> if you think that it's good to dilute the voice of people whose families have been here for a dozen generations by pretending that people who got here 15 minutes ago have the same values that's fine.
That smacks of entitlement. Yes. I know that the other side of the argument also smacks of entitlement. But I believe I have the 14th amendment on my side.
Also, there are a lot of assumptions baked into your statement. If you think that everyone here who can trace their roots back "a dozen generations" has your ideals, well, I've got $24 worth of trinkets to sell you.
Conversely, if you think that everyone here who is newly immigrated does not share your ideals, well, I have more trinkets.
The Mythology of America that I bought into was that it was a welcoming place where you could re-invent yourself in a way that was rarely possible in the country your were leaving.
And yes. I know it's a mythology--with kernels of truth to it.
But you have your own Mythology--and I find it unpalatable, both to me and my immigrant parents.
Explanation 1: You're lying / delusional about your success rate.
Explanation 2: Your trading "theory" is sound, but your theory requires specific and rare conditions to be met before you trade, so your 95-99% success rate only achieves modest gains.
Very cool. I'd like to explore it, but I'm getting a lot of "page unresponsive" and I can't tell if it's a back-end server being swamped, or if it's something else.
My son just graduated with a double major in classics and molecular biology (doing informatics work), so maybe he could help! lol
Handedness is probably not (often) captured in healthcare records, but I'm wondering if epidemiologists could mine insurance claims (or some other data rich resource) to see if there's a correlation with serious outcomes (death, hospitalization, etc.) from venom and handedness.
> Because they are still trying to pull one over, to be cleverer, to be the 'good' one at whatever life is in their mind: A long fucking ladder covered in degrees and accolades and tears and jackasses. They live in the derivative.
OP here. I think you're attributing relatively sophisticated motivations to cheating. I've seen it at elite institutions and those that were far less prestigious.
I don't think the motivations for cheating are different in the Ivy League compared to any other institution.
If I can speculate on most motivations (no particular order), they would be:
- Failing would be an embarrassment (to me, my family, etc.) and I probably won't get caught.
- The work for this course is completely irrelevant to my career path. They're just making me jump through hoops. I'll work honestly after I cheat my way through this course.
- I'm pressed for time or other there are other external issues fucking up my life, so I don't have time to study. I could definitely understand the course material if <horrible issue in my life> weren't happening right now, so cheating isn't that big of a deal.
I think most of this is excuse-making, but the human mind is capable of magnificent self-deceptions.
A couple more points (not really addressed to you).
I agree with many other commenters who say that the school admins do not want you to drop problems like this at their doorstep. The prof. usually has to navigate these waters on his/her own.
I've told this story many times over the years and the most common response (also given here) is something like "I'm sure she's put her talents to great use on Wall Street". Gives you a sense of public perception of Wall Street--which I believe is largely accurate.
I was a grad student @ Princeton a handful of decades ago.
I was a TA for a few classes and, given the honor code, we did not proctor the exams for undergrads. We just handed them out (left the room) and returned to collect them at the end.
- One of the exams in a course that I TAed had 5 free-response questions.
- There were also 5 TAs in that class, so we un-stapled the exams and each TA graded one question (for consistency).
- We re-assembled the exams and returned them to the students.
- A few days after the exam, one of "my" students (she attended my recitation) came to me with her exam and explained that I had incorrectly graded question 2.
- I told her that I didn't grade question 2, so she had to go take it up with "TA # 2"
- A few hours later, "TA #2" pays me a visit and she (TA#2) is annoyed. She tells me, "Your student is trying to pull a fast one. She answered Q2 incorrectly. She erased her answer and put in the correct answer and she wants it re-graded"
- I briefly defended the student and said something like, "Why would she do that... and how could you even know?"
- "TA#2" responded with "... because I photocopied all of the student responses after I graded them."
- Then I felt like a piece of shit for doubting my fellow TA. And felt even worse being naive enough to not be suspicious.
- "TA#2" and I brought all of this info up with the prof. who was running the course.
- We were told that the situation would be handled by an Honor Committee or something like that. We forwarded the information to the committee, but no one spoke to us and we were not allowed to participate in the deliberations.
- After about a week, all we were told was that the student was able to explain the "discrepancy" between her exam and the photocopy.
To this day, I have no idea what that student could have possibly said to explain her actions.
After that, I started photocopying every damned scrap of paper that I graded.
edits for clarity. The student did not get a zero on the exam, nor was she booted from the course. I don't remember if she was given credit for Question 2, but the TA and I were both expecting her to be tossed, which obviously didn't happen.
it's my son. he's young, bright, but puts up defenses to protect his perceived vulnerabilities. I try to explain to him that exposing your vulnerabilities humanizes you... at least it does to the type of people I admire.