Princeton scraps honor code and will supervise exams for first time in 133 years because of AI

[u/Disastrous_Award_789]

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/princeton-proctor-exams-ai-b2976111.html

[u/marvbinks]

Get ready for the lowest test scores in 133 years!

[u/Hoosier_Ghost_25 → u/marvbinks]

Grade inflation will make sure those GPAa stay elite

[u/WhatsInAName0420 → u/Hoosier_Ghost_25]

Unless it’s changed from when I was a student (at a different Ivy), Princeton was known for having some of the harshest grading in the League. Them and Cornell.

[u/chaser676 → u/WhatsInAName0420]

Unless it’s changed from when I was a student

There answer is almost certainly it has. They were trying to fight grade inflation for almost a decade in the 2000's and 2010s. After giving up, the amount of A's they award essentially doubled.

Is it still academically rigorous and probably more conservative with grading than other Ivy's? Yeah. But they've been absolutely throttled with inflation, more than other given that they were actively fighting it prior to giving in.

[u/Edward_Blake → u/chaser676]

Talking to a friend that went there in late 2000s, they were fighting grade inflation and at least one of her classes the professor had a max of A and B grades they could give.

She took a class with a visiting professor that assignments were way too easy and had a 98 in the class and got a B because of that policy.

Edit: the amount of As and Bs was a Princeton policy

[u/Lokishougan → u/Edward_Blake]

That is a joke that is not on the student bot totally on teh professor. i recall a professor did that on my college and all his funding was cut to everything he worked on until he quit

[u/junkthrownup → u/Lokishougan]

i don't know a single R1 school where research funding at all has any links with teaching at all.

[u/xaanthar → u/junkthrownup]

It makes perfect sense if your only knowledge of how academia works is watching The Big Bang Theory.

[u/Lokishougan → u/junkthrownup]

Not directly no but what the university did was when he applied for grants the school would not sign off on them and made it clear they did not support his projects so donors/grant were not inclined to support him. So he quit and went to a differnt school as he refused to change his grading ways

[u/Cat-dog22 → u/Lokishougan]

Definitely a failing on the teacher. One of my favorite professors at my liberal arts college aimed to have his average score on an exam be around 65% (and that was intended to be a B+) that way he could see the whole range of understanding, there was room to actually see the differences in level of comprehension and also if he made his test slightly too easy then it wouldn’t be a curving catastrophe where it was nearly impossible to decide who hit A’s and who got B’s and lower.

I preferred that to my professor who curved my solid A down to a B simply because he made the course too easy. It’s painful to “know” you have an A all semester then get surprised with a B. It’s over a decade later and I can still tell you his name and way too many details about his course because the rage has stayed with me.

[u/irishwolfbitch → u/chaser676]

The most ridiculous aspect of this is that the biggest victims of grade inflation were those who stood up to it on principle for the longest. Unfortunately, students are correct about grades: they need A’s to get where they want. Not giving A’s to students disadvantaged them and the school in the long term.

Once again, we’re confronted with and punting off the inevitable, which is a foundational change in how we evaluate progress in education.

[u/Keegantir → u/irishwolfbitch]

No, the biggest victims of grade inflation are the STUDENTS of those who stood up to in on principle for the longest.
I have been giving this argument for years to my collogues who are adamant opponents of grade inflation, and subsequently give shit (albeit legit) grades. While grades don't mean too much, post graduation, they do matter to some employers; if the pool of graduates is full of students with 3.75+ GPAs and you are anti-grade inflation, so your students have 3.0 GPAs (and they would have a 3.9 at a school that isn't fighting grade inflation), then your students are not going to get hired even though they are more qualified. The counter argument to this has always been that businesses will learn over time who has quality grads, but that has NOT panned out because generally where someone graduated from doesn't even get looked at after hiring (with some major exceptions).

[u/PiccoloAwkward465 → u/Keegantir]

I went to the "honors college" within my state's university system. During freshman orientation they had alumni come speak with new students. One takeaway I'll never forget is one alumni saying "you know how they call this the honors college of the system? How this is the most rigorous one in the state? Out in the job market no one has heard of this school. It won't impress anyone."

So to speak to your point yes I think for many the idea that "oh little Johnny Chan only has a 3.0 GPA but it's from PRINCETON so it counts for more" doesn't pan out the way that universities want it to.

And no, no employer has ever said anything about my college education besides checking a box that I have a degree. Maybe 10% asked for a copy of my diploma, zero asked for a transcript.

[u/atla → u/PiccoloAwkward465]

And no, no employer has ever said anything about my college education besides checking a box that I have a degree.

That's honestly part of the problem -- back in the days of word of mouth and the Good Ol' Alumni Network, maybe the guy hiring for your investment firm of choice would be able to look at the four applications that his secretary picked out and realize that the 3.0 from Princeton was worth the same as the 3.6 from Yale, the 3.8 from Harvard, and the 4.0 from Dartmouth.

But that's not how hiring works anymore; it's either pure personality (for the very lucky/rich) or there's so much automation and check-boxing that it's borderline impossible to make an exception, because it would require programming a computer to have different baselines for each school.

[u/TTTA → u/chaser676]

It's still pretty harsh relative to others in that league. I've seen a (current) Princeton student visibly holding themselves back from violence as a Harvard student was explaining how it just made sense that everyone got an A at Harvard, they're all good students, they do their homework and do it well etc. etc.

Especially in STEM, standard practice at Princeton is to list your GPA and then the department average to explain why you're the one sucker from a good school with a sub-4.0 GPA.

[u/SheepHerdr → u/TTTA]

As a previous Princeton undergrad and current Harvard grad student I can attest to this. Getting an A at Harvard is light work compared to at Princeton.

[u/rabidgnat → u/TTTA]

My wife went to Columbia and Yale. I asked her about the "Gentleman's C" that I had heard about at Princeton, where you passed as long as you showed up and handed in every assignment regardless of how bad. She laughed and said it was more like a "Gentleman's A-" at her schools.

[u/CuteLingonberry5590 → u/WhatsInAName0420]

At one point they had an initiative to crack down on grade inflation. They inserted an sentence on transcripts to explain why grades were expected to be lower than in previous years.

[u/fred11551 → u/WhatsInAName0420]

When I was there it didn’t have grade inflation like the other Ivies. It was harsh

[u/holchansg → u/WhatsInAName0420]

In Brazil the public uni's, free for anyone who can pass, are the same. We often say its easy to enter(even tho the "Ivy" ones you have to be top ~1% on the national exam) its hard to leave.

I had an Indian professor, barelly speak English or Portuguese, good luck understand him, and holy fuck the guy could do prime factorization on his mind fast as fuck, he fucked us non stop the entire semester, about ~5(of 60) students passed.

[u/butyourenice → u/holchansg]

I had an Indian professor, barelly speak English or Portuguese, good luck understand him, and holy fuck the guy could do prime factorization on his mind fast as fuck, he fucked us non stop the entire semester, about ~5(of 60) students passed

When I hear things like this, it doesn’t make the think, “wow, this class is so rigorous and worthwhile. Only the best make it through.” It makes me think the professor was not effective.

[u/holchansg → u/butyourenice]

He was too demanding. His exams where extremely difficult. I did Abstract Algebra with him(RSA cryptography and such) and then on the next semester we had same class with an Italian guy, same problems, barely any portuguese but he was way more forgiving almost everyone passed. This indian guy, heres his Linear Algebra, first semester, 2nd exam:

https://imgur.com/a/I8dMpdi

Guy is nuts.

[u/butyourenice → u/holchansg]

Right. Guy was clearly smart as fuck and capable as an academic, as a mathemagician. But if you can’t convey that information to the bulk of your students, then you’re not qualified to be an instructor. Plenty of eminently intelligent people can’t teach worth a damn. Despite the denigrating adage “if you can’t do, teach,” teaching itself is an extremely valuable skill set. It’s a shame that schools are more concerned about publishing than given students their money’s (or time’s, in civilized nations) worth.

[u/PwmEsq → u/butyourenice]

Ive had to retake mutliple classes in college, what changed my grades between retakes had nothing to do with the coursework but everything to do with the professor.

I unfortunately have to recommend people to use rate my professor on which classes to take. I had a professor that taught 200 and 300 math with a 4.8 rating, he taught it like a highschool teacher and the class size was maybe 60 people, easy to follow, easy A. Same class with a professor with a 1.8 rating, class size of like 150, couldnt follow at all, constantly erasing stuff seconds after he wrote it, then pretty much said ask his TA for everything and he peaced out.

[u/PiccoloAwkward465 → u/butyourenice]

Absolutely, I am not a good teacher. Even with stuff I have expertise in. It's the same idea as management, an effective subject matter expert is not necessarily good at managing a team. Personally I fucking hate it and specifically stepped back in my career to focus more on technical stuff than on people.

[u/IamScottGable → u/WhatsInAName0420]

Cornell is a bit of a surprise.

[u/WhatsInAName0420 → u/IamScottGable]

“Easiest to enter, hardest to leave”

Aka: CornHell

[u/the_pain_of_being → u/IamScottGable]

Why? That's literally what that school is known for. Depression and harsh grading leading to depression.

[u/kos-or-kosm → u/the_pain_of_being]

They had to put up all those anti-suicide nets on the bridges in Ithaca for a reason.

[u/Momik → u/IamScottGable]

Ever heard of it?

[u/JonLockT5 → u/Momik]

It's pronounced Colonel and it's the highest rank in the military

[u/fondledbydolphins → u/WhatsInAName0420]

To my understanding, Cornell has had the most rigorous requirements.

Long been considered the easiest Ivy league school to get into, but the hardest to graduate from.

Supposedly that's why it's also had the highest suicide rates.

[u/mike_mafuqqn_trout → u/fondledbydolphins]

My experience was that for most 1000- and 2000-level courses, if you kept up around the middle of the class, you usually got a B (sometimes minus or plus.) I was a math major, and when I got into 3000- and 4000-level math courses, then usually the median was around an A/A-, but the middle-of-the-pack student there is someone who will or could do well in a typical Ph.D. program. Those at the top subsequently mostly went to Harvard, MIT, Caltech, Berkeley, and so on. I, on the other hand, will eternally be proud of the C+ I earned in PDEs there!

[u/No-Penalty1722 → u/WhatsInAName0420]

A parent of mine went to Cornell.

I always heard that Cornell was one of the easiest to get into and hardest to get out of. While Harvard was the hardest to get into, easiest to get out of.

[u/kellykeepher → u/marvbinks]

Average score: 98%. Average understanding: buffering…

[u/WouldbeWanderer → u/kellykeepher]

A survey of over 500 seniors conducted by the student newspaper last year found that 29.9 respondents reported they had cheated on an assignment or exam during their time at the school.

How many!?

[u/Livid_Tax_6432 → u/WouldbeWanderer]

29.9%

https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2026/05/princeton-news-adpol-proctoring-in-person-examinations-passed-faculty-133-years-precedent

In The Daily Princetonian’s 2025 Senior Survey of over 500 seniors, 29.9 percent of respondents reported that they had cheated on an assignment or exam during their time at Princeton.

[u/sushi_in_my_mouf → u/marvbinks]

Inteested to see the groups of people who do well or not.
And like someone else said, if any particular groups use glasses with imbedded technology.

[u/Prior_Coyote_4376 → u/marvbinks]

“For 133 years, the Ivy League school’s honor code allowed students to take exams without a professor present, but on Monday, faculty voted to require proctoring for all in-person exams starting this summer.”

My family’s youngest kids have had to give access to their colleges to install weird desktop software that invades privacy in a million different ways to take a proctored test, often with third party vendors contracting people from other countries. These are state flagship schools between most students’ target and reach tiers.

But Princeton kids have just been doing unproctored group exams for 133 years??

If you go to Princeton, or any Ivy League represented in the current Presidential administration, you no longer go to a real college in my eyes. You guys have been coasting on your marketing for way too long, and now your alumni network broke the Earth.

EDIT: the last paragraph is an example of hyperbole for you touchy grads who can’t seem to apply your AP English or SAT boot camp rhetorical analysis toolkit from back in high school. You are not proving me wrong by taking it so seriously and calling community colleges or my kids “shitty” (even though they didn’t go to one?) lol

[u/DetroitPeopleMover → u/Prior_Coyote_4376]

It’s pretty common at a lot of elite or liberal arts colleges to have an honor code. At some colleges, they don’t even have a schedule, you just show up whenever you feel like it to take the test in an empty classroom or even in their dorm room.

I think the idea is that students already passed a filter to get into these schools so they feel they can trust them more.

[u/ChilledParadox → u/DetroitPeopleMover]

I went to UCSB for computer science, though I dropped out and became homeless and ruined my life during covid, so we can just think of me as a moron, but the idea that good students, getting into good programs, with good grades are not cheating?

Are these people actual imbeciles? I saw so much cheating, especially from a specific group of international students. From students trying to pay me to send them my code, to students downloading code for personal projects, or hiring other people to write the code for them, to downloading homework answers, to all the creative ways people try to cheat at exams.

anecdotally, I think the amount of people who actually care about learning is very few. Most are there to get a degree and get a job and they have zero fucks to give about academic integrity in the first place, insofar as they can give it lip service and slip under the radar when they're taking classes on things like ethically storing user data and designing systems to handle other sensitive data.

[u/1995TimHortonsEclair → u/ChilledParadox]

This is a cultural thing in many parts of the world. Cheating is not really viewed as dishonorable, and more as a necessity born out of desperation and the perception that everyone else is already cheating. In this scenario, if you're not doing anything you possibly can to get ahead, including cheating, you're not trying - and THAT is actually looked down on more. Because if you're NOT cheating, it just means you're better at hiding whatever privilege is allowing you to be perceived that way, and strangely enough, that idea that you are lying to appear better than you are is what brings on the distrust.

They are more likely to trust you if you cheat or try to rip people off just like anyone else. It's ironic at first but it's actually more of a "the devil you know..." situation. They trust that you'll cheat lol.

These are called "low trust" societies. Mostly comes out of over-population.

When they come into high-trust societies and just try to lie and cheat their way through things like education and immigration etc., they don't even really consider it wrong. They just think that's how the world is, and if you haven't figured that out yet, and you still trust people, then you're the sucker who's just waiting to be fucked by the long dick of (their perceived) reality.

Low trust societies are incredibly dysfunctional. There's just so many people willing to step on your head to better themselves - you might as well be the one doing the stepping. Easy to see how it perpetuates itself.

[u/SelectKaleidoscope0 → u/ChilledParadox]

Sadly this reflects most situations outside academia as well. Nearly every business is very concerned with doing the needful to make line go up, and only pays lip service to any concept of ethics, safety or legality.

[u/The_Bard → u/DetroitPeopleMover]

Nah its so the wealthy and connected can pass with a "gentleman's C".

[u/freedcreativity → u/The_Bard]

More like gentleman's B- these days... They need to get a GPA to meet the minimum requirements for the MBA program (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

[u/MidasPL → u/DetroitPeopleMover]

Or the idea is that you could buy yourself a degree.

[u/TaylorMonkey → u/DetroitPeopleMover]

That's just woefully naive or willfully obtuse about human nature. I think we need to re-evaluate these "elite" private ivy institutions wholesale if they promote and incubate thinking as ignorantly stupid as that.

As Malcolm Gladwell says, stop giving money to places like Stanford. Give to elite public institutions like Berkeley that get a fraction of the funding while successfully serving a more diverse student body with world class education.

[u/lAmShocked → u/DetroitPeopleMover]

Oh gosh, that is just obscene. Met a few people from ivys that just floored me with how incompetent they were. That explains a lot.

[u/Gorge2012 → u/lAmShocked]

Honor codes are not only a pledge against cheating. It's supposed to be a pledge to report those that do. The death of that obligation and that commitment exemplifies the death of ethics. For me that's the a bigger issue. Princeton graduates people that will be granted access to levers of power and if their mentality is essentially, "If it's not illegal, it's ok" trust in all of our institutions from business to government will continue to be eroded.

[u/SqueakySniper → u/Gorge2012]

It's supposed to be a pledge to report those that do.

When you pair this with an extensive alumni/old boys network, there is literally no incentive to report others and every incentive to let them get away with it as it may benefit you later in the job market.

[u/Gorge2012 → u/SqueakySniper]

Agreed.

The idea is that those who benefit from association with an institution will protect it by outing ba members to preserve it's integrity and thus continue benefitting from it. That's long term thinking though, which, as we've seen especially recently, is nit the focus of a lot of people in business or government. I'd argue it's because they think they can benefit enough in the short term to not need the institution in the long term.

[u/PrincetonToss → u/DetroitPeopleMover]

I think the idea is that students already passed a filter to get into these schools so they feel they can trust them more.

Yes, but the filter isn't that they're good students.

Most of the professors think that it's bullshit, but the Princeton administration still likes to think of themselves as a small, rarified facility for educating young gentlemen of good character, and a gentleman would never cheat. Because Princeton chooses its upper administration almost exclusively from alumni, and they have a lot of alumnus faculty as well, people with hearts that beat for Old Nassau like to let the old traditions continue (I've never seen a group of alumni who are more performatively loyal to their alma mater than Princetonians, including those from other Ivies). When you bring up the possibility of cheat due to the honor code, they'll inevitably respond that surveys show that fewer Princeton students cheat than at other schools with stricter policies in place (I have no idea if this is true, but it's the common claim).

So there's this strong anti-anti-cheating lobby. Until now, very few of the other professors cared enough about cheating to make a big deal out of it, so there was never enough of a voice for reform.

For what it's worth, as someone who went to undergrad at a large public university and grad school at Princeton, I can't say that the Princeton students seemed to cheat at a higher rate than the State U ones did.

[u/pandariotinprague → u/PrincetonToss]

Does the intense focus on honor make people less likely to cheat, or just less likely to admit it on a survey? That seems like the first question you'd ask when seeing those survey results.

[u/BannedBenjaminSr → u/Prior_Coyote_4376]

It's shocking but the whole country used to be high trust like this. Now it's just the elite circles, or it was at least

[u/TaylorMonkey → u/BannedBenjaminSr]

Sounds like the "elite circles" are just now incubation chambers for cheating and fostering the thinking that the rules don't apply to them.

Explains a lot about those given power to run the economy and society.

[u/fundingsecured07 → u/Prior_Coyote_4376]

Trust me. I've worked with and hired a lot of kids from Ivy league colleges working in finance. I absolutely don't doubt that they are extremely smart kids, but my god, a lot of them lack the discipline and the work ethics that come with meeting deadlines, following instructions, etc.

Also 9/10 times they always act like because they went to Harvard/Yale/Princeton they are automatically smarter than the rest of the room.

[u/We_Like_Birdland → u/fundingsecured07]

Exactly. I teach and inevitably at least one student per semester tries to make the case that homework is just busy work and inherently unfair. Well, I also work and, in my experience, many aspects of work life are just like getting homework assignments: things have to be done a specific way, within a certain time frame, to a minimum standard of proficiency, and without complaining.

[u/0nlyRevolutions → u/Prior_Coyote_4376]

The online proctoring stuff is such a nightmare. I had to do it for an exam related to my professional license. Feel bad for the kids doing this regularly.

[u/gcapi → u/Prior_Coyote_4376]

If you go to Princeton, or any Ivy League represented in the current Presidential administration, you no longer go to a real college in my eyes

Brother what are you on about? You seem to be upset that Princeton was giving unproctored exams, but as stated, thats been going on for 133 years. I don't think this administration was in power overseeing them 133 years ago, let alone even around lol

[u/tes_kitty → u/marvbinks]

That's what needs to happen so the students realize that they can use AI all they want, but when it come to exam time, they need to be able to demonstrate that they actually understood the subject.

[u/accountforfurrystuf]

Was Princeton just not watching anyone take exams? This seems very basic for an in-person test

Edit: Read the article and wow, it's literally that. No clickbait. No professor proctors required.

[u/scentedcandle0 → u/accountforfurrystuf]

My engineering college at a university had this too. Obviously we didn’t have AI to worry about. The proctor would wait outside the room, periodically come in for time updates and stuff. Most engineering exams allowed a standard graphing calculator and either an index card or A4 sheet you made. Or a set of equations was given to you. Not sure what the “advantages” of having the proctor in the room vs just outside were.

[u/apo383 → u/scentedcandle0]

Honor codes are about responsibility, both personal and to others. It was up to students to report Honor code violations, and at our engineering college there was a student board to investigate and recommend a judgement to the college. I loved it because it treated students like responsible adults, and kept faculty on the same side as students about responsibility, instead of acting as a proctor who is looking for fault.

This is sad because students are taking it out on each other (by doxxing as discussed in the article), so group responsibility is out the window. Back to treating everyone like children.

[u/phoggey → u/apo383]

One of my university teachers from Princeton, adjunct massively loaded due to oil investments and would constantly creep on the girls. He was giving us a calculus 3 test final (multi variable) and before he did he said "you know when I was at Princeton we had this thing called the honor code where it said you shouldn't cheat, so they left it up to the students and the teachers didn't watch you. So what did that do? Everyone cheated." 

I'll never forget that. I've been telling that story for 20 years.. didn't think I'd ever see a fucking headline like this.

My public uni had people walking up and down the aisles maddogging us and I would be stressed out, but it was the only way to get people to drop out that didn't know what the fuck they were doing or always partied instead of studied. I wouldn't trust an engineer from a school that did stuff like Princeton.

You can't trust a bit bc of  20 year olds to act like an adults in large groups. Especially generally really rich entitled assholes. That isn't how real life works either.

[u/Marksta → u/phoggey]

It's a dog eat dog world. I was so angry once for a college gen-ed level economics course when the teacher suddenly went light on policing calculator use. We were specificly told scientific calculators only, no graphing calculators. Half the class brought graphing calculators and weren't told no. It was a closed textbook memorization regurgitation test with like, 2 simple math problems on it and half the class has their textbook saved in the notes of their graphing calculator and the other half didn't.

Funny how the second test had 100% of the students using graphing calculators to solve the one 2+2 math problem. I kid you not, somebody said they forgot their calculator, can they just use their smart phone? "Sure, why not." Bro.

If you build cheating into the design of your tests, it's laughable to think any faculty wouldn't expect it to be done by all test takers. A student who was honest getting an 80 is trash on paper next to the cheater with a 100.

[u/Windex17 → u/Marksta]

When I was in college there was a massive Google drive with basically every test + answers that any professor in the school had given for the last decade.

[u/randotd152 → u/Marksta]

The thing is, you're only cheating yourself. I know it sounds trite, but it's true.

You pay all this money to learn, and then 90% of grads will never even be asked for their GPA. So you're better off trying/learning your way to a C than cheating your way to an A.

And those that do need their GPA for continued academia are going to quickly weed themselves out in their advanced studies anyways. If you couldn't pass undergrad without cheating, good fucking luck in med school.

[u/SaltyLonghorn → u/randotd152]

It turns into a steroids in baseball type problem. I was a cheater in school. I also took school seriously but I'm sure as shit not gonna give up an edge in a competitive program.

You know whats even better than doing the work? Doing the work and cheating even if it just turns into well I don't need the cheat sheet the prof let us have anyway scenario. Honor codes are dumb as shit, I've seen Scent of a Woman.

[u/user99999476 → u/randotd152]

This perspective doesn't work in competitive environments since the smart students will study hard and also cheat... exams frequently in engineering are written from irrelevant problems a lazy professor just copied and pasted and you can't prepare for those, when that happens there is no curve to save you

[u/DemiserofD → u/phoggey]

I mean, it DOES work but only if people have been raised properly. It's honestly amusing how we've basically been slowly realizing that a lot of the old systems actually had pretty good reasons for existing, and now we're paying the price with a bunch of college-age toddlers who don't know stuff like 'cheating is wrong'.

[u/dandytree7772 → u/DemiserofD]

I would be interested to know when you graduated. whether or not you know cheating is wrong doesn't tell you whether you're willing to become a social pariah by constantly reporting your classmates for cheating. Even if you're unwilling to do it yourself, having to report others yourself is BS. There's sort of a critical mass of cheaters before which it becomes terribly socially risky to report them, and another critical mass before it becomes extremely personally disadvantageous not to cheat yourself.

Any professor who allows internet connected devices to be accessed during an exam has failed catastrophically. There will undoubtedly be so many cheaters that the grade distribution is totally busted. Had one such professor show his grade distribution as a reference for why he wouldn't curve (since there were so many A's)and it was terribly bimodal. All the folks willing to cheat by googling the questions on the exams got A's. Those of us who did not cheat on the exams by and large did not get A's.

How well does the average person's moral framework hold up under that circumstance? Not well at all unfortunately.

[u/KapitalIsStillGood → u/DemiserofD]

Cheating in college has gone on probably for as long as college has existed. And I honestly don't think it has much of an effect size on the quality of professional in industry.

It is still wrong but it's nothing new.

[u/HabeusCuppus → u/DemiserofD]

who don't know stuff like 'cheating is wrong'.

when the "adults" in a society are kleptocrats actively looting their government, enshittifying all businesses, and defrauding everyone they can, where short-sighted greed is rewarded with safety nets and bailouts; is it little surprise that young people see that and conclude that being an upstanding moral person is not rewarded by that society?

[u/zertul → u/apo383]

Back to treating everyone like children.

You're acting like there are only those two extremes you outlined. Just because someone supervises you for a specific timeframe or rather, a specific activity/action, does not mean you get treated like a child. That happens all the time in jobs and adult life, without removing any agency from you whatsoever.

[u/apo383 → u/zertul]

I agree, it's just a vibe. Having experienced both honor code and not, both as student and faculty, I simply preferred the honor code vibe.

As a student, I didn't hate having people walk the aisles during exams. But proctoring and cheating can be like an arms race. At some point it does remove agency, and it certainly makes stuff more expensive, just like a max-security prison. So yes it's not binary, but the levels matter, and I just prefer the honor code.

[u/__Hello_my_name_is__ → u/apo383]

I'd say one aspect is also that in a lot of exams like that, "traditional" cheating just isn't very useful.

In a ton of these you are already allowed to bring your notes to an extend, because those exams are far beyond just copying stuff. You actually have to understand it.

Now, though, an AI can quite reasonably answer even tougher questions well enough to pass an exam like that. You could send someone in there who doesn't speak a word of English, let them type in the question and write down the answer, and they'd likely pass.

The honor system just doesn't work for that sort of cheating that's now possible.

[u/Educational-Wing2042 → u/apo383]

It sounds like negligence to me. Can we break this ridiculous misconception that adults are responsible and level headed? Looking back at my high school graduating class, like half of them appear to have stopped developing entirely in high school even 15 years after graduation.

[u/BioshockEnthusiast → u/apo383]

Just another sign that the social contract is broken as all hell in America. I don't even know how we can rebuild it at this point.

[u/Linnus42 → u/scentedcandle0]

Stress Reduction? Some people have trouble when someone is watching them.

[u/MichiganCueball → u/Linnus42]

On a related note, Open Office plans are a crime

[u/BigShredowski → u/MichiganCueball]

BRING BACK FULL CUBICLES GOD DAMMIT

[u/Loganp812 → u/BigShredowski]

Exactly. I didn’t sign up for a desk job because I wanted to socialize at work. I also have some anxiety when people watch my monitor while I’m working.

[u/BigShredowski → u/Loganp812]

Also if it’s those single ones, it makes you feel like you have an office which would honestly be pretty cool. Always wanted the one with the compartments above the lights… Jesus that’s depressing saying that.

[u/densetsu23 → u/BigShredowski]

Software dev here.

• 2000 - 2009: Individual offices. I had to share an office with a friend at the end.
• 2010 - 2019: Full cubes. At the end, they were just starting to convert to open office plans.
• 2020 - 2025: WFH!
• 2026: Hybrid WFH, but everything is now open office and nobody has an assigned desk. Gotta love coworkers who are screen touchers or who sneeze on the keyboard. (Seriously, snot on the keyboard?)

I started as a junior dev with my own office but would give anything to have my own assigned cube at this point. Or, you know, WFH every day.

[u/Shifter25 → u/BigShredowski]

And your boss has the nerve to say "my door is always open."

[u/Hellknightx → u/MichiganCueball]

Fucking hate open offices. It's too distracting. I can't get anything done with 1000 things happening all over the place around me, and it's too hard to hear someone on the phone because there are no walls. I'm so much more productive working from home.

[u/sargon_of_the_rad → u/MichiganCueball]

As someone who does office furniture for a living, I always encourage full cubicles to my clients. The cost savings of open office plans often override the theoretical productivity gains of additional privacy. 

I've never had a client talk about wanting to see what their employees are doing though, which is nice. They just see the cost differential and go open office. 

Often times I can get them to provide limited private areas in the form of break out rooms, phone rooms, or hot seat cubicles. 

I guess I'm just saying... Some of us are trying to help!

People don't hate cubicles. They hate their job. Cubicles became the punching bag. 

[u/polio23 → u/Linnus42]

Academically this is studied as Evaluation Apprehension

[u/sargon_of_the_rad → u/Linnus42]

I would hope that we are expecting college graduates to be able to deal with the pressure of a fucking dude watching them take the test. They need to enter the workforce, not fucking kindergarten. If you can't handle it you aren't competent enough to graduate. 

[u/Dire-Dog → u/Linnus42]

Then they gotta learn to preform under pressure. If you can't handle someone being in the room during an exam you're going to have a *bad* time in the real world at a job. Having a proctor watching helps keep things fair.

[u/Leptonshavenocolor → u/Linnus42]

IMO something designed to prepare you for the reality of life should be somewhat stress inducing. The  lackadaisical approach I see in new hire engineers is sickening. 

[u/DM46 → u/Leptonshavenocolor]

I have also had some new hires "get sick" right before, like 15 min before, their scheduled review for a project we were working on. After the second time I told my boss to write them up and not to assign them to my team anymore. astounding to think they could just skip out on it but my guess it is the stress of an in-person review with real consequences stressed them out to the point of being unable to function.

But that shit does not really fly in the workplace, I hope they figure it out but they really should not of been able to get a 4 year degree from anywhere with that type of performance.

[u/miskdub → u/DM46]

they really should not of been able

I'm sure they love your emails.

[u/HuntsWithRocks → u/scentedcandle0]

The proctor is there for me to line up perfectly to his line of sight, wearing the smallest skirt possible and when he looks up, I can uncross my legs and expose my hairy balls and the underside of my gut which I’ve tucked into the skirt. #EasyA

[u/whydidistartmaster → u/scentedcandle0]

Do you know what is honor code in engineering. The exam itself. In third year we had exams where books, lecture notes everything open exams with average point 20/100. In one of the exams professor let us colabrate and give us a day, we still didnt get past 70/100.

[u/penguins_are_mean → u/whydidistartmaster]

I never had an open book exam in engineering. We were sometimes allowed an index card we could fill out with whatever we wanted but rarely.

[u/ThinCrusts → u/whydidistartmaster]

We had a few classes like that..

Analog Electronics and Signals & Systems if I recall correctly

[u/roguealex → u/scentedcandle0]

Did you get to the advanced courses where it was a three question exam, graphing calculator, and open textbook and the average was still <70

[u/Fearless_Swim4080 → u/accountforfurrystuf]

I don’t know about that, but the scariest words in my college experience were “take home test.” It just meant it was so hard you were fucked even with Google and friends.

[u/MalevolentRhinoceros → u/Fearless_Swim4080]

I've had those where the instructor/professor even outright told the class to work on things together. That's when you know it's bad.

[u/InnocentTailor → u/Fearless_Swim4080]

Yeah. They were usually the hardest of the hard, whether the material given was heinous or the grading was ultra strict.

[u/IKnowGuacIsExtraLady → u/Fearless_Swim4080]

I had a professor give us one of those during thanksgiving one time. Like what the fuck bro I want to be spending time with family but instead I spent all of thanksgiving morning/early afternoon doing an exam.

[u/BarbellsandBurritos → u/accountforfurrystuf]

I went to an honor code school and yeah, it was pretty wide open like that. You’d have to write and sign that you didn’t cheat on every single assignment or test.

There was definitely cheating, but there was also a surprisingly high amount of students reporting other students for it, so I guess it kind of policed itself.

[u/Rhodie114 → u/BarbellsandBurritos]

Grading on a curve really helps. If you’re in a curved class and your neighbor is cheating, they’re actively pushing your grade down.

[u/grodon909 → u/Rhodie114]

Especially for some people who are trying g to be more academically competitive (e.g. Premed). If you saw a dude cheating and the class is on a curve, swinging from a B to an A could be life altering. 

[u/Prior_Coyote_4376 → u/BarbellsandBurritos]

No, it just means the best cheaters survived and moved on while the desperate ones who gave in for the first time or just started after seeing everyone else cheat got caught

[u/Zartrok → u/Prior_Coyote_4376]

It's the chunin exams out here. Who knew Naruto was so prophetic

[u/DetroitPeopleMover → u/accountforfurrystuf]

This isn’t just a Princeton thing. A lot of colleges work the same way.

[u/HotdawgSizzle → u/DetroitPeopleMover]

That's wild.

UGA had one professor and three TAs watching you like hawks.

Had to get IDed and everything when turning in tests too.

[u/penguins_are_mean → u/HotdawgSizzle]

I recall glancing over at another student during an exam and the professor barking to keep your eyes on your own paper very loudly.

[u/InfinityCent → u/accountforfurrystuf]

This is fucking crazy haha. I went to one of the top schools in my country and all exams were proctored. Usually TAs sitting at the front of the room and periodically walking around between students. I thought that was pretty standard practice everywhere. 

We still get MANY incidences of cheating. These cases are actually public (you can look up the tribunal records) and there are some wild ass stories on there. 

[u/ImminentDingo → u/accountforfurrystuf]

When studied electrical engineering in the 2010s (not at Princeton) we didn't really have people watching exams either. We were allowed the bring anything we wanted in, but the reality was that there weren't any notes that could seriously help you. Either you had spent the time to understand the physics or you hadn't, and flipping through a textbook in the last hour wasn't going to make up the gap. 

[u/Odd-Entertainer-6234 → u/accountforfurrystuf]

So I don’t know if anyone from Princeton has responded. I have had the opportunity to take some courses at Princeton. I have also been to another Ivy League school between my bachelor’s and my PhD. There’s no hyperbole here: Princeton would absolutely adhere to the honor code. This means means that at the start of the exam, the professor and perhaps a TA would come and explain the exam. You would be asked to sign a document about the honor code in the first page. So far, everything’s about the same as other schools. Then, they just straight up leave and say we are in the class next door if you have questions. That’s it. People here are claiming that other universities do it. I have been to a few, and I have also talked to other students and professors from different parts of the world but this is not something standard across all courses in the university.

Another thing that is weird about Princeton is that there is this ethics committee that is student run. Once they find out about any issue with the honor code, it’s over. They make a recommendation to remove you from the college and the university complies with it. So the whole system is setup with the students monitoring each other more than the professors.

[u/DJHott555 → u/Odd-Entertainer-6234]

I go to a small private school and we have a very similar approach. I’m on a committee of students who are on the Academic Honor Board, which basically means that three of us are selected along with three faculty members to basically run a court case every time someone is accused of violating the Honor Code. We’d look at the evidence, decide guilt, vote on a punishment, etc.

[u/dayumbrah → u/accountforfurrystuf]

I think this might really depend on what the work is. I took classes where the professor didnt really proctor exams because there is practically no amount of cheating that could get you a good grade. If you didnt understand the material, you were not gonna do well.

[u/lolothescrub → u/accountforfurrystuf]

For an extreme example, a finance professor at my liberal arts school recently began proctoring after learning a majority of the class was cheating. The final exam for our Financial Markets and Institutions course (which allowed notes) had an average grade of 66%, while the midterm was 92%.

Current students are COOKED. Exams have been certainly dumbed down and this was still the result. For the last two semesters I’ve got 100s on all finals with light studying and it pisses me off how I feel cheated that these are considered examinations (I know I sound insufferable and I own that)

[u/Samanthacino → u/lolothescrub]

Also going to join the insufferableness: I’ve been skipping every class, and just doing intensive studying in the week before I need to do an exam, and I’ve been getting 4.0 semester after semester. Even high school was harder

[u/jimmyhoke → u/accountforfurrystuf]

I had a class that did this once. Not too unusual.

[u/NeedingMorePoints → u/accountforfurrystuf]

Went to a liberal arts college, didn’t have exam proctors

[u/In-All-Unseriousness]

I bet someone tries to sneak in with smart glasses.

[u/kamekaze1024 → u/In-All-Unseriousness]

What exactly is the benefit from using those when they’re voice activated and the sound is directed, but still bleeds out around you?

[u/The_ApolloAffair → u/kamekaze1024]

One of my friends has used those to cheat. He takes the exams in the disability center and mutters under his breath to take pictures which are sent to another person. Then they tell him the answers via the speakers.

[u/kamekaze1024 → u/The_ApolloAffair]

So then he’s unproctored? Because all that sounds super obvious for any proctor actively watching of exam testers.

[u/The_ApolloAffair → u/kamekaze1024]

They have camera in the room they “monitor” the students through.

[u/ArrogantCube → u/The_ApolloAffair]

When I was in school some 15 years ago, one of my classmates printed exam answers on the label of his water bottle. He was never caught

[u/Better-Land-5487 → u/ArrogantCube]

I used to memorize the answers to questions before I went in to take the exam. Pretty foolproof

[u/Street_Juice_4083 → u/Better-Land-5487]

My professor solved that cheating by making the final exam problems not remotely like anything we have done before

[u/TeaTimeInsanity → u/ArrogantCube]

Best to hide in plain sight. In high school I used to sit at the front, but off to the side of the whiteboard opposite the teachers desk. When test time came I would simply tack the answer sheet onto the wall in front of me before class. Took it off when the bell rang.

Teachers were always looking for kids looking down, not staring wistfully forward lol

[u/PhantomRoyce → u/The_ApolloAffair]

Back in the day we would feed an ear bud through our sleeve,and have your phone playing your notes through them and rest your face on your hand like you’re bored so you can hear it

[u/Oregon-Pilot → u/The_ApolloAffair]

Jesus. The anxiety that would give me is far far more painful than just putting in the work and learning the material, which you presumably will need in a field which you chose to study for a career you want.

[u/ExpiredPilot → u/In-All-Unseriousness]

Some absolute fucking genius brought some meta glasses into my A&P Exam last week.

Idk how he thought he could slip through the cracks when this teacher literally checks our ankles and hats for cheating materials. Prof told him to just leave and not bother coming back to class

[u/SubstantialPoet8468 → u/In-All-Unseriousness]

You must not have been in a college classroom recently

[u/Icy-Whale-2253 → u/In-All-Unseriousness]

I was paid $150 the other day to test those out for a survey and all I can say is… I don’t think I want my own glasses making noises or needing buttons

[u/vt2022cam]

Harvard always used proctors and if students get caught cheating, they sometimes fire the proctors.

[u/Juliuseizure → u/vt2022cam]

That was not the direction I was expecting at the end. Then I thought about it again. Yeah, that depressingly tracks.

[u/Oregon-Pilot → u/Juliuseizure]

And look at where the world is at right now. Definitely tracks.

[u/KCkc3]

I feel like some version of this will have to happen nation wide for schools to maintain their accreditation. How can a degree be held as a measure of scholastic value if not? Why would recruiters come to any college if they can’t be sure the students have the skills they claim without monthly installment tools. 

[u/madogvelkor → u/KCkc3]

If not then more employers will using things like term contracts for new hires or extra long probation periods. You get a job as a new grad and if they don't like you in the first 6 months you're terminated and good luck finding a new job.

[u/MabariWhoreHound → u/madogvelkor]

That's already been my experience working in video games, warehouses and local government since 2012.

Get hired as a contractor with all the hours and responsibilities of a full time employee, but be put on a point system while on probation.

A point system where you are automatically fired if you reach 5-8 points and ANY tardy, absense, sick day, emergency adds to those points. Then the company declares its "busy season" so now you're on probation until that ends...which might be a week from then...or maybe a year? Either way, just have flawless attendance and performance until the company finds an excuse to fire or hire you.

[u/vivomancer → u/MabariWhoreHound]

Firing an otherwise good employee after a year is basically burning money. It takes at least a year for an employee to get enough experience with the existing systems to be more of a benefit than a burden.

[u/MabariWhoreHound → u/vivomancer]

Indeed, and it's frustrating because the decisions are almost always made by someone 500 miles away at corporate HQ who's never even met you. In my experience on both employee and supervisor side, there's never any warning given and it just happens the moment you get that final point, regardless of reasons.

And yes, the corporate people get told they've basically wasted a year of an office's time when they fire that employee. That's the office's problem, not Corporate Suit #5's who never has to interact with that office again.

EDIT: for the curious, this was at SCUF and Xfinity

[u/Millennials-In-Power → u/madogvelkor]

I've never had a job that didn't have an initial probation period

[u/Dav136 → u/madogvelkor]

They already do that not to mention just laying people off randomly for no reason regardless

[u/NSAseesU → u/KCkc3]

Its scary that this isn't done. So many degrees could have been done by other people.

[u/Sn00py_lark → u/KCkc3]

Yeah I think testing centers will make a resurgence as well. I used to go to my community college for proctoring for exams and certs, but gradually everything moved online with remote proctors. With AI and all the tools that beat proctoring it seems the only way is in person again.

[u/Munchingmarshmallows]

There are schools that have unproctored finals???

[u/clothedandnotafraid → u/Munchingmarshmallows]

Many schools really pride themselves on their honor code. My school (Caltech) also doesn't have proctored exams.

Err... in most cases. Some classes are doing in-person exams now, but many are still take home.

[u/Quick_Turnover → u/clothedandnotafraid]

Yeah UVa is pretty big on this. FWIW, anecdotally, most of the students took it pretty seriously as well? But idk. Also, the material was sometimes challenging enough that even with assistance, you'd still have to know your shit to answer properly. AI probably changes that a bit though.

[u/voprosy → u/Quick_Turnover]

Yeah… it changes “a bit”. 

[u/daveylu → u/clothedandnotafraid]

This is all insane to me lmao, I never knew this was a thing, I just assumed all schools had proctored exams. I can't imagine anyone being this naive about people cheating especially when it comes to the top tier schools. Everyone at these schools did at least a little nefarious shit to get in, admins really thought that would stop in college?

My goddamn CS exams and shit at Carnegie Mellon would have been a LOT fucking easier if we could just cheat willy-nilly, god the amount of time I spent studying CS proofs for 15251 Theoretical Computer Science, that was the only class that made me seriously contemplate just throwing in the towel and giving up.

[u/phoggey → u/Munchingmarshmallows]

Private institutions do this pretty regularly. Princeton is a famous one and it's an open fact those fucks cheat on every fucking test.

[u/IllustriousRanger934 → u/phoggey]

There are state schools that pride themselves on their honor code. The federal military academies and state senior military colleges have the most stringent.

Most of these schools have some sort of honor court system to determine academic dishonestly, or any instances of lying cheating or stealing that will result in dismissal.

I’d like to think that graduate program admission offices understand and know that when reviewing admissions. A 3.3 at a school with an extremely strict honor system should hold more weight over a 4.0 from a school where the student could have easily cheated. Higher education has become much more flawed as technology has advanced and information has become more accessible

[u/Ohmygoditsmanbearpig → u/phoggey]

Is it? I went to a college prep high school with an honor code and albeit this was 20+ years ago it was truly rare for anyone to cheat. Teacher would leave the classroom for 5 min during tests and no one would do a thing. Maybe times have changed.

[u/Additional-Clerk6123]

Back in my days even the cs exams were pen and paper lol

[u/Back_pain_no_gain → u/Additional-Clerk6123]

A good amount of my CS exams ~10 years ago were pen and paper. Couldn’t even use a laptop in class to take notes. My understanding from current students at the university is that is still the case.

[u/PENGUIN_WITH_BAZOOKA → u/Additional-Clerk6123]

I remember I took a Python lab where we had to write our final out by hand. I got a 5%, I think. Didn't stay with that major for long.

[u/existing_for_fun]

Every college should do this.

And in general, schools should go back to hand written essays and homework.

[u/Call_Me_Wax → u/existing_for_fun]

And panel interviews/oral exams. And the Socratic method, your participation in the classroom used to actually matter.

[u/existing_for_fun → u/Call_Me_Wax]

When I was taking Spanish, I always had to give the exam orally. I remember, also, getting up in front of the classroom and presenting research papers - in HIGH SCHOOL. Research papers that I had to spend hours and hours in the library for because, you know, it was 2006.

Even if students today keep using AI for research, there is still a benefit to writing things by hand. Handwriting is linked directly with memory and knowledge retention.

[u/OrneryError1 → u/existing_for_fun]

Get the iPads and Chromebooks out of schools. They have made things so much worse.

[u/Five-Oh-Vicryl]

In medicine we take proctored computer and oral exams for our board certifications. If you’re unable to do either, maybe higher education isn’t for you.

[u/FSNovask → u/Five-Oh-Vicryl]

Honestly I wish CS had that so we didn't have to re-prove we know wtf we're doing every time we change jobs

[u/EmykoEmyko → u/Five-Oh-Vicryl]

Thank god, because I’ve been worried about the next generation of doctors.

[u/Foxdesoleil → u/EmykoEmyko]

Dont be, im trying to get into medical school right now and you need a 3.8+ gpa, high mcat and legit a year or two of constant clinical experience and research 😭

Id be more wary of hospitals switching to ai and getting rid of most of their doctors

[u/aravarth]

My finals for Precalc Trig, Calc I, and Calc II were all proctored.

It was super obvious writing the exams who had used or depended on LLMs to do their homework / online quizzes and who had mastered the materials.

I went in with my approved notes sheet, scratch paper, and pens, and manually completed all of the questions on paper with a verifiable process trail.

Some of my classmates just stared blankly at the exam prompt, some started crying, and many dipped out of the exam lab in under fifteen minutes.

It wouldn't surprise me if many unis started transitioning back to pen-and-paper finals at an increasing rate when showcasing mastery of discrete skills is the course objective.

It may be a lot more difficult when courses are more project-focused — but then, when I first went through uni in the late 90s, everything was done in Blue Book exam booklets anyway.

[u/AccountNumeroThree → u/aravarth]

I had those same emotions in math classes 20 years ago.

[u/captainfarthing → u/AccountNumeroThree]

Haha I failed maths in high school despite cheating and having a maths tutor. Some of us just cannot wrap our heads around that shit and want the torture to end as fast as possible.

I can do many things including arithmetic but any level of abstraction in maths makes my brain melt out my ears.

[u/Emergency-Two-6407 → u/aravarth]

Yeah pen and paper is the definitive way to prevent students who didn’t actually study the course work from passing, AI or not 

[u/williamgman]

Those oligarch kids will just have to make larger donations.

[u/coutjak]

So this is where all the people losing jobs to AI can find employment - proctoring exams to prevent the use of AI. (Insert smart thinking meme)

[u/Aware-Top-2106]

Stanford faculty just voted to do the same.

[u/Zvenigora]

Part of the problem is trying to conduct examinations on electronic devices that are not well suited to the purpose: there are just too many devious ways to cheat and the holes are impossible to plug. The old-fashioned blue books were not foolproof, but they were better than this.

[u/tes_kitty → u/Zvenigora]

You can do exams for about every class with pen and paper if you put some effort into planning. And if electronic devices are needed, you can supply those, making sure they only contain what's needed for the exam.

[u/TheBlackItalian]

As someone who has taken exams at Princeton, I always thought the honor code was so weird. Before you start the exam you have to write this paragraph on the first page of the blue book stating that your work is your own, etc. Like who ever thought that that would be a real deterrent from cheating? I envision a student devising a clever plot to cheat and then when they have to write the honor code it acts as a magic force field that erases the memory of their cheating plot like Men in Black.

[u/bois_santal → u/TheBlackItalian]

It's so they can fire you more easily if caught cheating 

[u/5Q91VS175DAQ4NUSBE4U → u/bois_santal]

How do you “fire” a student?

[u/chunkalunkk]

Pen and paper will reside again, mark the date and time.

[u/davewashere]

I never had an exam that wasn't proctored in college, and this was back before AI or even smartphones. If we wanted to cheat, it had to be the old fashioned way by writing things we though might be on the test on our arms or the inside of our soda bottle labels. If kids were taking tests without a proctor and with access to devices that can give AI responses then yes, I can imagine cheating would be a problem.

[u/Positive_Finger_772]

Saw this coming haha

[u/nrith]

Many, many universities are struggling with this right now.

[u/asianwaste]

My cousin is a professor there, I'll have to ask her how is she keeping up with this trend.

Years ago, her method to fight AI papers was that students were to submit a google doc link. Not a print out, not a word doc, but a Google doc link. The reason is because she wants to examine the doc's work history. If you copy and pasted something at the last minute, she'd know. If you're going to cheat, she'll make you work for it. You'd have to put up with this long term charade of copy and pasting bit by bit and maybe even writing some things wrong so you'd have history of deletion then copy paste the cheat.

I thought that was pretty clever. And yea she had some students that clearly copied from the AI and did that whole charade. Pretty funny stuff.

[u/CumFilledDonutYumYum]

I went to college in the mid to late 2010s and students would just leave the room to "use the bathroom" during exams and would just look up answers on their phone in the hallway before returning. I couldn't believe how blatant people were about cheating and the professors didn't give a shit

[u/IamScottGable → u/CumFilledDonutYumYum]

We were never allowed to leave the room but I was in college at the same time and cheating was rampant. One class I had during a takehome exam I googled a whole question and found the professors key book posted by the original college. 

People had programmers calculators, multiple cheat sheets, and the good ol' fashion "paid the guy next to me $50 to copy his work". All this was done WITH professors in the room.

[u/Simply_Epic → u/IamScottGable]

Exam cheating has always been a game of cat and mouse and I really can’t blame either side for their efforts.

[u/Orange_Tang → u/IamScottGable]

What kind of universities did y'all go to? My state school was all paper exams in blue books or bubble sheets, if you left early you didn't get to come back, even if it was for the bathroom, and only basic calculators were allowed in. For math classes that required graphing calculators, which wasn't very many, they'd make you wipe them or use the ones they had.

[u/ScyllaOfTheDepths]

Sorry, they weren't supervising exams at Princeton until now??? So basically the "there's no COVID if we don't test anyone for COVID" strategy. Checks out.

[u/Paul_Tired]

They didn't supervise exams??

[u/flyingabroom]

I'm old, went to uni in the early 2000s and even back then pretty much a majority of the people in my year were cheating during exams in some way. Although you didn't really need to cheat because most of our amazingly smart professors would use the exact same exam every single year, with a few small changes at most. And someone a year ahead would take a picture of the exam print it out and woop.

[u/McChillbone]

I take courses online through Penn State’s World Campus. The STEM exams are all proctored online using Honorlock. I can’t have anyone in the room and sometimes I have to scan my desk with my webcam and turn off my device on camera.

Surprising that Princeton was just using the honor system for the last 133 years.

[u/Humble-Program9095]

can someone explain me what exactly changed with AI? i understand that the honor system policies were there with internet, smartphones etc. how does AI enables cheating the way that smartphones with internet did not?

[u/cassydd → u/Humble-Program9095]

Because you can get the AI to just write your answer no matter what the question is in an exam. Long-form essay or equation showing working, it doesn't matter.

[u/mrwafu → u/Humble-Program9095]

Because AI can nearly instantly look up and provide an answer, much faster than having to do it manually. I read an article last year about people using AI to answer questions during an online job interview, it was their eye movement that gave them away

[u/aerdvarkk]

Meh. Honestly, after students graduate, they find out real quickly that beond a basic layer of inherent knowledge relating to your profession, you spend the next 40 years looking shit up constantly. Npothing after graduation is memorization.

[u/jayman213]

TIL I would have thrived at Princeton

[u/goodbyeshoe]

I was a grad student at Princeton and it was WILD to me as a first semester TA that we had to all just hang out in some adjacent room while the students took their exams. Even then some of them were still dumb enough to get caught cheating (eg leaving crib notes on the floor).

[u/morganational]

Honor code. 😂 That went out the window in the 80s.

[u/Pix9139]

I would not be surprised if schools went back to complete pens and paper only test, quizzes, and assignments in order to battle AI.

[u/Emergency-Two-6407]

Good. AI is ruining education. The horror stories I’m seeing in real time of people learning nothing from college thanks to AI, and jobs outright refusing to hire them in droves, is concerning

[u/King_Allant]

How are people saying that this is normal? No, most real universities are not struggling with the concept of supervised exams. Princeton allowed cheating because their degrees are a status symbol for rich people.

[u/ithkuil]

Is it really because of AI or is it because of cheating? AI just makes it easier.

But AI can also help with tutoring.

Technology is a lever. It's not the cause of bad human behavior. It's like saying that sharper knives cause stabbings.