Computer science students successfully boycott class final
jhunewsletter.com
jhunewsletter.com
I had a few classes that had three exams and a final, and the grading policy dropped the lowest exam score. Even when I got 100% or more on the first two exams, and got explicitly told by the professor that the exam was optional and I didn't need to show up, I still took the last one, because why not check the knowledge I studied?
Given the intimidation factor, I'd probably end up asking the professor if I could take the exam outside of the normal class time anonymously, and leave people to guess based on who isn't in the same class the next term.
What would have happened if you had tried to go past these guards? Would they have said, "Oh damn, well, he really wanted to go in, guess we'll all have to take the test"? Or would they have restrained you? (which may be considered battery or possibly false imprisonment)
This could have very easily turned into a lawsuit or a criminal case if any student had decided to take the test.
The idea that you would feign solidarity in a social experiment with real consequences so you could screw fellow students surreptitiously is just as bad (I would argue worse) than the intimidation you are presuming existed. In fact, even under the presumption that intimidation occurs, you are admitting to happily screwing over other students who would have been happy to take the test, but for the intimidation. So the fellow victims of the "crime" get punished once by them, and then again, by you.
If you actually want to take a principled stand, you'd have to do something shocking like.. be honest with everyone with what you intend on doing, and why.
"Wanting to learn and take the test" (let's call it the education principle) is every bit a principle worth standing for. But so is honesty. There is far more education going on here than what is on that test. I'd argue if you are actually willing to surreptitiously screw your fellow classmates, bullies and bullied alike, for the sake of both "taking the test" and avoiding intimidation, I'd hope you are self-reflective enough to realize what this teaches you about yourself.
The way I see it: "the education principle", honesty, and easy. You get to pick two. And I'm going to criticize any (ostensible -- in the case of the students themselves) adult who advocates picking the dishonest path. At some point we put away our childish things and we solve our problems like adults.
I hope that doesn't mean you'll wait for me near the bike stands.
The inmates are running this particular asylum.
He owns them nothing, not his cooperation nor his honesty.
Taking the test may provide self-validation, but it will do so at the expense of all of your classmates failing the course. In the end all you'll prove is that you were so inept (socially) that you were willing to sacrifice all of your peers for nothing more than pride.
If they want to be a bunch of clowns, that isn't my business. If they choose to make their clowning my business, then I am not responsible for the fallout when I don't fall into step with them.
And make no mistake about it, there was without a doubt social pressure and coercion in this situation. Your response to me demonstrates that quite clearly. If a cornerstone of your prank is your peers not being "squares", then your prank is coercive.
And considering the fittingness of exploiting this loophole for a CS course -- what a great illustration of an unanticipated consequence of a system's rules being followed exactly! -- you'd have to be a huge jerk to want to screw over everyone else in the class just to check your knowledge.
Edit: I don't think it would work like you envision it anyway. The professor would have to in on it, and good luck getting him to help screw over everyone else. I can't see a professor who was a good enough sport to honor this policy despite the unexpected way it was used letting you take it in a way that left everyone else with 0s, and only you with a 100. For instance, if he shows up the day of the exam and says "unfortunately, someone already took it anonymously" then everyone else just gets to play a game of spot-the-missing-student while taking the exam. (I suppose you could show up and pretend to take it a second time...)
How much time and money is he spending on this education again?
He can still study just as much as he would've before.
He still has access to resources to check the results of that studying.
I'm extremely skeptical of concerns that it would have a significant negative impact on future classes that this exam could've potentially weeded people out before. It could happen, though when I was TA'ing most weeding-out usually happened before the final...
I guess the anonymously-screw-everyone-else solution would also give him the opportunity to have a spectacularly sociopathic answer to that YC application "hacked a non-software system" question...
Frankly, if you're going to screw things up for everyone else like this, given that it doesn't actually let you learn anything more than you could've anyway, the least you can do is to do it face to face. Heck, I'd be secretly hoping that one of the "guards" did try to start something physical. Then he'd both bomb the final and be in trouble for assault or whatever.
If his peers want to make it a matter of "do something you don't want to do, or else you are a 'square'", then they can kindly fuck off.
The only proper way to organize a prank of this sort is with an anonymous vote. If there was not an anonymous vote, I would anonymously choose to not participate.
Elsewhere in the thread you call it "clowning." I call it "hacking." The educational value of learning that sometimes you can get things done in non-traditional ways, and everyone ends up well off as a result, is far higher than the educational value of taking yet another exam.
I have laid out how to perform this "hack" ethically however: If, and only if, an anonymous unanimous vote performed would there be any ethical obligation to go along with it. Without that it is not a "hack" ...unless your definition of "hack" permits coercion. If coercion is considered unnecessary, then there is no reason to not hold an anonymous unanimous vote.
Each participant must be given the opportunity to opt-in, without any coercion whatsoever. Is that really an unreasonable ask?
If I were handed a ballot for this prank, I would vote No. (Why do I want to take the test? Many reasons, some I have already covered, some I have not. Frankly it is no ones business but my own and has no bearing on the ethics of the situation) If they then proceeded to attempt it anyway, their failing grades would not be my problem. If they neglected to hold the vote and assumed my participation, their failing grades would similarly not be my problem. If they held a vote, and I voted Yes, but then took the test anyway, then I would be the jackass.
If one were to apply the same standards to others - which I try to avoid - I don't see how that would be a sign of a sense of personal entitlement.
If you universalize your moral obligation, then we end up with a system that is in practice no different than everyone feeling entitled to things from others. That you choose to handle yourself in that manner is great, but you cannot universalize it without creating a society of entitlement.
Wanting to take the test is not problematic. Opting out of the boycott and taking the test is not problematic. Allowing everyone to believe he is joining the boycott, and secretly taking the test anyway is dishonest douchebaggery of the highest order.
There are alternate solutions to this problem that do not involve both skipping out on the educational value you perceive to result from taking this take while simultaneously fucking over every one of your classmates, including "innocent victims" who felt pressured into joining the boycot.
If I indicated, through an anonymous vote, that I would participate in their boycott but did not, then I would be a jackass. In absence of such an indication, what I choose to do or not do, say or not say, is my business alone.
You simply want to punish the "frat kids".
I'm not being colourful when I say "frat kids". They literally had frat kids "guarding" the exam to ensure that nobody entered. I reject your implication that I have any obligation to engage in honest non-anonymous discourse with groups like that.
You can do it in a way that benefits you but completely fucks over a bunch of other students, including others who may have been "bullied" against their will. Or you can find a way to do it in a way that benefits you and has zero impact on others.
Knowingly and stubbornly committing to doing the former is a dick thing to do, and kind of makes you an asshole. Not the type of "asshole" that acts to further their own self-interest. But the type of asshole who actively acts to subvert the interests of others.
How about I do nothing except take my exam as normal?
Oh no, that would be a dick thing to do. Actively subverting them... by taking an exam in a class they also happen to be enrolled in... Pure entitlement culture.
If they ask, they won't fuck themselves over. If they don't ask, they will fuck themselves over. They are responsible for what happens to them. As long as they do not ask me for my input, I have no responsibility for their actions.
No you don't. You don't owe anybody to behave according to their expectations, even if your behaving so would be wonderful for them. It's not your duty and you're not a jerk if you don't comply with their wishes. You are free to do either, and they are free to convince you, but saying "oh, we expected you to do this and you don't and this sucks for us so you're a jerk" is bullshit. Nobody has obligation to help his fellow student to cheat.
I think sacrificing a test (which the professor himself said was nitpicky) to teach students about public coordination and working together to avoid a tragedy of the commons is not bullshit, nor will it ever be bullshit.
If your cheat involves executing something far more difficult then actually studying and acing the test, cheat away.
ok. Continue about your day.
Actually, to make it a real case of Prisoner's Dilemma, he could have given the students who took the test a 100 and everyone else a 0, but given everyone an 80 if no one took the test. Which I would have found much more interesting.
I definitely would have acted rationally, because I place very little value on getting to skip an exam or on proving a point about the grading system, and much more value on actually getting the education I paid for.
> Actually, to make it a real case of Prisoner's Dilemma, he could have given the students who took the test a 100 and everyone else a 0, but given everyone an 80 if no one took the test. Which I would have found much more interesting.
It's already a real case of the prisoner's dilemma, but with different rewards for different people depending on what they value. Most of the students in the article placed a higher value on not having to take the exam. I would place a higher value on taking the exam.
Do you mind explaining the thought process behind this? I find it to be quite a stretch to suggest that a 50 minute evaluation at the end of the semester would be such an integral component of the learning that occurs during a semester that foregoing it would jeopardize "getting the education I paid for."
In my experience, getting a final exam back complete with annotations and corrections is generally not done: you simply get a grade reported. In the case of you being the only one taking the exam (e.g., the professor let you take it after everyone decided not to show up), you would've gotten an automatic 100.
That is to say, you could very well not know anything correctly, not realize it, and be none the wiser when you get your grade back.
Whereas of course boycotting an exam reveals so much more about one's programming knowledge!
There's nothing they "got away with".
“In my courses, all grades are relative to the highest actually
achieved score. Thus, if no one showed up and everyone got 0
percent, everyone would be marked as 100 percent,” Froehlich
wrote.
“I had decided that I am sticking to my policy, they had
decided to boycott the exam, and that was pretty much it,”
Froelich wrote. “The students learned that by coming
together, they can achieve something that individually they
could never have done.”
The professor now offers students a choice between an exam and a project, and the students voted for a project. The project is a better way to measure their aptitude. On the whole, I think this was positive for all involved.
If only. Highschool was - to put it mildly - a sequence of bullies trying to get away with the absolute minimum and being enemy to quite a few of the other students. Never quite enough that they could muster a response. I've never seen such enmity in adults in any workplace as I've seen in schools.
What these students learned by working together like this is almost certainly more important to their intellectual growth than the exam itself. The professor for the class seems to recognize that, which is also a good thing.
<personal_anecdote> In high school I had a physics professor who had this exact policy, except that he never imagined the consequences of everybody NOT taking the test. I did, and with the help of a friend we tried to organize the 'boycott'. It failed horribly, but at least we tried. Great story OP! </personal_anecdote>
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5217463
Previous submission of same story with good reporting from different source (no comments):
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5217066
The professor has changed his grading policy, as noted in the submission I saw earlier from the other source.
The reason this situation seems unusual: The prof's grading system has a division by zero bug.
Not necessarily. The prof could choose to make grades relative by subtracting rather than dividing.
If that was the policy, then someone could've boycotted the boycott by going in and trying to score exactly one point on the exam, possibly after everyone else left. Then everyone else would score a 99.
It would have at least given everyone something to think about afterwards.
EDIT: Isomorphic used in the sense of the event ("boycott", cheating) being similar in form/geist to the class taken. I'm sure there's a better word for it.
*quickly looks up the definition of 'isomorphism'*
Find isomorphisms at great prices!
1. Biology: Similarity in form, as in organisms of different ancestry.
2. Mathematics: A one-to-one correspondence between the elements of two sets such that the result of an operation on elements of one set corresponds to the result of the analogous operation on their images in the other set.
3. Chemistry: A close similarity in the crystalline structure of two or more substances of similar chemical composition.
Andrew Kelly, a student in Fröhlich’s Introduction to Programming class who was one of the boycott’s key organizers, explained the logic of the students' decision via e-mail: "Handing out 0's to your classmates will not improve your performance in this course," Kelly said.
This is actually not an interesting problem from the game theory perspective: defection gains you nothing. That is, if you're the only person who defects, your situation is the same if no one had defected. I'm assuming here that the grade curving is local to the assignments. Handing out zeroes to your classmates will help if your overall number of points goes up, and overall number of points in the class determines final grade.
Now, if the maximum score for everyone skipping the test was lower than 100, then things would be interesting.
This is, of course, why students turned up and waited outside to see if they needed to write the exam rather than just assuming that other students would all do the "obvious" thing.
She always offered a 'shoot the moon' option. If you could get every question wrong you would get 100 for the exam instead of 0. Of course if you got one question correct, you would end up with just a 2 for the exam.
As I recall there were several successful attempts during the year.
Well guess what, you don't owe people shit and they don't owe you shit. You are not responsible for other people unless you are in charge of them, working for the common goal or unless they're your family members. Your classmates are none of these things and you owe them absolutely nothing.
It's funny the way bullies will often be the first to betray the group and how it's suddenly "every man for himself" when shit hits the fan.
Anyway, I like the reaction from the professor and the head of the CS department. It's nice to read about people reacting reasonably and seeing the forest.
(btw I would vote for a grade free teaching system anyways)
This assumes that the best and brightest are actually really smart and knowledgeable.
An interesting, if nerve-wracking, philosophy. :) It's the only time I've ever left a test and not known for sure what grade I'd get.
This enraged the professor who went on a loud rant about how this really is important and we were awful for not paying attention. He then stormed out.
A week later the usual class professor emailed all of saying we had to study the topic on our own since half the class had walked out.
I emailed her and the rest of the class that if any of his topic were on the test I would make sure they both were fired at least reprimanded.
By the offended professors own words, half the class was still there and interested in the topic. Basically, he walked out on us.
His topic was not on the final.
I'd have said "very well then, have a nice day." Then, at the end of the class, I'd pass around a piece of paper and tell everyone left to write their name on it. We'll call it the "I'm not a douchebag exam." Everyone present would get a 100, everyone else would get a 0.
And then I'd still have that content on the "real" exam.
Hindsight.
(This is a simplification) - Questions are graded out of 20 and can also be awarded a quality grade. Answers scoring 15 or more are awarded an alpha, those between 10 - 14 inclusive a beta. Alphas and Betas are extremely heavily weighted - the score for the top students is 30 alpha + 5 beta + raw score, so a single question scoring 15 is potentially worth 45, quality is much more important than quality, the pass/fail line is 2 alpha + 1 beta
[1] http://www.maths.cam.ac.uk/undergrad/course/schedules.pdf
This was meant to discourage hard-to-grade, crappy attempts at scoring a few points. Students would skip problems they didn't think they could answer well and focus their attention on problems where they thought they could put together a fairly solid answer.
The positive reinforcement and acceptance of publicity could be compared to the media making a big deal out of Columbine. Whenever bad behavior is made into a spectacle, it will be copied. I will be completely surprised if we don't see more of these events in the coming years, not just because it is possible, but because JH is being fucking stupid by publicizing this.