• (cs)

    It's amazing how rampant this is in most colleges. I remember one time seeing some students get caught.

    A professor once announced "3 of your copied your code off the internet. 2 of those 3 will be expelled at the end of the semester. I'll let you know who you are then."

    Man, those students were pissed. they finished the semester thinking one of them might not get in trouble, then all 3 got expelled for cheating.

  • Seth (unregistered)

    Instead of taking it down, it would be more amusing if he forwarded those emails to a newsgroup (or web site) for anyone who wanted to "help" the requesters.

  • Outsourced External Consultant (unregistered) in reply to Lloyd
    Lloyd:
    So THAT'S how all the outsourcers in India get their training for posting to blogs asking for solutions to their projects!
    How do you know they're still in training?

    Perhaps they're looking for a sub-sub-subcontractor? ;-)

  • aka (unregistered) in reply to Cope with IT

    [quote user="dpm]I was once accused by a professor of designing and coding someone else's project --- a very attractive girl --- in exchange for sex.

    She was beautiful, I knew how do do it. She got an A, I received a 'C'. Not even a 'Thank you'. [/quote]

    That does sound a little harsh. I don't like the while idea of grading sex anyway, but at least she could have given you a gentleman's B-.

  • EPE (unregistered) in reply to aka
    aka:
    dpm:
    I was once accused by a professor of designing and coding someone else's project --- a very attractive girl --- in exchange for sex.

    She was beautiful, I knew how do do it. She got an A, I received a 'C'. Not even a 'Thank you'.

    That does sound a little harsh. I don't like the while idea of grading sex anyway, but at least she could have given you a gentleman's B-.

    I hope she wasn't a gentleman...

  • ChiefCrazyTalk (unregistered) in reply to pitchingchris
    pitchingchris:
    Anonymous Cowardly Lion:
    That is so very sad.

    Especially so because their abuse forced him to take his stuff down. I like it when professors put their notes and lecture materials online because it can sometimes be very useful, especially if I'm taking his class. It wouldn't have been so bad if they were merely looking to learn, but it seems to me that they were just cheating. It strikes me as stupid that they would ask a professor to help them with that.

    No kidding, the first one actually offered to pay the professor to do his project, how stupid is that! Even the notion of cheating could probably get the student expelled and the professor fired. If the student had til monday to do a project in computer graphics, that means he procrastinated (not to say that we were all much better in college) and wants somebody to bail him out instead of knuckling down and pulling some all nighters. If he had any knowledge of all of data structures, algorithms, etc, he could probably have done at least some minimal graphics, even if it did take him til Monday to do it. If he doesn't know that stuff already, why is he taking a course in computer graphics ? Seems like he skipped a step. Graphics are nothing but a visual representation of those structures.

    The real WTF is that he didnt learn in class what he needed in order to complete the assignment. Or did he never bother showing up for the lectures?

  • Zach Bora (unregistered)

    The real WTF is that he wrote his email on his website.

  • (cs) in reply to SomeCoder
    SomeCoder:
    tbcpp:
    It seems that some "kids" these days think that after college you will magically find a job just by flashing that little piece of paper. Well, folks, you have to know something as well to get a job.

    I think the variety of code snippets and WTFs we see on this site just proves that no, you don't need to know something to get a job.

    It's pretty sad, really.

    Exactly points at spectateswamp

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to Stewie
    Stewie:
    That's really BS. Why is the stereotype that it's always CS students that don't know how to use proper programing techniques, or write their own assignments? Why are the Engineers to glorified that they never screw up or cheat? In my current position, I've seen way more Engineers that didn't know the basics about programing than the CS grads.

    Flustered

    Uh, who said it was only CS students? This is a web site about computer programming, so, surprise surprise, it has postings about computer programming. Did you expect it to have postings about people cheating at veterinary school?

  • (cs) in reply to dpm
    dpm:
    I was once accused by a professor of designing and coding someone else's project --- a very attractive girl --- in exchange for sex.
    Okay, I'm very envious of you now. When I was in college they assigned only dull and boring projects, never really neat ones like "very attractive girl".
  • (cs) in reply to shadowman
    shadowman:
    tbcpp:
    I'm hoping that this prof was trying to teach something other than data queues to his students. If he's teaching OpenGL then yeah, this would be a great beginner assignment, otherwise, it's overkill. Off the top of my head, in order to correctly full fill the assignment the students would have to understand a windowing toolkit (GLUT or WGL or similar), matrices, vertices, projections, view vs model rotation/translation, etc.

    It looks to me like it's more of an openGL assignment; to make a graphical simulation of stacks and queues with a reset (clear) operation. It's surprising how few people manage to figure that out. More people here would rather post something like, "That's a stupid assignment; teaches nothing about stacks and queues. I'm waaay smarter than that professor. Here's why:..."

    <snore>

    The problem is we weren't shown the entire assignment. What we were shown does say that you should "simulate" stacks and queues, but then it goes on to show 2D pictures of the operations. Also, how are you supposed to show the "clear" operation? Just draw a blank screen?

    I'm pretty sure everyone here connected the dots between the assignment and the author being a Graphics Programmer and we were just making jokes about the limited spec we were shown.

  • MM (unregistered) in reply to death
    RandomDreamer:
    I've heard so many stories about CS students paying to have projects completed.
    That's not unique to CS. There are people who make their living by writing term papers for other people's English Lit courses. Every school department and subject has this problem. It's distressingly widespread.
    death:
    I don't understand people who pay for schoolwork. Really. School is for learning. Coursework is for learning. You don't learn shit if someone else does that!
    It makes especially little sense at a University level. Unless they're on a full scholarship, these people are paying a great deal of money to someone to teach them something, and then turning around and paying someone else to help them avoid having to learn it. You've got to wonder under what sort of twisted logic that would make sense.
  • Jay (unregistered)

    I once did a Google search on a subject I was researching at the time and turned up an article that sounded very familiar. Yes indeed, it was the first few paragraphs of an article that I had written. It turned out to be one of those web sites that sell pre-written term papers -- "for research purposes only" of course. (I'm sure they would be shocked to learn that some of their customers were simply printing them out and turning them in as their own work. I'll bet that if they knew that was happening, they'd promptly take steps to put a stop to it.) Anyway, they show you the first few paragraphs of a paper for free; if you want the rest you have to pay. Well, I wasn't going to pay to find out if this was, in fact, simply an article of mine reposted, or what. But if it was ... I'm thinking that I'm not sure if I should be complimented that these folks thought that something I had written was good enough to be worth selling for exorbitant prices, or if I should be mad that I'm not getting a cut of the money.

  • (cs) in reply to Oxyd
    Oxyd:
    Well, the real WTF here is: You can get a job without any actual knowledge, as seen from many articles here. You can pass college without having to put much effort into it, besides “obtaining” your homework assignments. So why do we actually study all this? Clearly, studying is a sub-optimal solution to getting a job.

    You're absolutely right, it is the sub-optimal solution to GETTING a job, but maybe not keeping a job. Or better yet, if we learn the material, we will enjoy our jobs more because we are applying things we have learned. If we never learn the material, we might as well be a doorstop. The challenge is there for our benefit, not for us to just sidestep it or try to cheat.

  • N (unregistered) in reply to Cope with IT
    Cope with IT:
    dpm:
    I was once accused by a professor of designing and coding someone else's project --- a very attractive girl --- in exchange for sex. I laughed and replied "I wish!"
    Huh, that's not too uncommon.
    Not too uncommon? We don't even have very attractive girls here. Clearly I'm at the wrong university.
  • SomeCoder (unregistered) in reply to MM
    MM:
    RandomDreamer:
    I've heard so many stories about CS students paying to have projects completed.
    That's not unique to CS. There are people who make their living by writing term papers for other people's English Lit courses. Every school department and subject has this problem. It's distressingly widespread.
    death:
    I don't understand people who pay for schoolwork. Really. School is for learning. Coursework is for learning. You don't learn shit if someone else does that!
    It makes especially little sense at a University level. Unless they're on a full scholarship, these people are paying a great deal of money to someone to teach them something, and then turning around and paying someone else to help them avoid having to learn it. You've got to wonder under what sort of twisted logic that would make sense.

    They are paying for the piece of paper. They don't care if they actually learn anything, they just want to be a "college graduate".

    In some cases getting the piece of paper is all that matters. I took a ton of completely useless classes in college. And I mean COMPLETELY useless. But I had to jump through the hoops for my degree.

    On the flip side, I also took 3 or 4 classes that I found incredibly useful and learned a lot from. I think that ratio is the real WTF and it's that ratio that makes (some) people willing to pay for people to do their homework.

    On the other hand, some people are just dishonest shrug

  • (cs) in reply to Stewie
    Stewie:
    That's really BS. Why is the stereotype that it's always CS students that don't know how to use proper programing techniques, or write their own assignments? Why are the Engineers to glorified that they never screw up or cheat? In my current position, I've seen way more Engineers that didn't know the basics about programing than the CS grads.

    Flustered

    In my experience, the CS students that went that road just quit when it became obvious that they wouldn't float in the field. The MSIS kids continued down the road because they knew their entire field was about one thing: outsourcing.

  • teaching asst. (unregistered)

    This beautiful student you speak of. Was she Irish ?

  • anon (unregistered) in reply to teaching asst.
    teaching asst.:
    This beautiful student you speak of. Was she Irish ?

    Nicely done.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Outlaw Programmer
    Outlaw Programmer:
    It's been a while since my last Data Structures class but I'm pretty sure you don't need OpenGL to write a stack or a queue...

    transform_data_to_4x4_matrix(); glLoadMatrix(...); glPushMatrix();

    ...

    glPopMatrix(); glGetFloatv(GL_MODELVIEW_MATRIX, ...); trasnform_4x4_matrix_to_data();

  • Joe (unregistered) in reply to Josh
    Josh:
    I used to be the manager of the forums area for a Java programming site and it was sad how quickly many of them devolved into places where people just posted their homework questions. What really stunned me though was how casual people were about it, and how totally lacking in social graces they were. many didn't even both with "Hey, can anyone help me, I'd really appreciate it" niceities -- it was just "This is my assignment, please do it." I think people sometimes hear "you can get answers on the Internet" and don't think about the actual human beings they'd be interacting with.

    This is why I never joined any software development forums. Every time I found one as a result of a Google search, it was just some a$$hole posting his block of code and asking everyone to fix it for him. Brillant!

    If you want to see the worst of this, go look at some VBA forums. They're the worst.

    What irks me is when a top Google result consists of a forum post of only the question, but no answers. After years of looking up tiny details I've got a precious bookmarks folder of quality results. Most of them are specific articles about the problem. Few if any are legitimate postings involving a question and a series of answers.

    That's a shame because I'd like to participate in a developer's forum. I guess this site sort of fits the bill. We enjoy topics related to what we do, minus any annoying posts asking for code solutions. And if there are any, they're an article in and of themselves like this one. Woot.

  • DavidN (unregistered)

    Sun's Java forum are full of this sort of thing as well, unfortunately. A tactic that some of the regulars thought up was asking them for their university, lecturer name and course "to put on the header", and once they were provided, Google their lecturer and email them with a link to the thread.

  • Bmfzzld (unregistered) in reply to DavidN

    I can't help but think that there's some sort of Nigerian scam angle to this...

    Maybe people who respond to requests such as this are more likely targets for scamming? Maybe the compensation for work will be in the form of a $1000 cashier's check of which $850 needs to be returned?

    Surely, a basic college coding project is not worth $300.

  • CodeMonkey (unregistered)

    This is also common outside of academia. Many moons ago I worked at a small 68000 assembler software shop. The support guys got a lot of calls from embedded systems developers basically trying to get us to write their code for them in the guise of "support". It got so bad that they passed around a monthly list of support-banned customers, similar to a convenience store putting up pictures of bad checks.

  • (cs) in reply to Bmfzzld
    Bmfzzld:
    I can't help but think that there's some sort of Nigerian scam angle to this...

    Maybe people who respond to requests such as this are more likely targets for scamming? Maybe the compensation for work will be in the form of a $1000 cashier's check of which $850 needs to be returned?

    Surely, a basic college coding project is not worth $300.

    Depends... How bad do you want to pass ? 300 seems kinda low if he passes the semester for it. Not to mention time is money, so if you retake the course, its gonna cost more than 300 (think room and board). Just toughen up and do the work like a real programmer.

  • beenthere (unregistered)

    TRWTF is that he took the materials down, instead of throwing out a honey pot.

    "CS Students: If you really need the source code to complete an assignment and you don't care if you learn anything or not, click here for the files" -> goatse.zip

  • (cs) in reply to beenthere

    Just email him a bare skeleton with the functions declared. Let him fill in the logic and graphic calls. Tell him it works on your end. It compiles, so its gotta work ;)

  • cthulhu (unregistered) in reply to tbcpp

    glPushMatrix(); glPopMatrix();

  • abitslow (unregistered) in reply to N
    N:
    Cope with IT:
    dpm:
    I was once accused by a professor of designing and coding someone else's project --- a very attractive girl --- in exchange for sex. I laughed and replied "I wish!"
    Huh, that's not too uncommon.
    Not too uncommon? We don't even have very attractive girls here. Clearly I'm at the wrong university.
    You must be doing hardware design then?
  • vman (unregistered) in reply to Outlaw Programmer
    Outlaw Programmer:
    It's been a while since my last Data Structures class but I'm pretty sure you don't need OpenGL to write a stack or a queue...

    I wanted to say this. Curse you!

  • Paolo G (unregistered)

    Doesn't the university have an intranet that only students can log in to? That would mean the students couldn't access the notes, etc, from home, of course, but that would be a small price to pay, surely?

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to death
    death:
    Sane proffesors put a simple passwords on their stuff that they give out in first class or simply write up somewhere on course materials. Mine did.

    That's no fun - there are lots of useful courses full of notes that I can get at with google, and needing a password to read the class notes would reduce this a lot.

    Other than that... I don't understand people who pay for schoolwork. Really. School is for learning. Coursework is for learning. You don't learn shit if someone else does that!

    They just want a grade and it worked for them in high school... They probably haven't realized that this will fail spectacularly in the working world.

  • MM (unregistered) in reply to Paolo G
    Paolo G:
    Doesn't the university have an intranet that only students can log in to? That would mean the students couldn't access the notes, etc, from home, of course, but that would be a small price to pay, surely?
    He may not want to be seen as playing favorites and giving an unfair advantage to students who live on campus over students who live off campus. By putting his stuff on the internet it's equally available to both.
  • Andrew (unregistered) in reply to MM
    MM:
    RandomDreamer:
    I've heard so many stories about CS students paying to have projects completed.
    That's not unique to CS. There are people who make their living by writing term papers for other people's English Lit courses. Every school department and subject has this problem. It's distressingly widespread.
    death:
    I don't understand people who pay for schoolwork. Really. School is for learning. Coursework is for learning. You don't learn shit if someone else does that!
    It makes especially little sense at a University level. Unless they're on a full scholarship, these people are paying a great deal of money to someone to teach them something, and then turning around and paying someone else to help them avoid having to learn it. You've got to wonder under what sort of twisted logic that would make sense.

    People on a full scholarship are less likely to cheat. Most scholarships are for academic performance. These students want to learn.

  • vman (unregistered) in reply to beenthere
    beenthere:
    TRWTF is that he took the materials down, instead of throwing out a honey pot.

    "CS Students: If you really need the source code to complete an assignment and you don't care if you learn anything or not, click here for the files" -> goatse.zip

    Ha! That'd be brilliant.

  • PseudoNoise (unregistered)

    #include <stack> #include <queue>

    Tadaaa!

  • Ken B (unregistered) in reply to atkretsch
    atkretsch:
    True, but 3D-rendered queues are much more enterprisey.
    ITHY "Q" and "Enterprisey". :-)
  • Ken B (unregistered) in reply to Ken B
    Ken B:
    atkretsch:
    True, but 3D-rendered queues are much more enterprisey.
    ITHY "Q" and "Enterprisey". :-)
    Grr... 
    s/ITHY/ITYM/
  • KLacerte (unregistered) in reply to 1

    Education is the only thing for which the consumer does not want to extract the full value of their purchase.

  • sf (unregistered)

    A colleague of my wife accidentally let slip that, years before, their boss actually paid him thousands of dollars to take his courses for him and get him his MBA. The way she describes this guy it appears par for the course. Luckily, he couldn't hide his incompetence for too long and he was eventually moved aside (but not fired, unfortunately) and she got his job.

  • (cs) in reply to sf
    sf:
    A colleague of my wife accidentally let slip that, years before, their boss actually paid him thousands of dollars to take his courses for him and get him his MBA. The way she describes this guy it appears par for the course. Luckily, he couldn't hide his incompetence for too long and he was eventually moved aside (but not fired, unfortunately) and she got his job.

    Wow two idiots in one. The boss of course, and the guy that took the course for him. If your going to do the work, why not get the MBA for yourself? I'm sure the final payoff would be much higher.

  • jugis (unregistered)

    <sarcasm>Ha that assignment is to easy, I'd just pop it in a webbrowser and then use some type of interface to javascrit and use the push() and pop() or shift() and unshift().

    For the second one you could use push() and unshift() or shift() and pop() </sarcasm>

  • (cs) in reply to teaching asst.
    teaching asst.:
    This beautiful student you speak of. Was she Irish ?
    Jewish.

    (I know you were just slurping the robot, but I had to post)

  • Simon (unregistered)

    A funny WTF but a true one. I was doing an intro to IT (read Certificate 4- australia). Now there would be some (not all) international students that would canvas their own class (and then others) for people wanting to make $200AUD on a project that would take 2 hours to complete for a passing grade. And they only wanted these very basic courses. Though I do remember one that attempted uni...that one stalked the library for friendly faces she could ask for help...

  • MM (unregistered) in reply to Andrew
    Andrew:
    MM:
    Unless they're on a full scholarship, these people are paying a great deal of money to someone to teach them something, and then turning around and paying someone else to help them avoid having to learn it. You've got to wonder under what sort of twisted logic that would make sense.
    People on a full scholarship are less likely to cheat. Most scholarships are for academic performance. These students want to learn.
    I certianly hope so. I only brought up the "unless they're on a full scholarship" part because the point I was making only applies to those who are paying for their education. I figure that that scholarship caveat only applies to small minority of people who would be cheating. That just means that my main point (about paying to do something and then paying to avoid doing it) is all the more widely applicable.
  • iToad (unregistered)

    Could someone compose a witty and appropriate comment for this article and send it to me? Thanks in advance.

  • Northerner (unregistered) in reply to anitra
    anitra:
    This is all too common, especially in associate and bachelor's-level instruction.

    Hell, I once had a boyfriend offer to do an entry-level programming assignment for me, just because I asked for help with one part! Lots of students don't get the concept that you're assigned these projects so you can LEARN something, not to produce a deliverable.

    I disagree. It's possible that students are being trained to understand that it's not how good your work is, it's that your work is turned in on time and under budget. Good training for the real world IMHO, where all that matters is the bottom line. Code is crap? "Don't worry about it, we have an entire department of liars to cover for you. We call it Marketing."

    On another topic, it's not shocking that it's more and more common for people to buy their way through their bachelor's degree, and get away with it. Having a BS/BA these days is like having a high school diploma about 30 years ago, and little is expected of these degree holders beyond showing up on time and not complaining when management treats them like disposable diapers. Why bother to actually learn something when you're just marking time before entering the sausage factory?

    Yes, I'm a little bitter. Suffice it to say I know of what I speak.

  • DaedalusSP (unregistered) in reply to iToad

    I'd email your comment right back at you but I don't have you email address. Well played.

  • Torajirou (unregistered) in reply to dpm
    dpm:
    jgayhart:
    On the other hand, I am happy to accept payment for doing homework. :)
    I was once accused by a professor of designing and coding someone else's project --- a very attractive girl --- in exchange for sex. I laughed and replied "I wish!"

    It turned out that she had collaborated with another student, not me; I was exonerated. Like everyone else posting here, I was both amused and depressed that some people did not see any problem in buying finished assignments.

    The RealWTF in your comment is that you're talking about a very a ttractive girl studying CS :p

  • (cs) in reply to anitra
    zip:
    I did a project for my ex-gf one time for $50. I rationalized that it was ok because she was in a different country, and if she wanted to pay her way through Comp Sci 100, that's her own bad decision.

    Wow! Small world, isn't it?

    anitra:
    This is all too common, especially in associate and bachelor's-level instruction.

    Hell, I once had a boyfriend offer to do an entry-level programming assignment for me, just because I asked for help with one part!

    I'll leave you two to get reacquainted. I'm sure you've got lots to catch up on!

Leave a comment on “Student Initiative”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article