This semester, for reasons I still do not fully understand, I decided to TA for my ex-Finance professor. Actually it was mainly because he is a really good guy who is one of the few professors I have never seemed stumped by a question. Seems rather out of place in our otherwise anemic business department.
Now realize I'm a science guy at heart. I have learned over the last three years that I look at and tackle problems in a completely different manner than my classmates. Usually we end up at the same point, so it doesn't matter.
But the shit I'm seeing grading these assignments is unreal.
First Finance is not an overly difficult course. If you could handle stats or pre-calc, you can do a Finance course. Actually I recommend you take one as an undergrad as it is easily one of the most useful courses I have ever taken.
One of the things this prof does is post the answers for the assignment, but provide that you must show your work to get full credit. It kind of makes sense because a lot of these people are terrible with numbers. When I took the class, many of the students were thankful as it helped them learn various concepts for the test. Since a lot of it is done in excel, you can see where the work is done.
Thus, my grading is usually pretty generous in this respect.
Except since I've been doing this I have had several assignments that are mere copies of the answer sheets. I'm talking word for word, letter for letter, formatting for formatting IDENTICAL.
First, if you're going to copy something, don't be that fucking lazy. I mean honestly, change the font to Arial or some shit like that. You'd at least get one point for effort.
Second, this is a junior level course and you're resorting to copying? What. The. Fuck?
I would say I have had a dozen homework assignments, from various students, turned in in this manner. Another two dozen more were probably copied, but changed just enough to where you can't really tell.
If I were to pull that shit in my Biochem class or Genetics, I would instantly be thrown out of the course. That is something that as an upper level class-man you simply do not do.
So far the professor has been light on these students. I've decided tonight that I will not stand for that. Three out of the last four assignments I have graded have been blatant copies.
If these are the people who are our future business leaders of America, just what fucking message are we sending them? It's ok to skirt on by, doing as little of work as possible?
Screw that shit, I won't stand for it. Tomorrow oughta be fun...
6 comments:
This looks like a good time to invoke my favorite quote from Futurama:
All I want out of life is to be a monkey of moderate intelligence who wears a suit. That's why I've decided to transfer to business school!
- Gunther
Plagiarists ought to be dragged out into the street and shot!
"ex-Fiance professor"
I got kinda confused for a second there.
Whoopsy, fixed that lol
I wish it was only Finance students...and I hate to discourage you, Phat, but I've been adjunct faculty at 2 pharmacy schools - there are always some lazy-a** students out there.
I had a P6 student that was SURPRISED when, after I warned him that I used turnitin.com and that he MUST cite his references that I discovered he had cut & pasted 2/3 of his paper.
Flunked his butt...cost him about $45K in lost income I figure.
/he also used Wikipedia as a primary source document!
My dad is a retired CPA who graduated about 1968 or so. He told me once that he took an elective course in cost accounting. The professor gave out an assignment to do a spreadsheet. Now this was before VisiCalc made spreadsheets something that you could do instantly. The prof told the class, "I know there are a lot of really good spreadsheets floating around out there. It will take you about four hours to copy one of them, as opposed to about five hours to calculate it yourself. The only difference is, if you do it yourself, you'll know how to do it." He didn't seem to particularly care which way they did it; I guess it all sorted itself out at the final exam.
On the topic of plagiarism, he told me one of his classmates was handed back his term paper with a note from the professor saying he wasn't able to grade it. When the student asked why not, the professor said, "Because I wrote this myself, when I took this class ten years ago."
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