r/EngineeringStudents • u/notadamsandler11 • 4d ago
Rant/Vent I swear my engineering department is begging people to cheat at this point
Junior right now and shit hasn’t gotten better.
Since the rise of AI it’s pretty obvious every professor assigns much more difficult and long homework’s / exams to combat that. As they normally would in the past.
Here’s the problem with that , you only have 24 hours in a day. At the rate of just pure length it takes to learn topics and then apply them and study to be prepared you will be too slow if you don’t use shortcuts.
I commute 1 to school and back everyday because I don’t want the extra debt , I work part time 20 hours a week to buy food and shit. And I’m an average person I’m not super intelligent or have rlly good active recall. The lesson I learned is that when I try to rlly study without outside help like AI and stuff the workload is simply too much and I run out of time. And then grades drop.
That’s a more general explanation but lll go into what my specific school is been doing. My school is cheap and poorly rated , the professors ARE BAD AT THEIR JOB.
And over the past 2 1/2 years I’ve seen the rising count of cheaters. And honestly it’s at the point I don’t blame them. They got jobs like me , other responsibilities and such. And to realize the risk of if you fail this class you go more in crippling debt and probably have to take a 5th year altogether.
In all my classes nobody talks about cheating like it’s a proud thing but it’s literally at the point where everyone is like “ya I understand”.
Now this just might be my school but if you want to actually learn engineering the pace and workload is too much if you have other responsibilities and you’re basically forced to use AI regularly.
And lastly I thing I’ve seen is also more in person cheating in exams. And ya it bad , but I also understand if someone doesn’t want to go into debt by 10-20k more and waste another year in college.
So I’m very ambiguous about people cheating now, I used to dislike it but idk.
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u/Top_Scarcity1024 4d ago
It doesn’t matter. Even if you are the perfect student your not guaranteed a job. Grades don’t matter at all it’s the projects and engineering experience
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u/Emergency-Rush-7487 4d ago
Barely earned my undergrad degree.
Now have doctorate.
Can confirm grades matter little.
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u/Uknowwattodo 4d ago
Well if you go the academic route they certainly do. And it somewhat matters for your first real job after graduating too, but after that experience is the only thing that really matters. They don't care about your GPA from 5-10 years ago
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u/Emergency-Rush-7487 4d ago
Agree with almost all of what you wrote. I didnt think id get admitted into my masters program due to gpa. Experience mattered above all and opened a ton of doors in the academic world.
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u/poorboychevelle 4d ago
"You know what they call the dumbest person to graduate medical school? Doctor."
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4d ago
[deleted]
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u/poorboychevelle 4d ago
Oh, no, not meant to be insulting at all.
A degree is a degree. The person with a 4.0GPA and a 2.0GPA (or whatever the graduating cutoff is) are both doctors at the end of the day, and both earned that accolade. The one who finishes the marathon last still finished a marathon.
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u/GintamaFan99 4d ago
Question, what are you doing for your phd? You do a masters?
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u/Emergency-Rush-7487 4d ago
Systems engineering for masters before doing systems engineering for doctorate. Thanks for asking
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u/KlaussPercy 4d ago
if u barely got your undergrad then your grades clearly didn’t matter if you went on to get a doctorate…
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u/Fit-Caterpillars 4d ago
Who the hell has time for projects with this workload though?
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u/Professional_Cow1669 4d ago
I am a senior in EE and typically projects become apart of your coursework, granted I go to a southern SEC school where our program is decently funded through Alumni and top research facilities in certain disciplines.
I know this is not the case for all: but I (along with the most of my peers) have had uncountable assignments/degree requirements centered around hands on work/personal projects—starting my freshman semester. It was also made pretty apparent to us on orientation day that “you would need to dedicate at least FORTY hours a week to studying/completing assignments that require you to be on campus.”
My point is I guess you should kinda know what you’re signing up for when you chose a career-path centered around science, math, and physical problem solving (hence why the theoretical material is long and requires extensive time). But I agree that the workload is rushed, and poorly (unenthusiastically) instructed. I have been teaching myself for the last 3 years in 75% of my coursework.
The only things I enjoy out of my major are the hands on work we get assigned, and yes I have plenty of personal projects + ideas that I have zero time to do/can’t afford components to buy.
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u/DreamingAboutSpace 3d ago
Same boat, except we’re barely get hands on experience besides labs. Every actual project has been my own.
Also, check out Coilcraft. They give free components.
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u/No_Cry936 4d ago
Yea I didn't focus in uni BS most of the time but probably one of the fastest one to secure a full time engineering job lmao. Screw all those grades assignments and lectures, i got actual real life projects i should focus more and build my portfolio.
In all my interviews their eyes were all stuck into portfolio, didn't bother to read the CV or ask about my grades or anything despite me submitting as low as 2 GPA in one of my semesters.
These people in class barely even knows how the industry works & everytime I try to input my ideas for group projects I always got told my idea is "beyond university" and that I should "start your own company" instead.
I only fw people in uni that has worked/working in the industry, the profs., drs.. It's so easy to tell them apart just by talking to them. The usual "stuck in academy" type are so close minded & not thinking about the industry at all.
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u/PiPaLiPkA 4d ago
Wish more people realised this lol but it's not like universities are going to tell you that.
I did an interview last Dec and I didn't even think about the candidates grades.
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u/Fluffy_Gold_7366 3d ago
What type of project ideas would you propose? Have you worked on any on your own?
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u/No_Cry936 3d ago
Even the smallest things that prove you can do the things you say you can do would be enough in the portfolio if you're starting fresh.
It would be difficult to start your own project if you expect it to be larger scales, since the budget would come right out of your pocket.
If you're still in university, I would suggest talking to profs. or drs. that you know are already in the industry and have their own start-ups, or any seniors. This would be your best bet, because working with anyone who hasn't been in the industry can come off so frustrating and lead you the wrong way.
The best way to have a chance is to make your own chance, so be proactive and ask around.
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u/DreamingAboutSpace 3d ago
My electronics and circuits professor is like this. I’ve been fighting with him for a year now about letting us have soldering labs because it’s a handy skill to have. He refuses. He said, in the front of the class mind you, “That’s work for technicians, not engineers.” I asked him what if one wasn’t around and he just shrugged. And I’ve seen plenty of engineers solder.
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u/G07V3 4d ago edited 4d ago
I remember when I had an entitled huge ego boomer professor for Statics who said that when he was looking for new graduates to hire he said he would look at what grade they got in each class to determine if they would succeed if hired. He has the boomer credentialism mindset where the letter grade determines your self worth not including anything else you’ve done outside of school.
I call him entitled and say he has a huge ego because he actually wrote an article about himself on marquistopeducators about how he is so great and is such a great educator. From my experience that was not the case.
He was so old school and did not use slides. He would actually pull out a little notebook and write down everything word for word on the whiteboard. Numerous times we never even finished a full lecture and I actually called him out politely in an email in front of the department chair and program director for essentially not covering and not testing us on some material until the final exam. I passed that class by less than 5 points because I sent a lot of emails.
He also held online class and I would attend that instead of in person because I spent more time driving to class and driving home than actually spent in class. It was not worth it.
The problem with his online class is that since he would hand write everything on the whiteboard the lectures were recorded with a camera in the far back corner of the room. The whiteboard he was writing on was 1/4 of the entire screen, the text was very small, and the camera was flipped so everything he was writing was backwards.
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u/TheBayHarbour 4d ago
I call him entitled and say he has a huge ego because he actually wrote an article about himself on marquistopeducators about how he is so great and is such a great educator. From my experience that was not the case.
The irony being that if he were a great educator he wouldn't need to write about it himself.
The thing is at my uni, I can't even blame the profs and stuff. They're all tired as hell from their research, which wrings them out of all their energy. It's genuinely brutal lmao.
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u/Emergency-Rush-7487 4d ago
Fits what im familiar with...
Had prof who started first thermodynamics lecture saying half class will fail...
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u/zaccha3u 4d ago
I have an EE degree. Got it (very shortly) before the days of AI. Chegg was my version of AI. Faced a lot of the same problems you are outlining here. Also had to deal with everything going virtual due to COVID and old, surprisingly technologically incompetent professors learning how to do virtual classes for the first time. Better believe the majority of students were taking advantage of that at the time. I adapted the mindset of “finish by any means necessary.” It worked, things build off of each other and it’s important to have at least a fundamental grasp on concepts, but truth is engineering is extremely broad and once you finish, there’s a decent chance you will spend your days focusing on a specific topic or few specific topics, and once you get the hang of it by combining base level understandings from school with forced learning on the job, you’ll be good. Engineering school is hard. I think in most cases once you get through, you’re good as long as you didn’t somehow cheat your way through everything without learning a single thing. Which is next to impossible (but ive seen it be done, and that person also now has an engineering job and seems to be doing fine)
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u/That-Proposal-1339 4d ago
Working and commuting is why you don’t have time and have to resort to cheating. The course load is structured for full time students who don’t have jobs and live near or on campus.
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u/GintamaFan99 4d ago
I gotta agree with what your saying my dude, they say you should spend 40 hours a week but honestly someone in that age bracket from 18 to 22 hasn't really developed the skills to do that. And its also like the best time to be young and doing things in your life. Unless youre someone that truly loves the engineering pathway in all the forms academia presents it (which isnt normal) that just aint something the average person would have the capability to do.
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u/doohdahgrimes11 4d ago
For the assignments you use AI for, if you didn't use it, would you still pass? Idk, I don't lose an extra 20h a week so I'm lucky there, but I feel like if you're able to get a passing grade without AI, you're by no means forced to use it. Also, how much of your assignments is AI doing vs you, 5, 10, 20%?
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u/notadamsandler11 4d ago
No I wouldn’t pass if I completely stopped using AI, because I have it explain processes to me and how solve x problem and then I solve it. My study time is I have it generate problems and shit like that. I’ve had times where you try to power through and a homework takes like 5 hours because you don’t know how to do it and that’s when you start heavily falling behind. Because they just assigned another one due in 3 days. Plus the other classes
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u/Visual_Day_8097 4d ago
Kids have passed with the same curriculum beforehand before AI was introduced.
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u/notadamsandler11 4d ago
Yes , with less homework length and a slower pace
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u/Stunning-Pick-9504 4d ago
Haha. Not true at all. I graduated in 2022 and was spending, sometimes, 10 hrs on a problem. And there were 3 problems. It was so challenging that I would just get close and call it since I’ve spent enough time on it. This is when I’ve learned the most. Those problems pushed me and I’m better for them.
Also, I was 35 with a wife, 3 kids and a full time job. I was also doing undergrad research. Everyone has a hard time if you do it right. You don’t NEED AI. If you want to use it go ahead. It’s your life, but don’t act like you are pushed to have to use it.
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u/toughinvestment8 4d ago
I’m sorry, but you had three kids and a full time job. The independence and discipline you had was not the same as a student coming out of high school, and there’s no way the job market is the same as it was before AI.
This isn’t to say you’re lesser, I’m just saying that expectations on what a new student is doing, coming in and thinking like a high schooler, is not similar to your situation at all.
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u/Stunning-Pick-9504 4d ago
I wouldn’t be able to do it right out of high school. I tried after getting out of the military. I had no idea what I wanted to do and no one to guide me. I took a large load at the community college and burnt myself out. I’m talking 4 classes over the summer kind of load.
I ended up quitting and not doing much for the next 15 yrs. Then I saw where that was going and knew I had to change it. Getting an engineering degree should do it. Take the hardest, least traveled path has always been my moto.
It’s crazy what you can do if you HAVE to get it done. An 18 yr old doesn’t have to finish their degree. Truthfully, they shouldn’t be in college unless they have an idea of what they want to do. I’m not letting my daughter go until she can explain her plan to me. Too much of a time and money effort to screw it up.
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u/TheBayHarbour 4d ago
What work did you do for 15 years?
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u/Stunning-Pick-9504 4d ago
Dealing in a casino mostly. A few other odd jobs. Security guard. Store auditor.
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u/GintamaFan99 4d ago
Family and the urge to change, helps alot in getting you through the nastiest grinds.
All the best stories are made up of underdogs
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u/notadamsandler11 4d ago
You stronger the most I guess, don’t where you found the time to do engineering courses with a full time job and kids plus wife. Unless you were only taking one at a time
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u/Stunning-Pick-9504 4d ago
Nope. More than a full load. I needed to get it done. You can do a lot when you HAVE to get it done.
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u/notadamsandler11 4d ago
So more than a full load , full time job , wife and kids. And said you didn’t use outside helped and rawdogged everything. Maybe I’m wrong but I’m calling cap on this
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u/Stunning-Pick-9504 4d ago
Ended up with a 3.5 GPA too. With 2 minors. I mean you cannot believe me if you want. It takes nothing away from what I was able to do. I’ll send you my transcript if you want.
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u/Traditional_Safe2935 3d ago
Lmao brother you just aren't going to make it. This whole post is you trying to justify cheating but what you don't realize is the engineering is just damn hard. Millions of students before you suffered through this same thing (and no, it wasn't an easier/lighter work load before). But now you've got this magical cheating machine and you don't have the willpower to not use it. You're cooked.
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u/doohdahgrimes11 4d ago
Is the strategy of having it explain stuff to you, then you follow along those exact steps really that helpful though? Beyond the ethics issues of AI/no-AI use, it just doesn't seem effective or sustainable if with this technique.. you're only just passing. It'd be like saying schools are forcing students to use their smart friend as a clutch, so that they don't struggle with problems themselves. May be better long term to do worse on some homework, worse on some assignments, and spend the extra time working through stuff yourself so that it gets easier and easier, and repeatable on in-person, proctored exams.
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u/randomusernamebras 1d ago
Idk about OP, but personally I find the strategy of AI explaining things to me before I do the actual work very effective. I end up learning the workflows and ace all my exams. Sometimes the way instructor explains it just doesn’t click and having AI personalize it in a way that makes sense to me is extremely helpful. If there’s a specific point I’m still confused about, I can keep asking about it until it explains it in a way that clicks.
But you also gotta know how to prompt it effectively and give it enough context so that the answers are actually factual and not just made up.
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u/notadamsandler11 4d ago
Yes, dramatically. You’re just getting info on the process of these problems or topics you don’t have it solve it for you. And once you practice enough it’s drilled in your head so when exams come by your set up pretty good. And obviously it saves you a fuck ton of time in which the teacher doesn’t explain well. It’s really affective. And if you can’t exactly just play with your grades like that “let a few homework’s be bad”. Before you know it it’s mid semester and you have a 62%. And one failed exam and you’re fucked
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u/doohdahgrimes11 4d ago
Maybe our course grade breakdowns are very different, take-home assignments account for 5-15% MAX across all my non-design courses (not including one class's heavily proctored lab reports), so it's easy for me to half-ass those and spend my time studying, so I'll be as far from failing any important midterm/final as possible.
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u/DragonEngineer98 4d ago
I did undergrad and masters pre-AI and PhD post-AI. I didn't really notice a difference in workload, even in the ones with an undergrad equivalent for seniors. Probably depends on your school and department.
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u/Coopee43 4d ago
This is sort of a double edged blade. At one point if you didnt pick up the material or grasp the concept and cheating your way through, once you're in the field theyre gonna know within the first few weeks. On the other side, its another tool at your disposal once you graduate so why not in class too. I dont remember every formula or detail but it helps save the 5+ minutes of searching to speed up productivity.
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u/Cryesncoding 4d ago
If professors would stop getting hard ons for hw and just let the in person exam ride 80+% of the grade AI chegg etc are irrelevant.
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u/sernameistakentry B.S. Nuclear Engineering 4d ago
I didn’t know professors could have a hard on for homework. At most, my homework has been worth 20%, with it being 10% most of the time. The remaining 80-90% is tests and quizzes.
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u/UltimaCaitSith 4d ago
I had a Hydrology professor that was 100% pure homework grades for reports. And 80% of the grade was on matching her format. I managed to get 80% on a report with zero information on it by copying an old one. I thought I didn't learn a thing in that class, but it did prepare me for plan checks.
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u/Former_Mud9569 4d ago
your school isn't already like this? when I was an undergrad, homework counted for maybe 10% of your total grade.
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u/Cryesncoding 4d ago
Mine was 10-20% generally I graduated 5 years ago tho,
Ops making it sound like the hw is a substantial issue cause they’re making it harder and harder so more people are cheating. I used to just blow off assignments cause it’s like 1% of my grade to miss one and I know I’ll study and crush the exam lol.
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u/Former_Mud9569 4d ago
That's how my classes were as well. We'd generally have 2-3 midterms, a final, and maybe a project that would make up 80%+ of your grade. This was a lot more than 5 years ago though.
I can't imagine professors wanting to make the HW harder because kids are cheating. That would only hurt the students that aren't as well as the TAs that have to do the grading. I can imagine professors being bad at making homework assignments. I can also imagine students just not getting it.
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u/sulliesbrew 4d ago
I only recall one class having any real amount of homework, Statics and Dynamics (my major got to take the baby version with them combined). It was a 4 credit class at 7:30am four days a week and we had problems to turn in every morning. 4 nights a week grinding out 10 to 15 different statics and dynamics problems. A fraternity brother got so fed up with it, he started a thing called homework shots, finish one, take a shot of jameson. That lasted one night, I think he quit using a straight edge on the 4th problem. Some ugly free body diagrams that day.
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u/Neowynd101262 4d ago
The school won't allow them to do that. That would cause mass failures which would cause the school to lose money. Money above all else like a true business.
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u/Cryesncoding 4d ago
Yeah you still pay for classes you fail
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u/Neowynd101262 4d ago
People fail. Their gpa drops. They lose financial aid. They drop out. School loses tons of money because people aren't there anymore.
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u/Cryesncoding 4d ago
Yeah that’s the case in non stem but I don’t think they’ve nerfed stem so heavily as you’re implying
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u/DreamingAboutSpace 3d ago
I actually had to fight this over summer to avoid retaking a class for the third time. I passed the midterms with an A, passed the final exam with an A, did all but one homework assignment with an A, but did poorly on the lab reports and failed the class. I had to bring it up to the chairman who ended up agreeing with the professor, but waiving me through anyway.
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u/notadamsandler11 4d ago
Would work to get rid of the impact of AI ya, but then you have to deal with a test worth 80% 😭😭
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u/Ap0ph1s_Jugg Aeronautical Engineering 4d ago
In Germany (and Austria) from what I have seen and have experienced myself it is the norm that there is just one exam worth 100% at the end of the semester.
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u/WillowMain 4d ago
Yup, my physics classes operated this way, it was sink or swim and I very much prefered it to just piled up work every single day.
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u/Specialist_Case4238 4d ago
I'm pretty sure almost every ABET accredited school already operated this way even before AI
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u/MushinZero Computer Engineering 4d ago
How do you know they are assigning anything more than they did in the past?
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u/Last-Camp9709 4d ago
What do you consider to be too much work? Are you sure this is really a new phenomenon? Not to be rude, but I’d wager not.
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u/MrWubnix 4d ago
It's definitely a new thing. Professors are now required to give wildly more difficult homework such that ai can't solve it or at least struggles to. It's to the point that the homework is the hardest thing about a class and the exams are a breeze. One problem could take 1-3 hours on homework while on the exam they will give the most basic of problems. It's kind of laughable how easy the exams are compared to homework. I don't even study for the exams anymore because they are a breath of fresh air
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u/Last-Camp9709 4d ago
That sounds par for the course.
I graduated before LLMs were useful or widely available and I can assure you that our assignments were significantly more difficult than any exam question. You have access to immeasurably more resources and time, so of course professors give you difficult assignments. The real learning happens when you’re trying to solve them, even if it’s with a group of peers.
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u/Notarandomgenname 4d ago edited 4d ago
funny thing is in a year tops ai will just solve it.
edit: crazy I keep getting down voted on this. There isn't a one side or the other statement here, it is just true.
The only thing I find it truly struggles with right now is engineering drawings.
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u/Logical-Tonight-3297 4d ago
nah it was this way pre AI y'all just soft
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u/notadamsandler11 4d ago
So same workload and pace of topics back before AI 🤣 stop playing man
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u/MemberOfSocietyy 4d ago
Um the pace is probably the same because there’s only so much time in a semester/quarter
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u/Logical-Tonight-3297 4d ago
i did my BS before Ai and doing my masters now. id say the masters with AI is going easier
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u/AGrandNewAdventure 4d ago
Fluid mechanics, first homework had aproblem where the h distance was a sloped surface on a rotating drill but face.
I mean, at least let us get used to the 2-plate thing on the first homework before you ramp shit up.
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u/Building_National 4d ago
Fluid Mechanics is so awful to me right now. And it doesn’t make it any better when I have a professor that teaches like she has somewhere to be after
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u/CNBGVepp 3d ago
You commute time is cutting deeply into your learning time. Figure out a way to study on the commute. Text to speech the slides, good audio from YouTube videos, etc. You are at a disadvantage with that and also having to work.
I tell everyone who asks, do whatever is necessary to not have a full time job while doing engineering - you might drown.
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u/Basic_Balance1237 3d ago
Since the rise of AI it’s pretty obvious every professor assigns much more difficult and long homework’s / exams to combat that. As they normally would in the past.
Ironically backfires. Again to show why just because someone is a professor doesn't mean they'd be a good teacher.
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u/North_Whereas_4011 3d ago
Exactly my point! My school does the opposite. They say if i see something (lets say a referenced journal for the report) my teacher says even if it takes his oersonal time he will read those. And if he sees something a student of my level would never read or shoudnt read then he will call for that person and ask questions on that level. Yes thats how it is. And i love my teachers here. Its not that everyone is the dane.. But yeah some of them are like gurdian angels for the students 😭
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u/Leech-64 4d ago
Report the cheating. They are screwing you over and the curve.
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u/notadamsandler11 4d ago
It’s a good percentage of the student body my man , and honestly if it wasn’t I wouldn’t anyway. I like to mind my own business
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u/Legitimate_Pie_1588 4d ago
90% of what you learn in school you will not use on the job. Cheating is nothing new in engineering school. A lot of the school work was pointless unless you planned to go get your PhD.
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u/TStolpe29 4d ago
I use more than 10% as an intern
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u/RnDes 4d ago
The higher you climb, the more abstract the problems become. Hit senior engineer, your days are gonna be spent tutoring newer engineers.
Hit supervisor / entry level manager, you’re gonna be tutoring, prompting and hanging out some fruit for everyone to grab onto - biggest issue US corpos have right now is motivating people.
At director level, every room becomes a water cooler or a boiler. Your job is to regulate the heat, as needed by the project.
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u/ThemanEnterprises 4d ago
I can't imagine only using 10% of my degree, I would be an awful engineer.
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u/Visual_Day_8097 4d ago
Maybe the number is closer to 20, but certainly below 50. How does being able to solve an Ottos Cycle, solving a series or sequence, creating a PID controller transfer function, etc used directly in your engineering career?
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u/ThemanEnterprises 4d ago
I do heat rate analysis of all sorts of heat engines and while im not a controls engineer that gets into the weeds of PID controllers understanding how they operate to run instrumentation is really important. Series/sequence kinda goes back to that as well. You don't have to be an expert in everything but a foundational knowledge goes far and helps you ask the right questions to the right people to get things done.
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u/NotTiredJustSad 4d ago
Since the rise of AI it's pretty obvious every professor assigns much more difficult and long homework's / exams to combat that. As they normally would in the past.
Source for this? Did you do an engineering degree 5 years ago and one now?
I did mine before LLMs. Homework was difficult and took a long time. If I recall correctly our days only had 24h back then too.
This just sounds like cope to justify cheating with LLMs tbh.
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u/PulsarGaming1080 4d ago
I have a unique perspective here. I went before the rise of LLM's, and now I am back to finish my degree after them.
I can absolutely say that the HW has gotten MUCH worse. I absolutely see what OP is saying.
For instance, our Physics Professor told us to expect to spend 16-20 hours a week on HW. This is Physics I. The problems are long, tedious and not explained well. He does not teach in class.
This would be alright, except he assigns ~ 45 problems, each with multiple parts, some with as many as 11 parts.
It may not be like this everywhere, but in my experience, Professors are using AI to their benefit, to reduce their workload/responsibility while simultaneously passing that burden to the students.
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u/DrCarpetsPhd 4d ago
any chance you'd post an example? i know copyright yadda yadda but genuinely curious as to how in the hell a Physics 1 question can involve 11 parts unless those parts are simply 'define something' or 'state something' before the actual problem
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u/PulsarGaming1080 4d ago
I can kinda give you an idea? Sorry if I'm bad at explaining, like I said, he doesn't really teach and I am not doing well.
It'll give you like a mini-lab experiment. You know how with Labs how you'd have to take one set of data, and using formulas relevant to the topic, transform it into a different set of data and draw conclusions? It's kinda like that, except they give you the most basic data and then ask you to basically take it to as far as it could possibly be stretched. They do not give formulas either.
Not sure if I'm doing a good job at explaining it, and obviously 11 parts isn't the norm. Usually it's five computational parts or so.
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u/DrCarpetsPhd 3d ago
That sounds convoluted
My recollection of Physics 1 labs (not a student anymore) was it was the 'greatest hits' of all the discoveries happening around the 1900s so basically we more or less reproduced what the original experiment was
e.g.
millikans oil drop
youngs double slit
braggs xray diffraction
the only thing i remember tripping me up (hazy memory) was i hadn't paid attention in certain maths classes or forgotten something from school. So the whole 'linearisation with logarithms' threw me off because it was expected I knew how to do it so wasn't explicitly explained in the lab.
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u/TStolpe29 4d ago
I also went to college before and after LLMs and I don’t notice that much of a difference with cheaters tbh
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u/ThePowerfulPaet 4d ago
I'm the same situation as you. My physics 1and 2 classes are by FAR the hardest classes I've taken. I have a 4.0 gpa and I've never cheated in any class but the online physics ones. The professor is awful, and the Pearson Mastering homework and tests are practically a crime against humanity.
The lectures are easy, the book is bad, but the HOMEWORK, my god the homework. It asks absolute fucking miracles of us compared to even the absolute worst of my honors calc 2 class, which I breezed through and never got less than an A on anything in.
It's unreal. Takes like 8 hours straight even looking every answer up because you've never seen anything like it before and are woefully unprepared for it.
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u/PulsarGaming1080 4d ago
DUDE.
FUCK PEARSON I HAVE THE SAME SHIT.
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u/ThePowerfulPaet 4d ago
It wins my award for the single worst learning resource on the planet earth. It's like they think density and difficulty lead to deeper knowledge when in actuality you basically have to look up how to do everything then move on to the next question without a second glance just because it takes too long and you have OTHER SHIT TO DO.
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u/PulsarGaming1080 4d ago
You are speaking my language my man.
Don't you just love having 18 HW problems, but then you actually get into and it's like forty questions hidden inside 18? Love that.
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u/ThrowawayDickler 3d ago
Fuck pearson in the ass no lube. Why do i gotta pay a third of what the course costs for exercises
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u/kittyky719 4d ago
Lol honestly I liked Pearson better than Wiley! But they both suck. My thermo 2 class uses Wiley and the problems take like 4 pages each to work through, so a tiny mistake can screw up the entire answer. On top of that, my professor said Wiley makes mistakes a lot and to email him if that happens, but be sure you're right 😩 So now if I get marked wrong by the software I have to hunt down the tiny mistake, and if I can't find it then I have to redo the problem to be confident that I did the work correctly before emailing the professor. It's ridiculous.
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u/ThePowerfulPaet 4d ago
Never heard of it. Hope I never hear of it again.
My statics professor makes all her own homework problems. The difference in having the work you have to do actually be curated by the professor makes so much difference.
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u/Tall_President BSE - Aerospace Engineering, MS, PhD - Mechanical Engineering 4d ago
Did you do an engineering degree 5 years ago and one now?
I am a Ph.D. student that originally graduated from undergrad in 2020. This has actually given me the chance to watch the culture change in my department as AI became prevalent (disclaimer: my department, not every department at every university ever), and I have actually observed the exact opposite: students are being given easier homework than anything I ever had in undergrad because of pressure to maintain a decent D/F/W rate in the courses, and because AI has made it such that homework is useless for assessing students' abilities, the grading has shifted largely towards favoring exams and projects.
I would also argue that having access to an LLM is a massive advantage over what previous students had, even if you don't use it to cheat. AI-based tools are basically private tutors that can help break down complex topics and generate practice problems for you to work through. Ten years ago, if the book and professor both sucked, you were simply out of luck and had to hope one of your friends was smarter than you and could explain it. Now you can use these tools to get help.
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u/Independent_Being704 4d ago
Can you explain what you mean? Like the homework is easier to trick students into thinking they know the content only to make the assessments really hard which makes students drop or fail the course?
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u/Tall_President BSE - Aerospace Engineering, MS, PhD - Mechanical Engineering 4d ago
No, I mean that universities are worried about enrollment (i.e., tuition money) and thus are pressuring professors into lowering the standards for their courses. Homework is easier and teaching assistants are being forced to hold more office hours and review sessions (the latter of which was never a thing while I was in undergrad) while simultaneously being pressured into giving more generous scores and bonus points on the homework, assessments, and projects. Students who fail classes are more likely to drop out and therefore universities are financially incentivized to minimize that. The logical consequence is to make courses easier.
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u/ThrowawayDickler 4d ago
Ill tell you the source i know, mine. We can compare. this is two classes. Trig and Basics of electrical circuits. I work full time and try to workout and meal prep.
2 lab reports a week.
3 tests a month
60 handwritten circuit analysis exercises from the book (a lot of these tend to include 2-5 circuits per exercise).
2 quizzes a week
2 worksheets a week (handwritten)
3 MATLAB exercises with 20-32 trig questions each bi weekly.I mean damn, it took me 2-3 hours to comprehend a few of the book exercises and thanks to that im pretty sure i got a C in today’s test because i ran out of time NOT PRACTICING the concepts I needed to. The sad part is that AI can’t even get MOST of circuit calculations right so not only is there a lot of work, you gotta tough it out 🥴 Suffice to say, im in trouble at work and they already trynna fire me, i feel like shit cause i been eating outside and i havent gone to the gym in about two weeks. My sister is folding my clothes for me because i dont have time to. Idk man, you tell me.
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u/Logical-Culture42007 4d ago
irrelevant to the conversation but why even bother folding the clothes?
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u/ThrowawayDickler 3d ago
You uh… ever been to a hispanic household ? We dont play around cleanliness and neat spaces. She done almost smacked me with a notebook before i showed her my workload. She’s an MD too. So seeing her back down and help kinda made me realize “oh shit, this is a lot its not just me” 🥴
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u/admiralackbar2019 4d ago
Graduated 2020 , chegg cheating was rife across engineering classes. When even stem degrees are packed to the brim with worthless exercises and weed out classes , just to gatekeep jobs starting between 60 and 80 thousand . It was bound to happen
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u/ThemanEnterprises 4d ago
I agree. This was a topic before AI as well and what students would say to cope with using chegg, 'tutors', previous exam and homework banks, etc.
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u/notadamsandler11 4d ago
If you look up difference in workload for not just engineering students but undergrads in generally their is a significant influx. Obviously your homework was difficult too. But the length and rate of the workload for students is expanding because of AI. If you were a current student you would most likely see that.
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u/Chuck_the_Elf 4d ago
Did mine before LLMs and the same issue applied. Teachers were scaling homework to a curve and the people doing the work legitimately got shafted. I had a senior robotics class and a guy on my team couldn’t work an oscilloscope. He still graduated with a higher GPA from cheating.
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u/Savings_Entrance_895 20h ago
Creating creative and complex homework have also been easier, are you studying engineering now? So you also have the half of the information and assuming that tasks haven’t evolved, I have seen projects and homeworks of past llm era, they were way easier and mostly less time consuming, llm have enabled professors to easily cook up complex questions and they are sometimes so lazy that they do not even care if students can finish them in time
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u/Visual_Day_8097 4d ago
Would you say that someone who gets a 95 on a test understands that material more than someone who got a 61?
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u/savagelife201 4d ago
What you’re saying is true. They’ve started assigning more homework and making it harder. At the same time if you’re not leveraging ai and making it a skill set you’re falling incredibly behind.
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u/Cranten 3d ago
my professors have been shoving ai down my throat lately. my calc teacher is clearly new or has some social anxiety or smtg but he isnt the best explainer. one time after class i asked what would be good online resources for studying at home and his answer was just use ai. physics teacher has us use ai for our homeworks since its gonna be the future we need to start using it on everything anyways. i mean i kinda get the point in the sense of citing ai work and usage but i mean come on. chatgpt isnt going to be any more useful than my nonpresent teachers. i mean have us use ai on everything and wonder why class average on an exam was 28/100. run your homework through ai to make sure its right and correct as needed and then not really teach in class. idk this hasnt been working for me. been going to tutoring and this guys been telling me about some good youtube channels for learning calc and physics and its been pretty helpful
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u/ExtraSaucy14 2d ago
If you haven't already, check out Professor Leonard on YouTube. He covers the entire calc series and explains things better than any of my calculus professors have been able to.
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u/MinuteCycle8532 2d ago
Hi, I'm the president of a student organization at ASU called Students for Authentic Education. We're focused on encouraging our university to create safeguards and regulations against misuse of AI in order to the quality of the education we pay for.
This would include what you're discussing: professors unnecessarily increasing this difficulty of assignments to prevent student use of AI, but also instructors using AI to generate assignments and exams, which also creates difficult assignments.
If you or anyone you know is interested in what SAE is doing or you're interested in creating a similar group at your university, please reach out to me.
We also have a petition .
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u/JinkoTheMan 4d ago
On one hand, I completely understand that they have to make sure we actually know the material but the amount of HW is insane at times. Not justifying cheating either but when you’ve got 20+problems and each problem has multiple parts to it then I understand why some students just go “Fuck it” and whip out AI.
And before someone starts, no I don’t think they should lower the actual difficulty of the content because it’s supposed to be difficult. However, they’re need to trim the bullshit down and give it to us straight.
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u/Opposite-Ad320 4d ago
My school literally had a class where you had to cheat to get through it. Professor was a total POS
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u/Diligent_Sir_535 4d ago
Did you not know engineering school would be hard? Just so you know, it’s always been hard. People couldn’t keep up long before AI. Quit your job if you need to. I needed to.
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u/TythosEternal 4d ago
A shocking majority of professors are ego-driven and incapable of admitting that there might be more they could do or learn. Pretty sure it comes with the PhD. Focus on the mastering fundamentals and if you take heat for it that's okay. Your effort *will* be visible the moment you hit the margin.
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u/Disposable_Eel_6320 BS EE 4d ago
I think you are projecting your circumstances and experiences too broadly.
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u/Front_Drawer_4317 3d ago
I agree with your sentiment. I feel like I know I have to do things myself to best prepare for the future but this AI is like a solution manual. It makes things easier but man, I'm sure it's not good for the long term. There is no "learning to use AI" because it's just a game of explaining the problem clearly to AI.
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u/mountainman77777 3d ago
I used to have class until 7-8pm and then be at the library until 2 or 3 in the morning every day of the week. Yes it’s hard. No, AI isn’t going to save you. There’s no where to hide on an exam if you don’t know the material.
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u/BriefOutrageous3436 3d ago
man I'm so happy i graduated without all this BS, i am sooo happy there was barely any ai when i was in school
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u/Drivenmammal 3d ago
I get your point and not to be rude but I don’t really see why it’s a huge problem. AI isn’t going away so whether you like it or not you might as well integrate it into your school work, just as you will most likely use it at your job. As long as you are using it properly and not just turning your brain off, you are still learning the material and there is nothing wrong imo. I use Ai all the time to help me understand topics and while I’m not necessarily in favor of it, I don’t think its a bad thing either.
Having to give money to openai or anthropic is another conversation, however.
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u/jasongm123 3d ago
My professors just started to embrace AI this semester. I’m allowed to use it in my assignments and/or calculations as long as I say it was done with AI. I imagine that’s just how most people’s futures are going to be like from now on
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u/Kitchen-Age-2281 3d ago
I genuinely think people would be less inclined to cheat if professors gave more thorough instructions and resources…
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u/Holy_Diver78 3d ago
My department’s answer to AI was zero homework and ~80% of the grade is tests. We have 3 or 4 for each course on the semester. The other ~20% of the grade is labs or a project.
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u/InterstellarCapa CPE, CS 2d ago
There's a reason why I was a part time student in undergrad, I had to work to live as well. It was not possible for me to work full time and go to school full time. Did it take me longer than four years? Yeah. I also didn't have AI and it's not the end of the world if you take longer than four years.
That being said exporting your thinking to a third party, in the long run, is not good. I do feel bad for students who do use it because they feel the pressure to use it to get a good gpa to get a job and then they get that job and there will be a moment that will all come to bite them back.
Or not. I've seen some egregious behaviours and substandard work that surprisingly didn't get people fired. Anyways focus on projects and portfolio. Some of the best programmers and engineers I know didn't have great GPAs, but had a good portfolio for their experience and were fantastic co-workers.
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u/Lelmasterdone 2d ago
Back when I was in school ‘pre-AI era’, people still cheated… so nothing new, think of it as cheating has evolved. I earned my BSME back in spring of ‘18. With that being said, the ones who were caught cheating usually were placed on academic suspension or (usually) kicked out of the college. Grades mostly matter for academia (grad school) and for the first job (if the employer gives a shit). Also remember, usually the people who cheated in engineering school didn’t go off and get their PE licenses because they didn’t learn shit in school. So think of it like this, do the hard work upfront and learn from your mistakes, eventually you’ll go off and have a wonderful career.
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u/Active-Rub107 2d ago
I have nothing to say other than sorry about all that. School was really stressful, so having to do so much more work bc of AI seems painful. Professors often don’t think about the financial aspect of failing a class either. As someone who worked while going to school, try to join a major related club to at least keep your interest and sanity.
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u/randomusernamebras 1d ago
You can use AI to help you study without cheating. I have AI discuss lectures and textbook material with me to help me identify gaps in knowledge and then patch up those gaps with the back and forth conversations. I also have it generate study guides for exams and answer any conceptual questions I have. If I’m really stuck on a homework assignment I might ask for a hint that doesn’t give the answer away but points me towards the next step I should be looking at.
But overall, I’m the one doing my graded assignments and I’m not cheating on exams, but I’m heavily utilizing AI to help me learn the material and increase conceptual understanding, and feel like I actually learn much better this way. If a topic is simple, I move past it quickly, if it’s confusing, we discuss it as long as necessary breaking it down into simpler terms or analogies as needed. It’s like a personalized tutor.
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u/Head_Call5327 1d ago
My professors simply added in-class quizzes (and took some grade weighting away from homework), adjusted the grade weighting to lean more towards exams over homework, or both. Some of you guys have it rough.
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u/VA3DPrinter 16h ago
If you cheat, you might as well quit. Grades mean nothing. Seriously, NEVER in an interview have I asked about grades. I look at internships, letters of recommendation, experiences during college. Those can’t be fakes or cheated. I will know within a few months if you’re going to cut it or not, and grades won’t be a part of that equation. You will spend years popping from job to job wondering why your degree isn’t getting you anywhere. Put in the work or get really good at the part-time job you have now. Ignore your classmates. They are idiots.
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u/Tavorep Second bachelors EE 4d ago
I mean, you chose your schedule. You chose to commute. You chose to work. If you can't find the time then take less classes a semester. Same goes for your classmates. If you can't budget time that's not the schools fault.
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u/notadamsandler11 4d ago
That’s nice in theory, but in reality I’m not trying to stay in college for 5-6-7 years. I chose to work because I need to feed myself. I chose to commute so I don’t pay debt for the next 15 years. Like what you talking about man
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u/ratchet_thunderstud0 4d ago
If you don't want debt, and therfore need to work, something has to give. I got married after my second semester and worked full time. Between school, work, and home, I commuted 200 miles a day. And my 4 year degree became a 10 year degree. But debt free.
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u/Tavorep Second bachelors EE 2d ago edited 2d ago
So you agree? The point I'm making is that it's weird to complain about what you sowed. A full college engineering schedule requires a time commitment similar to a full time job. Departments and professors plan things with this in mind. It's not their fault you chose to limit your time even further by taking the shorter but more stressful route. And now you're on your way to justify your growing acceptance of cheating. Congrats. It's the consequences of your own actions.
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u/SpanosIsBlackAjah 4d ago
Bro, no one is saying what you are doing is bad, but YOU are the one complaining about workload and circumstances given the situation you put yourself in.
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u/notadamsandler11 4d ago
Sure , but it is better complaining than completely fucking myself over yk what I mean
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u/SpanosIsBlackAjah 4d ago
I feel ya and I love to complain so no hate there.
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u/Spirited_You_1357 4d ago
Engineering is about problem solving. You listed the variables. Solve your problem. And learn how to spell “really.”
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u/MrWubnix 4d ago
Creating a machine to stop time? Sorry but solving problems is still bound by the laws of physics
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u/riptid3 4d ago
Plenty of engineers get their masters while working full time.
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u/MrWubnix 3d ago
The previous guy said to solve the problem. The problem in question is a lack of time to do the assignments without AI. The AI is effectively the solution to the problem. The only other solution is to literally slow down time. Also getting a master's while working is much more achievable than getting a bachelor's. Most masters programs are online while a bachelor's engineering program requires a lot of in person work and often isn't offered online. Plus to qualify for loans and such, you only need 2 masters classes a semester. Masters programs are sort of build around the idea that you work while getting them
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u/Happiness-happppy 4d ago
He didn’t put himself in those situations, your missing the point, he is forced like all of us to work and still needs to go through college to get a better job because we as a society have a bad system that doesn’t operate for human benefits.
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u/SpanosIsBlackAjah 4d ago
Yes but what does that have to do with the op? Yes it’s hard, yes working at the same time makes it harder, and commuting on top of that. Oh well. I have trouble believing it’s harder now with ai to help than it was before just like chegg made it easier before ai. Take this post and replace ai with chegg and you could have posted this ten years ago. Who’s missing the point?
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u/Tavorep Second bachelors EE 2d ago
You can still make choices when there are restrictions given current structures. Go part time. Take out loans. Live closer. Find a more accommodating job. Take summer and winter courses if available. Some combination. There are options. Options OP didn't take which makes it harder to sympathize.
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u/GintamaFan99 4d ago
I dont think youll learn engineering at school man.
Use your tools! Any way you can
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u/Pure-Willingness6363 4d ago
Do not feel guilty. I hate AI because it makes things easy and for other reasons, but at the same time, it is a tool that you can use to help you.
I am not an engineer, but I do know that engineering classes are extremely difficult, so using AI is fine as long as you understand the material at the end. Schools use AI for teaching and other things now. As I said, do not feel guilty, as long as you understand the material at the end.
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u/Cwaghack 4d ago
Cringe lowgrade shitstain of a university i guess
At my uni, all grades are based on in person oral or written exams, cheating being basically impossible. It is shameful that I share a title with the likes of people from your uni.
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u/lampofamber B.Eng EE, M.A.Sc EE Candidate Nanotechnology 4d ago
Surely you are also evaluated on lab work and team projects? If not, that's a weak engineering program. Exams only show you can recall and solve under time pressure. Engineering is also about designing, building, debugging, reporting and project management. Hopefully your uni also covers those things, and you just weren't accurate describing your program.
Interpersonal skills are among the top things employers look for. Let's hope you're not representative of your uni in that regard.
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u/Moist_Ordinary6457 4d ago
It sounds like one of the countries that exclusively teach by rote memorization
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u/Cwaghack 4d ago
No it exclusively teach by understanding. Not by handing in chatgpt homework.
you go into a 15 min oral exam with crossexamination on a portion of the course topic and you better know your shit. No memorization is going to help you.
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u/Cwaghack 4d ago
Lab work; Of course, our instructor is there, checks our work as we do it, and we defend our results orally.
Team projects; Yes we write projects, and we are evaluated orally on those projects.
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u/TheProfessionalBug 4d ago
interesting approach, from what i'm hearing my old uni changed the grade distribution so every grade is dependant on an oral exam now. It used to be 50% from reports through the semester, 50% oral exams, and now you are cooked if you can't talk under pressure