I think what's so fascinating about academia (really, university life in general) is the juxtaposition of intelligence with the cheating and fraudulent behavior that occurs.
I have never, ever cheated in school. I was really surprised when I went to college, with the amount of cheating that went on. A huge proportion of my class would take a shortcut. Get the answers to an assignment from a friend, cheat the clicker, plagiarize. A smaller subset were determined to never honestly do an assignment. Every assignment was approached, first and foremost, with a strategy for how to defraud it.
What's so interesting is that so many of these cheaters, the worst ones included, were extremely intelligent people. The most capable cheaters were as smart as the honest top of the class. (The slackers, who just wanted the degree, all muddled through with C's. Which is fine!). Academic fraud at the highest level, among tenured professors, is the most extreme possible case of this.
What gets me is that if you stop and think about fraud, about cheating, for literally a minute, you can only come to the conclusion that it's a huge disservice to absolutely everyone. It's obviously a disservice to the honest people in your cohort, because it robs them of advancement. It's a disservice to you, because you waste time cheating instead of learning -- which only leads to issues down the road, because you need the things you're learning about in school.
But I think most importantly, it's a joyless activity. Any pride you have in your work, passion for what you're doing, it's all permanently tainted by the fraud. One of the funnest, most enjoyable parts of life, in my mind, is getting really really good at something really really hard, and mastering it. These people are the absolute best. Tao Li, the stories in here [1], the Alzheimer's case. I mean I'm angry about these things of course, but more than anything, it's a pity/feeling bad for/disgust reaction. They wasted their whole lives on getting to the top of the field, only to suck all of the joy out of the achievement by cheating to get there.
These people are so clearly gifted. How is it that they cannot make this connection?
I think you're deceiving yourself with your implication that cheaters tend to be "extremely intelligent." Being able to exhibit intelligence in short bursts is not the same capability as being able to exercise it for hours a day, for months on end, in a mental marathon like academia or many other career paths require. The cheaters that you're referring to, are at best, clever, which is inferior to being intelligent.
You may believe that they simply lack the desire to use their intelligence over a longer timespan, but there is effectively no difference between never wanting to do it and not being able to do it.
There may occasionally be cheaters who cheat because they get a kick out of it, and happen to be intelligent, but that isn't the norm.
But I think most importantly, it's a joyless activity.
You are completely wrong. Cheating is an art of its own, and mastering the skill of cheating is similar to mastering any other skill, like, for example, playing an instrument. Every time you cheat you take a risk because someone might get to know, and this risk might be thrilling.
Yep. Cheating was one of the few truly creative and exciting things I did in school and uni. Printing out large amounts of pieces of paper with 3.75 font that included significant parts of Halliday and Resnick allowed me to pass my physics exam. And copying things from them during exam without being noticed is almost like a thing from spy movies.
What's so interesting is that so many of these cheaters, the worst ones included, were extremely intelligent people.
It's not surprising at all. In Computer Science at least, intelligent people quickly realise that CS university curriculum is not particularly useful or relevant for their further career or life. The degree (and high GPA in case of US) is just a hoop to jump through, required for getting a good job. So, they focus on what's important - degree and high GPA, while treating knowledge acquisition as a secondary priority.
The biggest mistake I have made in completing coursework in many cases has been losing time understanding the readings when I could have used the time to rush through and submit the assignment.
Reading the material to understand it first? Not enough time will remain to do the graded work, and my grade suffers, but at least I’ve learned something and expanded my understanding.
Rushing through the graded work instead? Sometimes I have completely forgotten that the assignment had happened by the time the A arrives, and I have to locate the instructions to know what it had been about.
Comments
I think what's so fascinating about academia (really, university life in general) is the juxtaposition of intelligence with the cheating and fraudulent behavior that occurs.
I have never, ever cheated in school. I was really surprised when I went to college, with the amount of cheating that went on. A huge proportion of my class would take a shortcut. Get the answers to an assignment from a friend, cheat the clicker, plagiarize. A smaller subset were determined to never honestly do an assignment. Every assignment was approached, first and foremost, with a strategy for how to defraud it.
What's so interesting is that so many of these cheaters, the worst ones included, were extremely intelligent people. The most capable cheaters were as smart as the honest top of the class. (The slackers, who just wanted the degree, all muddled through with C's. Which is fine!). Academic fraud at the highest level, among tenured professors, is the most extreme possible case of this.
What gets me is that if you stop and think about fraud, about cheating, for literally a minute, you can only come to the conclusion that it's a huge disservice to absolutely everyone. It's obviously a disservice to the honest people in your cohort, because it robs them of advancement. It's a disservice to you, because you waste time cheating instead of learning -- which only leads to issues down the road, because you need the things you're learning about in school.
But I think most importantly, it's a joyless activity. Any pride you have in your work, passion for what you're doing, it's all permanently tainted by the fraud. One of the funnest, most enjoyable parts of life, in my mind, is getting really really good at something really really hard, and mastering it. These people are the absolute best. Tao Li, the stories in here [1], the Alzheimer's case. I mean I'm angry about these things of course, but more than anything, it's a pity/feeling bad for/disgust reaction. They wasted their whole lives on getting to the top of the field, only to suck all of the joy out of the achievement by cheating to get there.
These people are so clearly gifted. How is it that they cannot make this connection?
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39643437
I think you're deceiving yourself with your implication that cheaters tend to be "extremely intelligent." Being able to exhibit intelligence in short bursts is not the same capability as being able to exercise it for hours a day, for months on end, in a mental marathon like academia or many other career paths require. The cheaters that you're referring to, are at best, clever, which is inferior to being intelligent.
You may believe that they simply lack the desire to use their intelligence over a longer timespan, but there is effectively no difference between never wanting to do it and not being able to do it.
There may occasionally be cheaters who cheat because they get a kick out of it, and happen to be intelligent, but that isn't the norm.
You are completely wrong. Cheating is an art of its own, and mastering the skill of cheating is similar to mastering any other skill, like, for example, playing an instrument. Every time you cheat you take a risk because someone might get to know, and this risk might be thrilling.
Yep. Cheating was one of the few truly creative and exciting things I did in school and uni. Printing out large amounts of pieces of paper with 3.75 font that included significant parts of Halliday and Resnick allowed me to pass my physics exam. And copying things from them during exam without being noticed is almost like a thing from spy movies.
It's not surprising at all. In Computer Science at least, intelligent people quickly realise that CS university curriculum is not particularly useful or relevant for their further career or life. The degree (and high GPA in case of US) is just a hoop to jump through, required for getting a good job. So, they focus on what's important - degree and high GPA, while treating knowledge acquisition as a secondary priority.
The biggest mistake I have made in completing coursework in many cases has been losing time understanding the readings when I could have used the time to rush through and submit the assignment.
Reading the material to understand it first? Not enough time will remain to do the graded work, and my grade suffers, but at least I’ve learned something and expanded my understanding.
Rushing through the graded work instead? Sometimes I have completely forgotten that the assignment had happened by the time the A arrives, and I have to locate the instructions to know what it had been about.