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Comment by MegaButts | Hacker News Reader

I'm guessing it varies a lot by school. I went to a top engineering school as an undergrad and cheating was rampant - probably something like 1/3 of the graduating class participated in cheating to some extent. I then went to another top engineering school as a graduate student and I never saw anyone cheat.

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Yeah I think so. I was shocked to discover that over a 1/3rd of the computer science classes I TA'd as a grad student were cheating, repeatedly, on homework assignments and tests. I had come from a culture as an undergrad (and graduate student at another university) where cheating even once was a potential expellable offense. At the very least you would fail the class. In the comp sci classes I TA'd the professor would fail the students for the assignments but no more, even after multiple offenses.

Perhaps the differences could be explained by differences in how the institutions ranked their teaching staff?

Interesting. At my university it was most certainly fail the course and possibly expulsion.

At my school it was seen as a political issue.

If you got stuck in a section that was dominated by a particular group of students, you were screwed because the class had a hard curve and the group openly and blatantly cheated.

We had a faculty mentor from a different department sit in and witness what happened in an midterm, and escalated it to the administration, who made an accommodation for us.

I think this varies a lot by professor. Typically failing a student involves a lot of extra paperwork on the professor's part. Doubly so if it's for academic dishonesty.

Cheating in engineering is pointless. At every tech company I’ve interviewed at (on either side of the table) as soon as you get into the interview what school you went to and what grades you got don’t matter. If you can’t whiteboard some technical problems you aren’t getting in.

I know people that cheated, were utterly incompetent, and got prestigious jobs at tech firms.

As engineers? Like, actual individual contributions and not managers? Doing what?

The only engineering firms I've interviewed for which had rigorous technical interviews, were consulting firms. Most other firms were almost exclusively focused on soft-skills and personality, and then some pretty softball technical questions.

Yes, as engineers.

That company sucks then. It might be hard to measure between competent engineers but bad engineers stick out like a sore thumb. If that keeps happening it means the entire engineering department sucks at those companies.

When I say prestigious jobs, I don't mean random companies you've never heard of - these include companies well known for their engineering excellence. I don't know how their careers advanced, so maybe they quickly found themselves looking for work elsewhere. No hiring process is perfect. We've all had to deal with less-than-excellent coworkers.

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