Who's who

[Thisguy]

How did you know? Did I say that somewhere? I meant to say that in my other post, the one where I talked about writing a life story right now. Yeah, I hope to teach at the Naval Academy and make those bastards work their asses off. Especially if I don't get in, I will get a Master's just to go teach there as a civilian. I'm sure as heck as arrogant as professors are.

Notice how I said I "hope" to teach and not I "will" teach at the USNA. To do that, I would have to choose to make it a goal and then follow it. I haven't made it a goal yet.

Hate to burst your bubble, but you're probably going to need a PhD to teach at the academy.

Also, that who's who thing IS CRAP. Me and my friend were the two selected from my high school, and we both graduated outside of the top 25% of our class, how does that work?

As for cheating on homework assignments, if the professor is too lazy to change his homework assignments (I had a fluid mechanics class where this was the case) from semester to semester, then he's just asking for people to hand his stuff down.

 

[American_Ace]

Nice work Barnard. That about summed up AP Physics and AP Calc. Whereas I think the kids who cheated at the AFA should be kicked out (they cheated on a test for there prop-and-wings, which signifies there acceptance into the academy by the upper classmen, how ironic is that?), I agree with you about 'gouging.' Homework was a group effort in Physics, and there were a few times that our teacher actually told us (on the day our assignment was due) that she would extend the due date because she forgot to teach us a few things (and there were times that she forgot to teach us stuff and didn't extend the deadline). I guess there is a fine line, and if you truly are moral then you'll know where it is.

 

[Integer]

In my University Physics class, people passed their tests around in front of the professor, and he didn't care. Same thing with quizzes. What do you think about that?

I reported the students several times, and the professor admitted to knowing about it every time. He still gave the cheaters B+'s. I of course, did worse. The class was scaled on a bell curve, as well. And yes, I could have cheated if I wanted to. Hell, people tried to throw answers at me just to piss me off because they knew I am anti-cheating. I could have had access to all the homeworks, quizzes, labs, and tests. I mean, this was University Physics taught by a guy with a Master's from MIT, so it was a hard class, but there was an Indian guy who had taken all the physics courses already in India who supplied all of the answers, and a friend had access to all of last year's homework assignments, which were worth 20% of the grade.

Now, I accussed, in front of their faces, everybody who cheated during the first week, and the oldest two (who were seven years older than me) never cheated again and ended up withdrawing. The younger students kept cheating. The cheaters who thought "V" stood for the measure of distance and not velocity, and had no understanding of constant acceleration formulas from the first chapter, got B+'s.

I think my honest grade in this class in the Fall of 2003 could have been one of the reasons I was denied to the USNA, but I'll re-apply again for 2009.

 

[Integer]

And the cheaters' logic was, "if you report us, that will make the institution look like crap, and the grades you've earned here will be worthless." Well, I'm attending a different school next year. Oh, and also, those guys who quit cheating and withdrew? One of them asked me, as a leader, to report all of this BS to the Dean of Students, and I promised him that I would. So, I am Other professors also back me on this. The professor also gave full credit on tests to people he knew were cheating, yet screwed me over 20% of the grade on every one of MY tests, so I had to go to his office every time because he couldn't do simple arithmetic.

The last thing that ticks me off about this class (besides that he was also a bad instructor who could only do two problems the whole class because he always got stuck on Calculus), is that I've heard that people could just e-mail him and he would bump their grade. I've heard of a C becoming a B, and two B's becoming A-'s after those three people e-mailed him. Granted, those three students actually did their own work, but it is still ridiculous. Their grades had already been scaled up a grade or two the way the professor wanted to, and they ask for a bump up?

Oh, as pure genius, he made the quizzes and tests harder than the homeworks, not easier, and made several versions of each quiz and test. The problem is that the cheaters bragged to me that the two versions of each quiz were the same, just the numbers were different, so you could follow the logic from one test and copy it to another, just substituting your test's numbers and recalculating things.

Sorry, I needed to vent. Oh well, this has still been a valuable experience and I am happy I am going through it.

 

[American_Ace]

Tests/quizzes are the fine line. They test your knowledge on the subject, therefore, cheating on a test is immoral. Homework is designed to prepare you for your tests, so if your teacher hasn't been doing his/her job, then it's more important that you learn the material, which may require outside help.

 

[Thisguy]

Damn Integer, sounds like they let anybody teach at your school.

 

[CLAM97to99]

I am the teacher’s aid for the static’s and strength’s of materials classes at my university. This basically means I grade all the homework. You wouldn’t believe how the home work is exactly alike in the different classes.
I think there is a difference between just copying another person’s homework and getting together and teaching each other how it is done, and how you got your answer. I think getting together and working together is a great thing. It shows team work and helps the weaker students learn. Of course this shouldn’t be done if you are specifically told not to work together on an assignment but otherwise I see nothing wrong with it.

 

[Integer]

The major reason that attracted me to the USNA was the no cheating, lying, or stealing policy I read on the web site (I also liked the web site). I was looking for reasons to talk a friend out of joining the Navy when I hit upon the home page.

There is probably nothing wrong with analyzing homework and answers to past questions, since most books do not list step-by-step solutions in the back of the book to the homework problems they have. I probably should have used homework from previous years to study for the tests.

The funny thing about my school is that another physics professor, who went to MIT as an undergrad, actually made grades worth something the semester before.

He gave zero's to all homeworks that matched another one. He would ask everybody with the same homeworks to come up to the desk and for one person to admit to doing them, and then gave that person the credit.

30 of 35 students withdrew from that University Physics class. Though the grades of the remaining 5 were scaled up of course, maybe one person got an A. Compare that to the idiots getting B's with no effort whatsoever, in the same exact class. Just that disparity alone is retarded.

I wouldn't blame the school that much, as almost all students are extremely lazy. Heck, my SAT score is the third highest in whole school, and it's not that high.

 

[Thisguy]

Well, if that's the major reason you wanted to go USNA, you might want to reconsider your goals in life. At the school I went to, if you were caught cheating, you got an F, plus the transcript had a "C" next to the grade to indicate that cheating was the reason for failing the course. why not go there?

 

[Integer]

Aaargh

That was the just the first reason that attracted me to the USNA.

I also like leadership activities and being on a team. That the school has more accountability in all areas than any civilian school is the major reason why I want to be a part of the USNA team. Also, I want to be in that kind of environment 24/7, to gain as much leadership training as I can get.

 

[HerrLURP]

When I went to a regular college, EVERYBODY cheated. People would sleep through class and copy other people's notes, during exams people would bring cheat sheets, people would exchange essays and copy each other's ideas, people would frequently make up their own footnotes and BS their works cited page, it was a mess. Of course these slackers usually got hammered on the midterms and finals so it evened out.

At USNA cheating isn't nearly as visible. People still help each other out when they can, but nobody is stupid enough to tempt fate and risk separation over a stupid writing assignment or math homework.