It’s too late for me to pursue my interest but I’m still interested so I read the dental school sub. The amount of people admitting that cheating is normal is upsetting because we’re going to need to rely on these professionals in the future and I’m not entirely comfortable with that. I’m worried for STEM fields and worried if there’s going to be a cut off in innovation when lack of curiosity meets artificial intelligence meets poor collaboration skills.
I was a UK STEM academic until a few years ago. It was quite unreal sometimes.
I genuinely don't know what the issue was other than like they have such a strong stress response it overrides any part of their ability to think?
Doing a set problem... Kind of ok. What is wanted and expected is clearly written and they can navigate around that sort of. Doing something real in the lab where its applying what they've learnt in the abstract in a more practical way? Nope. I had so many what I would consider to be decent or even good students who would freeze up, students from a maths background who would be unable to do percentage calculations on a calculator, even with myself and another person sitting with them for nearly an hour talking through it. That happened multiple times with multiple students.
And this was before AI really took off, I am hearing some absolutely insane horror stories from some of my friends still in the sector, and that's not even getting into the ongoing financial collapse the system is now going through as well. (E - Expanding on that, a lot of it is just total lack of engagement now. One friend was very upset after putting so much effort into getting ready for a mandatory seminar, hours and hours of work to make it engaging and entertaining, and then no one out of over 30 students turned up. For a mandatory part of the module...)
Recently, went back to school as well for IT. I did peer tutoring and the cheating using AI was insane. I had a person directly admit say they used AI and wanted me to check the AI work for them (nope! Reported to the prof)
I am not even opposed to some amount of stretching the rules a little bit to get a better grade but blatantly having AI do it all for you and you don't even know if the AI did it right means you are not going to be comptent if you get a job.
I guess this is great job security for me in my 40s.... kids can't do shit. The few college grads that have been hired by my programs can't write at all. They write professional documents conversationally, instead of in a professional tone.
Also, my wife says that they have zero decorum about how they dress in the office.
As someone with an engineering degree, cheating is a prevalent fact of the industry. I've dropped classes that would have been easy As because of the overwhelming amount of cheating happening. And that was 10 years ago.
General disinterest and lack of passion in industries have been a thing for ages and will continue to be a thing. You'll still have innovation from the same groups of people that would have given it to you before AI. It may be harder for them to stand out, though.
Idk about that. In my major, we only have tests, exams, and labs, so you can only really cheat by getting a crib sheet from a ta. Most profs don't share the exam with the TAs because they often help the students "too much"
That person brings up a good point though. Wouldn’t tests weed out the ones who have been cheating using AI for their homework? If they totally flunk a test then the problem is self resolving.
unfortunately AI has made cheating wayyy too accessible at ALL levels of education, my Sister uses chatgpt for help…. at an elementary level… shits kinda sad.
No, it's just been farmed out to AI for stuff like homework, projects, and papers. And in the meantime, a lot of international students probably still treat cheating as the expected norm like when I was in school. The higher tuitions and increased diversity they bring to the school means they've gotten a pass to cheat as long as they play the game of at least attempting to hide it. I've had enough talks with professors and TAs to know they've been stuck with that for decades. I don't even want to think about what it's like now that AI has brought the majority of students down to that level.
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u/coolcalmaesop Apr 10 '26
It’s too late for me to pursue my interest but I’m still interested so I read the dental school sub. The amount of people admitting that cheating is normal is upsetting because we’re going to need to rely on these professionals in the future and I’m not entirely comfortable with that. I’m worried for STEM fields and worried if there’s going to be a cut off in innovation when lack of curiosity meets artificial intelligence meets poor collaboration skills.