* Do not use variable length array in this class
* Some of are you are copying code and concepts from things outside of course material
* `fgetc()`, `sizeof()`, `malloc()`, etc
* You're probably cheating.
* You're also making your life more difficult
I always found these sorts of instructions quite frustrating as a student. If I'm a student enthusiastic about learning a language, I would have definitely been one of the kids trying to figure out how to use malloc and creating novel approaches to the projects that are assigned to me. It's a university class, why the hell not? Besides, isn't that going to be an advantage towards me considering the code is going to be evaluated by a anti cheat engine?
The AI stuff aside, this comes across as a professor who feels threatened when his course isn't taken as doctrine. Being called a cheater for using external resources is ridiculous to me.
It does not say that one cannot use those things, it says that one is likely making their life more difficult. Implementations that utilize those things are, with high probability, more convoluted and involved. This slide is specifically around the time we introduced fscanf() and friends. If one is using the things mentioned in the slide, they're likely partially re-implementing *scanf() on their own. Which, while certainly a good exercise, misses the goal of developing familiarity and understanding surrounding *scanf().
While there are certainly a handful of experienced students that use these things, ten years+ of experience shows that most are copying from elsewhere. A simple, brief meeting with the student is easy enough to ascertain that, however. And that was certainly a part of the process.
Regardless, that alone would not have triggered an academic integrity investigation and, again, there was no prohibition here.
As a student, _especially_ in the weedout classes where your performance in those classes decided if you could get into that major (I went to a school where you applied to majors 1-2 years after starting) it was incredibly frustrating to see other students cheating. When applying to a major that was well past capacity and very competitive to get into, it very much felt like a 0-sum scenario where cheating students were screwing the rest of us over. How awful would it have been to be declined from your major and have your career path severely impacted because so many students were cheating with 0 consequences
It was even worse when professors were notified but couldn't do anything about it (for example, a student next to me in an exam kept pulling out his phone but hiding it when the professor was nearby. I even notified her during the exam but she wasn't able to catch him so as far as I know, it never went anywhere.)
Similarly, I was a grader for a 300 level math class where about 50% of the class had blatantly cheated on an assignement (the solution manual on chegg had mixed up the questions so anyone who actually read the problem would've caught it because it was the wrong problem). I notified the professor and he said he would mention it in class but no other consequences occurred - they didn't even get 0s on the assignment!
All of your thought processes were very reasonable and I thought the best slide was comparing exam scores by people using LLMs on assignments vs people not using LLMs on assignments. I truly think that will convince people who otherwise might be borderline failing and desperate to pass that using an LLM is not in their own best interest.
I'd be curious to see (both as myself, and I think it'd be very convincing as a student in your class) the overall class grades for people using LLMs vs not. I could see someone reasoning "ok well if I get 100% on the assignment and scrape by on the exams, that still gives me a better grade than doing badly on the assignments (without an LLM) and doing slightly better on the exam"
Edit: I always thought for some reason that cheater would get their karma in their own way but in the real world, there are no consequences. I'm plagued by ads for ai-assisted ways to cheat on interviews every time I login to Blind. It actively is making things worse for the rest of us
aenigmaclamo · · focus · HN ↗
The AI stuff aside, this comes across as a professor who feels threatened when his course isn't taken as doctrine. Being called a cheater for using external resources is ridiculous to me.
luke0016 · · focus · HN ↗
While there are certainly a handful of experienced students that use these things, ten years+ of experience shows that most are copying from elsewhere. A simple, brief meeting with the student is easy enough to ascertain that, however. And that was certainly a part of the process.
Regardless, that alone would not have triggered an academic integrity investigation and, again, there was no prohibition here.
hn_user82179 · · focus · HN ↗
As a student, _especially_ in the weedout classes where your performance in those classes decided if you could get into that major (I went to a school where you applied to majors 1-2 years after starting) it was incredibly frustrating to see other students cheating. When applying to a major that was well past capacity and very competitive to get into, it very much felt like a 0-sum scenario where cheating students were screwing the rest of us over. How awful would it have been to be declined from your major and have your career path severely impacted because so many students were cheating with 0 consequences
It was even worse when professors were notified but couldn't do anything about it (for example, a student next to me in an exam kept pulling out his phone but hiding it when the professor was nearby. I even notified her during the exam but she wasn't able to catch him so as far as I know, it never went anywhere.)
Similarly, I was a grader for a 300 level math class where about 50% of the class had blatantly cheated on an assignement (the solution manual on chegg had mixed up the questions so anyone who actually read the problem would've caught it because it was the wrong problem). I notified the professor and he said he would mention it in class but no other consequences occurred - they didn't even get 0s on the assignment!
All of your thought processes were very reasonable and I thought the best slide was comparing exam scores by people using LLMs on assignments vs people not using LLMs on assignments. I truly think that will convince people who otherwise might be borderline failing and desperate to pass that using an LLM is not in their own best interest.
I'd be curious to see (both as myself, and I think it'd be very convincing as a student in your class) the overall class grades for people using LLMs vs not. I could see someone reasoning "ok well if I get 100% on the assignment and scrape by on the exams, that still gives me a better grade than doing badly on the assignments (without an LLM) and doing slightly better on the exam"
Edit: I always thought for some reason that cheater would get their karma in their own way but in the real world, there are no consequences. I'm plagued by ads for ai-assisted ways to cheat on interviews every time I login to Blind. It actively is making things worse for the rest of us