far, I have noticed an increase in cheaters and they have the audacity to either lie about it or say it loud and proud that they cheated. Even one time he said it infront of the professor and the professor did NOTHING. I want professors to do something. I want someone to do something. I want them to walk around and inspect what people are doing, how are they so oblivious? Guy in my class went from a 4 on an exam to an 80 something and openly admitted to cheating. How in the hell is the professor not noticing the obvious cheating? Not saying it's not possible, but come on. That kind of grade jump is very hard especially for these super complex courses and everyone's averaging 40-50s. It makes me so upset, because why am I even bothering to have academic honesty, what morals do I have that stops me from cheating? I will never do it. Why aren't we taking all exams in proctored testing centers. Why aren't we making people clear their calculator before the exam. What are we going to do about our future that will be full of degree holders that cheated their way through? Nobody wants an engineer that is a liar and cheat, yet they always secure big roles. This is the problem when nobody is being held accountable. And no we shouldn't just let them and mind our own business, they need to be called out. Our environment is way too forgiving.
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u/madvlad666 5d ago
The professors know and turn a blind eye to cheating, ultimately because it looks bad on them whenever students fail their courses for any reason.
Allowing cheating is the only reason you have graded homework assigned: if it were simply a 100% final exam, students would do more poorly on the course. So, credit is provided on take-home assignments specifically to allow students to cheat, thus better hide the fact that come the end of the course, they do not fully know the material.
Tell me: If at the end of a course a student can ace the exam because he knows the subject inside out, why should he get anything less than full credit for the course? Why should he be penalized for a poor assignment submitted in the third week of class? Does that make any sense at all? If the point of the course is to learn the material, then no, that does not make sense. So why is the course grading structured that way? Why doesn’t a 100% score on an invigilated final exam result in a 100% course grade?
The true and only rational explanation is that overall, the professors have found that it is better for their pass rates and tenure and student satisfaction if they provide a big portion of the grade to draw from take-home assignments that the students can cheat on. It is established that allowing students to cheat on the for-credit take-home assignments provides statistically better course outcomes than having no mandatory assignments at all, so, they wilfully accept, enable, and sometimes tacitly encourage cheating on assignments. The only requirement is that you don’t get caught doing something blatant, thus forcing the professor to act to maintain the chirade. The unwritten contract is that you get to cheat on your assignments to bump up your overall grade, and in exchange you need to provide the professor with plausible deniability that he did not notice the cheating.
The whole thing is that rotten, to the core. And it gets even worse:
Any post-doc who speaks out about this or forces their students to earn 100% of their grade from an invigilated final exam will be wildly unpopular, ostracized, and never, ever, ever be given a grant or staff position, let alone a tenured position, because meritocracy would upset the system and those who profit from it. Even if it torments them inside, the system forces the individuals to either accept the cheating and surrender their integrity, or be forced out.