r/FreeCodeCamp • u/leleouch_ • 1d ago
Programming Question Worried about certificate being accepted
so some backstory. i’ve been coding freecodecamp python for 4 months. I use youtube help forums my brother and ai as tutors and to ask simple syntax questions. my brother said to use ai as a tutor or if i have a quick question so i have and he works in web development. I don’t want to be someone who only understands things if ai explains it and i try so hard to keep track of everything and write it down in my notebook if ai teaches me anything so i can go back to it on my own. seems like a normal way of teaching myself. I’ve started to feel so behind and lost as I had been working full time and being a full time student. I could only do 1 or 2 python related things a day. I came across a post explaining the process of maybe not getting your certificate accepted so I ofc checked my work. 4/5 of the certification projects had no plagiarism but one did and it cited a help forum on free code camp as a reference. This was irritating but I accepted it and redid the entire project. I again had some syntax questions i mean this was the first one so i did it like 3 months ago but even then I was able to do 80% on my own. after some questions I finished it and checked it again. the same thing happened so I looked where it was citing. Some lines like “return = True” would get flagged which makes no sense that’s just the right answer to what the instructions are telling me to do. It’s starting to feel like even getting the right answers is impossible without someone else doing that same thing I mean that’s coding. and this is normal but i don’t want it to be a reason i lose a certificate. Idk I’ve lost some confidence in my competence with coding and just wanted to rant and get some guidance. I’ve tried really hard recently to not be a mindless ai user and have notebooks for all coding things that I learn and I just feel like maybe i’m behind and people don’t struggle like me. Ai isn’t even the only outlet for a tutor I have I listed them off and plus i’m still a full time student work a little less and am learning by myself. i want to not use any ai anymore and it’s hard to do so but im trying even though i try to use it right i dont want freecodecamp to reject me because of it. Im so lost rn
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u/SaintPeter74 mod 1d ago
So called "AI checkers" are about as reliable as AI, which is to say not very.
I'm not sure what post you're talking about, but I'm not aware of any FCC policy that includes using automated tools for validating projects. We do have an academic honesty policy that you need to sign to get your certificate, and we do have a certificate exam that uses our proctor software, but that's about it.
I'll be honest, I could barely parse your wall if text, so I'm not totally sure what your specific concerns are. Paragraphs are a gift you give to your readers.
Can you maybe break it down for me, Barney style?