Cheater, Cheater

Dear AUS,

You have a serious cheating problem. Never before have I seen so much cheating as I have witnessed in the past semester. If you're going to continue calling AUS the best school in the UAE and saying how its so difficult, then start being honest students. You have lost all credibility in my mind. 

Sincerely, 

A Disappointed Observer

It's amazing just how much cheating can go on in such a short amount of time. I've seen personally, with my one 2 eyes and ears, 9 people fail courses because of cheating. That's just seen or heard from the professor directly. Add about a dozen more from second hand sources (yes, this is in only my classes). 

Thermodynamics is a tough course. I haven't met a single person that said it was easy. Last week, we had a final on this program called EES (engineering equation solver) that we've been using scarcely for a while. The final was only worth about 3% of our grade. Because of this final, 8 students will be failing the course. In one of the sections (my section, with only 24 students), somehow several copied the same solution with all the right answers. Those same idiots didn't bother to check if the given information was right.. The first pressure was supposed to be 8000kpa, but instead, 8 people had 800kpa. Makes it pretty easy to spot the cheaters, doesn't it? I was in the professor's office when the TA came in to tell him "we have a serious cheating problem". Those students were immediately reported to the dean.

In this same class, everyday I watch people copy homework solutions directly from the solution's manual or each other, which was also probably copied from the solutions manual. If you look at the entire class's homework, they all look eerily similar. 

I worked my butt off in this class and I'm proud to say I passed with a C (not even a C-, it's official!). I had to drop this class a year ago because I was failing and I knew it would be tough again. I will hold my head up high when someone asks me how I did in thermo this time, because every grade I got, I earned. I didn't copy and I didn't cheat. I worked hard and accepted every low test score. 

Today I witnessed it again. We had our Arabic Heritage final. This one, unlike the 3% on EES, was worth 30%. About 10 minutes into the exam, the professor walks to the back of the room and picks up a pile of papers from a student's desk. The moron had copied all semester's notes onto about 3 pages and was literally copying it onto the exam. He was asked to leave and the professor showed us as proof incase the student tried to appeal it. No more than 2 minutes later, the student comes back in and says something to the professor. I couldn't hear what he said, but the professor replied "if you're trying to graduate, you wouldn't have tried to cheat". Apparently the student was supposed to graduate this semester but will probably not pass now that he'll be getting a zero on the final. Serves him right. He obviously has something to learn before he gets out of college. He also apparently tried the same thing on the midterm but the professor looked away and let him go. Too bad you can't have a cheat sheet for life. 

How did I do on this exam? I probably failed. It wouldn't surprise me. Why? 1. I don't speak arabic and there were several translation questions (as there have been all semester) 2. I have a really hard time with arabic names (they all sound the same to me) 3. Many of the questions came from the presentation last week and I despise the fact that our grade is in the incompetent hands of others (I swear I didn't learn a thing from the presentations) 4. The book is full of arab and Islamic propaganda that can't be backed up or proven. Who wrote the book? Who knows. There is no author. It's a copied book that looks like a compilation of internet articles and brochures. Some of the pages are vertical, others horizontal. Some of the information is copied directly from websites (which is honestly how we learned in class some days).  The professor told us if we want more information to go to these Islamic websites. Hello! Can you smell the evangelism?! And tell me, where is the credibility when a professor pulls up this Islamic website, has us read it aloud all class and discuss the opinions it's "teaching"? Maybe to other Muslims it's totally legit, but if I wanted to be preached to about the "truths of Mohammed", I'd find a mosque. There is plenty of evidence he lived, but not everyone believes in the same religion. This is not a religion class, if it were, we would have been aloud to have discussions about it. The professor refused to acknowledge anyone else's opinion on the topic and simply left it at what the article said. And yes, this was tested on the exams. 

But I don't want to get into the religious argument. The point of this blog is to write about the cheating. So back to that.

Cheating doesn't end with just copying on homework and exams. Another huge problem here is negotiations. Some professors won't even entertain the idea, but other can be convinced to change just about anything. One professor, actually asked us the class before a midterm if we'd rather take it that week or the next. Another professor told us to negotiate amongst ourselves (there were only 8 of us in the class) when we want the midterm and let him know... If you don't have your homework done (or haven't had time to copy it) just ask the professor if you can turn it in before he left the office that day. I've never heard them decline that request. 

Some of the other hand, ironically the non-arab professors (I'm not making any judgement on nationality, just a classification of who doesn't do it) rarely do this. The turkish thermo professor sticks strictly to the course policy. Things are turned in on time, no late assignments, midterms and finals are clearly marked on the syllabus and don't even think about negotiating your grade. Before we could take the final, we all had to agree to not approach him about our final grade. He would let us see our final exam, but we were not aloud to discuss the final letter grade. 

My Spanish music professor wrote to us the Etiquette Rules of Post-Exam Consultation. And I have all the respect in the world for him for it, too. He made it clear that there was to be no "grade-related negotiation, haggling, quibbling, wrangling or arguing", because as he states, it's discriminatory and unprofessional. If two students do work to similar standards all semester, they should receive the same grade. If one of those students goes to the professor and they get their grade raised, where is the justice in that? 

After all is said and done, I have had some really great professors. They are all great, genuine people. Especially my music professor. He's new here also, so he and I could relate in a lot of ways (especially being musicians in a society that really doesn't value music). He worked so hard in making me conformable here and when he sensed that I was having a rough time, approached me and asked if there was anything he could do to help. I have so much gratitude for him. 

AUS really is a great school, don't get me wrong. I just wish the student would work a little harder at keeping up it's good name reputation. It won't take long for it to be known otherwise.