

Harvard Students in Cheating Scandal Say Collaboration Was Accepted - caixa
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/01/education/students-of-harvard-cheating-scandal-say-group-work-was-accepted.html

======
gizmo
Most people here are saying that the students were clearly in the wrong. "Lack
intellectual curiosity and character". "spoiled children". I don't agree at
all. Aside from the formal rules, smart people pick up on which rules can be
broken safely. In fact, knowing which rules in life you should break and which
rules you should follow is probably a critical factor for success in life.

Jaywalking is illegal in most (all?) US cities, but in many it's completely
acceptable behavior. Jaywalking in Seattle (edit: was Manhattan), on the other
hand is not done and you better not do it within eyesight of a police officer.
Jaywalking in the Netherlands is completely fine (even right in front of the
police), but in Germany it's not. The laws are the same, but the culture is
different.

There are thousands of examples of socially acceptable behavior that doesn't
correspond with the law. Drinking in public. Sometimes fine, sometimes not.
Forging a signature. Occasionally fine, usually not.

Startups break laws all the time too. You have to get a product out first, and
only when you start making money you get lawyers involved to make sure
everything is going by the books. But if you aren't making real money yet the
government really doesn't care whether you follow every law to the letter. And
as a founder you have to decide which laws can be broken safely and which laws
must be obeyed. Get it wrong and you may lose your company: either through
legal trouble or because it doesn't get off the ground. The founders talk
freely about the laws they broke. They brag about it! It's considered clever.
Relentlessly resourceful. It's a fine line.

So if the culture in Harvard was such that cooperating for take-home exams was
sometimes acceptable and sometimes not, then I consider that a legitimate
excuse. It's easy to test too. Just look at the exams of that course of the
previous years and check if people worked together on those too. Compare with
other courses. If the results show that students consistently break the
"individual work only" clause for some courses and not for other courses then
the students probably didn't think they were doing anything wrong. They were
just acting in the socially accepted manner.

~~~
badclient
_Jaywalking in Manhattan, on the other hand is not done and you better not do
it within eyesight of a police officer._

Seriously? I have stayed in Manhattan for couple years and done my share of
jaywalking occasionally in clear sight of NYPD. May be I am just lucky but
this just doesn't resonate with me.

~~~
graeme
Everyone jaywalked when I was in Manhattan. It's a very pedestrian city.

~~~
benblack86
I don't walk, I jaywalk!

------
monjaro
For being at an elite "best-of-the-best" school, these students sure sound
like a bunch of spoiled children. The reasons for cheating seem to vary from
"it was a hard course so I had to cheat" to "everyone does it" to "it's an
open book test, so we should be allowed to cheat".

~~~
arjunnarayan
Have you not been paying attention to the entitlement and attitudes of the
global financial elite in 2009-2010? This was precisely their response to the
mismanagement of the banks: everybody was doing it, it was accepted, now bail
us out and leave.

~~~
Jd
Not to remove blame where blame is due, but in both cases there are incentive
and regulatory problems. If you give people problems whereby they feel that
they cannot do well without cheating (i.e. when everyone else is cheating),
then cheating becomes institutionalized. Thus, to be cheating in a class where
99% of the students are cheating is to be somewhat less culpable than to be
among the students cheating when only 1% of the students are cheating.

That is to say, to have a situation when cheating becomes the norm implies a
much larger institutional and cultural collapse in which the larger framework
(and not simply the cheating individuals) demands investigation.

What are the larger trends here?

Well, the first might simply be the idea that greed is okay. In this case, we
can witness the following transformation in American values fairly clearly.

Phase 1 (religious): Greed is bad, we do things for the sake of a heavenly
kingdom only. We are only temporary stewards of the wealth we have.

Phase 2 (agnostic): Greed may be a necessary part of evolution and competition
for limited resources, but we need to limit it and make it a long term sort of
greed.

Phase 3 (hedonist): My identity is defined by how much money I have, and I
don't care how I get it.

In other words, there is long-term value erosion. This is not to say that
one's values necessarily have to be religious-Christian in derivation, but in
the American context this was overwhelmingly the case and this erosion has
basically given way to live in the moment materialism.

The practical consequences is that many people involved in business, and this
is most clear in the financial sector which has no ostensible tie to any
product whatsoever and attracts people who care only about money, not only
seek money, but seek to destroy any barriers that keep them from getting as
much money as possible. In the US this has meant saturation of elite
universities (pulling an increasing proportion of the best and brightest into
the financial sector), buying out of the major political parties, shutting out
the minor political parties, and removing regulatory functions (i.e. the SEC).
Additionally, there is the desire to weaken the electorate by importing cheap
labor from other countries that will be liable to manipulation via mass media,
decreasing the likelihood that any independent party will achieve critical
mass.

Because this is a long-term institutional problem there is no obvious
solution, except to continue with the values that have not entirely been
eroded (i.e. honesty) and to encourage others who do their function (i.e.
continue working in the public sector and enforcing existing regulation).
Creating new services and teams of people that are doing a good job simply for
the sake of doing a good job is never a bad idea either -- although it is
always easy to get sucked into the mentality of "greed is good."

~~~
Uchikoma
"Thus, to be cheating in a class where 99% of the students are cheating is to
be somewhat less culpable than to be among the students cheating when only 1%
of the students are cheating."

No.

~~~
kajecounterhack
I'm pretty sure I agree with you but comments like these could be more
verbose. It's not helpful to simply disagree without explanation. One word
responses are just dogmatic.

~~~
Jd
Thanks. I personally believe in right and wrong, but also in degrees of right
and wrong. Doing the right thing in a situation where everyone else is doing
the wrong thing is more difficult. Doing the right thing when everyone is
doing the right thing is easy. Thus, you don't really know your values or the
depth of your values until you are placed in a situation where it is difficult
to carry them out.

Here, for "culpability" I mean simply that I believe that the power to
actualize the values of each individual differs, and that those who are able
to actualize their values even in very difficult situations is worth more and
to be praised more than those who are unable to and go with the flow.

This is to say that simply saying you have certain values means nothing. You
have to act on those values and, because acting on those values can be
difficult, I have sympathy for those who fail to -- even as I praise those who
do.

~~~
001sky
Your analysis is not wrong. The UCI/The Tour DeFrance, Lance Armstrong were
just as bad. You highlight lots of good issues (including - other people
making money off it regardless of who wins, the act of _not_ doping was
arguably dangerous, given the exertion levels of the pack, etc). The
conclusion of this section is fine I'd also agree with (It _is_ true). But
ultimately you fail to provide a framework for analysis. You conclude _This is
to say that simply saying you have certain values means nothing_

If you were a CEO of UCI and the Board _asked_ you: 'How would you "fix" the
pervasive problem' would your really come back debating "doping" and
"problem"? Or would your come back with something more like: Here is my Answer
X,Y,Z. While itsn't perfect, we've identified things that are clearly wrong
that we _can_ fix. First, we need to draw lines between doping and legitimate
theraphy. Second, we need to have the science to _fairly test_ between the
Two. Third, while maintaining privacy and fairness, the athletes and the teams
will need to co-operate with the [XYZ] league to make sure it doesn't damage
the credibility of the competition and abuse our position of trust amongs the
fans....etc.

I'd actually be interested to hear your views on that. Your analysis pointed
out the analogy to the Armstrong case (was not something I thought of before
hand, but it fits perfectly). But when I see a huge, intelligent analysis
thrown up then ends the way yours does, it seems like a waste of all the
energy that you put into writing it. (Unless you are a lawyer -- with a point
to defend =D)

~~~
Jd
Unfortunately, I'm not familiar enough with contemporary doping scandals to
offer programmatic advice on what can be done about them, except to say that
in my view here too we are probably at the cusp of major shift in a massive
historical trend. This trend I suspect will end with 'doping' being considered
the norm not only among athletes but among the general population, and the
chemicals used will be seen as an generally accepted life enhancement rather
than an aberration -- much like vitamin supplements already are. What to do
about it today, when doping is illegal, at least within the context of
professional sports competitions? I don't know, especially since in this
context it seems that the trend is a scientific one, perhaps mixed with a
degradation in values (here I'm simply not informed enough to comment).

You want to "fix" the problem? It probably depends on the gravity of the
specific offense and the pervasiveness of the offense. Pushing a few people
harshly and publicly can send a statement that certain things are not
acceptable, and curb abuses by others who are watching them. This is not a
particularly bad tactic, but again it is context specific.

My own approach is always to fit the solution to the problem in such a way
that the optimal outcome (i.e. reduction of abuses in the short and long-term)
is achieved.

~~~
001sky
_Unfortunately, I'm not familiar enough with...

You want to "fix" the problem?...

My own approach is always..._

This is pretty _common_ failure avoidance technique.

But it lacks ambition.

Imagine a father or a mother with a newborn infant, "Unfortunately, I'm not
familiar enough with...changing nappies" so I just won't bother. The kid cries
"You want to "fix" the problem?..." The kid cries. "My own approach is always
to fit the solution to the problem in such a way that the optimal outcome
(i.e. reduction of abuses in the short and long-term) is achieved." The kid
cries.

Is that being a responsible Adult? The kid might ask. I dunno. Not my kid.
Anyway, who gives a shit about the kid? The kid is kind of fucking annoying.

Maybe that's just the world we live in.

But the difference between an _Adult_ and a Child, is that the Adult doesn't
have the luxury of being the Child.

Somebody has to clean up the Shit.

Maybe the kid has a point?

 _Good writing should be convincing, certainly, but it should be convincing
because you got the right answers, not because you did a good job of arguing._

<http://paulgraham.com/essay.html>

In other words, the point of thinking is to solve, not to display thought.

Same as for the Harvard students.

~~~
Jd
Fine, but I think you generally have be familiar with the problem domain to
devise the optimal solution. I am in a good position to change the diapers or
punish my own child. Not quite so for someone else's, particularly if they are
not in my own geographic vicinity.

------
tmsh
The thing about intellectual honesty is that when you don't feel like you know
much relative to your peers and context (e.g., you're a freshman at Harvard),
you don't think you have much to lose. You don't realize what you have to lose
until it becomes clear about all the hidden potential that you've taken for
granted and that you're risking -- how important intellectual honesty is to
any type of sustainable effort.

So there is a chicken and egg problem with intellectual honesty. You don't
appreciate it until you've acquired experience. And you don't acquire
sustainable experience until you start to appreciate it.

The flip side though is that most young people just need to be told and
slightly inspired about how important it is. Then they need to develop that
over several years. In college can work. Learning to be confident with your
own intellectual pursuits based on honesty though -- that's what college is
supposed to teach. But yeah, a lot of time in all the competitiveness, it gets
lost.

------
cwdutch
"For being at an elite "best-of-the-best" school, these students sure sound
like a bunch of spoiled children", "They're not the people who ever build cool
things anyway though, so who cares." - These and similar sentiments seem a bit
common on HN and, to me, seem rather myopic and, frankly, immature. The latter
statement is pretty clearly false and I don't plan on listing examples to
demonstrate that.

Going to a "best-of-best" school is rarely not in someone's best interest. I
did go to Harvard undergrad and I did not attend YC, but the draw is similar:
sure the prestige matters and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, bu
the real value is in the people that you live and work with, both peers and
mentors.

Does giving money help you get into Harvard? I'm sure it does and if that
money benefits the undergraduate population more than having someone who is
subjectively less deserving in that class is a detriment, then it is in all
students' best interest to have the paying member accepted.

Regarding the cheating: It happens and I'm sure it happens at every campus. I
don't think that's what happened to half of this class. It's a large class,
it's probably required for Gov concentrators, and it seems clear that the
expectations were not understood by the students or the teaching fellows. What
I DID do a lot of was pool notes in preparation for an exam, and I wouldn't be
surprised if that is responsible for a lot of the consistencies in test
answers. Why redefine a term that you have a ("the") definition for in your
notes? And honestly, I think it's healthy to have varying levels of respect
for different material. If I want to be a physicist, I'm going to really make
sure I understand linear algebra. For the Core class on Chinese history, I'm
going to pool notes, cram, and try to scrape an A, because the A means more to
me than the knowledge.

Sorry to address several topics; I've been reading HN for a while and this is
my first comment, so I'm still learning the ropes.

~~~
monjaro
Okay, I'm the one that said they sound like spoiled children, so I'll bite.
Can you explain to me how that is myopic and immature? These are all quotes
from the article:

"He said, 'I gave out 120 A’s last year, and I’ll give out 120 more,' "

"Having my degree revoked now would mean I lose my job."

"some said that they will sue the university if any serious punishment is
meted out"

"Some students asked whether there was a fundamental contradiction between
telling students to use online resources, but not to discuss the test with
each other"

These aren't responses of mature adults. This is immature students whining and
complaining because they got caught cheating. The test explicitly said
"students may not discuss the exam with others." It doesn't matter how it was
done last year, or how hard the class is, or how much money they spent on the
class. If the exam says not to discuss it with other students and you do, you
have cheated.

~~~
npisenti
I totally agree. And it sounds like the students knew perfectly well that they
were cheating... "[one of the students] said that he also discussed test
questions with other students, which he acknowledged was prohibited, but he
maintained that the practice was widespread and accepted." Now they are just
whining that they got caught ("I'm a _Harvard_ grad, god dammit!").

I went to a small science/engineering school with a very serious honor code,
and can assure you there is nothing contradictory about saying "you may use
online resources, but do not discuss this test with anyone." It's sad that
some Harvard students think their privilege entitles them to ignore the rules.

------
tlrobinson
_"Some students asked whether there was a fundamental contradiction between
telling students to use online resources, but not to discuss the test with
each other."_

No.

~~~
oob205
Um..yes. Study groups or websites are online resources. So is facebook. If a
student posts the questions online and starts discussions with anonymous
posters, or even reads relevant discussions posted online before the test, how
is that different from discussing with one another. There are plenty of ways
to have a test that explicitly prevents collaboration. This professor clearly
did not try.

~~~
mbreese
There is a fundamental difference between using online resources to find an
answer to a question and collaborating with others to find the same answer.
Part of the grade is based on how well _you_ can find the answers, not how
well your collective group can.

If the test is open book, open Internet, that _doesn't_ mean you can ask your
friends on Facebook for help, just because Facebook is on the Internet.

I think that the class was likely poorly designed, but that doesn't mean that
the students are all in the clear.

~~~
oob205
I dont think students are all in the clear in the least bit. I just happen to
believe that permitting online resources implies permitting collaboration, as
the internet is a tool for collaboration as much as it is a tool for pure
research. As far as I'm concerned, it a test is open internet, then it's de
facto collaboration permitted.

~~~
tlrobinson
In general I agree, but the professor explicitly told them not to discuss the
test with each other.

------
Locke1689
How much "cheating" was actually done here? Was it simply that people's
answers looked similar? On a take-home test with open book, open Internet,
you'd expect that everyone would probably Google the same sources.

I'm also suspicious of people who claim that sharing notes is in violation of
some cheating rule. I posted the source code to most of my school projects on
GitHub. If people want to crib off my code that's not my problem -- I did the
work, whether or not they want to is their problem.

~~~
wisty
> I did the work, whether or not they want to is their problem.

And the problem of the mediocre students who _don't_ cheat, but get graded
below the cheaters; and employers, who will tend to hire less honest and less
capable graduates.

~~~
Locke1689
Well, maybe, but I was never one to care too much about grades. More often
than not copying off me was a bad idea for most of the students because the
professors knew that the level of work was too high for the cheater.

------
grandalf
The worst part is that cheating indicates a strong cynicism about the course
and the value of learning the material. I thought elite schools were able to
recruit people with intellectual curiosity and character. Clearly the
admissions formula is broken.

~~~
patmcguire
80% of kids at elite schools come through the same kind of feeder system of
either good local public schools or private schools.

In that system there's a series of successively narrower hoops you have to
jump through - if there's only one junior high that teaches math beyond a
certain point and not everyone can go there, those kids are going to be better
prepared for the high school that teaches more advanced things, so they'll
make up a disproportionate amount. Since it's really hard to on the track once
you're not on it, at every level of evaluation and selection you keep
selecting out of smaller and smaller sections of the initial pool.

The people who come out of that system tend to be supremely competent, but in
a limited way. If you take a stand in high school approaching a topic from a
different angle and a teacher doesn't like it and gives you a C (the horror),
when it comes time to apply for Harvard there are an essentially limitless
number of competitors who didn't and who got the A. So people who naturally
play it safe and cynical tend to move on, and people who don't tend to adapt
or get cut.

~~~
tomjen3
The Atlantic had a really interesting article about the kinds of kids who goes
to an elite school (although it was Princeton)
[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/04/the-
orga...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/04/the-organization-
kid/302164/).

Fair disclaimer, the article is over a decade old.

~~~
patmcguire
It's the best description I've seen. That's how I remember everyone when I
started school, but everyone got a lot more cynical after the 2008 crisis.
People still do the same things, though - the attitude is that even if the
ladder might not be there when you get to the top, it's still the only one
around.

~~~
tomjen3
That is what happens when you don't read pgs articles (in this case
<http://paulgraham.com/ladder.html>).

------
Mizza
I went to school in Boston and knew lots of people of Harvard and MIT, and the
amount of cheating was absolutely staggering. The "Greek"/frat network
contributes to this cheating culture greatly (some houses more than others,
but they're all part of it.)

Personally, I think that some of these people are so used to being that #1
student that when they're surrounded by other #1'ers, they do whatever it
takes to remain on top, or so their logic goes.

They're not the people who ever build cool things anyway though, so who cares.

~~~
spec_laconic
I can't speak to frats or Harvard, but I can speak of personal experience of
MIT. When I began taking courses at MIT, I worked my proverbial ass off in a
very difficult class in CS (course 6 by their parlance) and got an A. After
the semester was over, I found out that students generally work together on
labs, which was a major portion of the class, and would have significantly
lightened my load. (Talking about spending entire weekends with hands-on-
keyboard, very unreasonable amount of work for one person, even an
overachieving one such as myself)

This is a _cultural_ difference of MIT; people tend to work with one another,
or they tend to fail. They learn it freshman year, and it's ingrained in their
psyche from then on.

Interestingly, the line between cooperative work and cheating is difficult to
discern and mostly set up by the professor. When the professor does not say
one way or another if the work is collaborative, students will generally
consider it collaborative.

As for the "[n]ever build cool things" troll, I'll let you google the number
of neat inventions by famous MIT / Harvard alums; I won't waste my time.

~~~
Mizza
Not what I meant. I'm actually in favor of people working collaboratively on
problems, I'm talking about computer-servers full of P-Set solns, essays, old
tests, occasionally the sale of these for money, etc etc etc.

------
clarky07
I think a case of widespread "cheating" like this is a good indication there
was something wrong with the course and the professor. If the material would
have been covered in class and not purposefully tricky it's likely there
wouldn't have been cheating.

Also, open book open Internet take home test might as well be code for group
test. I always found that to be an absurd way to give a test. If you want to
not have cheating give the test in class over the material covered in the
course.

------
tokenadult
The Harvard Crimson reporting on this story

[http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/8/30/academic-
dishone...](http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/8/30/academic-dishonesty-
ad-board/)

plainly highlighted the relevant portion of the examination rules. If the
Harvard students didn't understand what those rules meant, then the Harvard
admission office must be admitting some students with some severe reading
comprehension problems.

------
DanBC
> One student recalled going to a teaching fellow while working on the final
> exam and finding a crowd of others there, asking about a test question that
> hinged on an unfamiliar term. The student said the fellow defined the term
> for them.

I realise that I only have this snippet of text, but: Didn't they have a
dictionary? Didn't they have search engines?

Some of the attitudes displayed in that article are surprising. And
disappointing.

------
denzil_correa
My assessment

The course instructor set the rules but the implementation was "loose"
(casual). The students went one step too far in their liberties. I think it's
a collective failure on part of the professor, TFs and students.

------
fleitz
Open book, open Internet and TA's that discuss exam questions sounds like the
actions taken against the students are rather capricious.

It seems that the environment of the exam as well as the difficulty of the
questions sugguest that the exam was designed to test collaborative abilities,
rather than knowledge recital.

