A statement from the faculty of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering on the use of Chegg and related resources in our classes:
It has come to our attention that many students have been using Chegg (or other so-called ‘study aid’ sites) to help them find the solutions to our take-home (or stay-at-home) exams. We have found clear evidence of at least two instances in the past month for 300-level ME courses and we are continuing to investigate.
The faculty of the mechanical and biomedical engineering department find this behavior as clear evidence of violation of the student code of conduct and an egregious violation of professional ethics. We will neither condone nor tolerate this behavior at any time.
We know these are hard times and, believe it or not, the faculty are feeling the pressure of the pandemic as well. We are not immune to the disruption that COVID has caused in our personal and professional lives and that’s why we’ve been working particularly hard to support you in any way we can.
But it is clearly unfair to those students who are working hard to solve their exams without using the help of fellow students (also a clear violation of the code of conduct) and so-called ‘study aid’ websites, as exemplified by Chegg.
And for those who have rationalized using Chegg by saying that once you’re an engineer you will be able to use the internet and all those resources, so it’s unreasonable to keep those from you now, we have this observation.
Entry-level engineering jobs pay a minimum of $50,000/year (plus/minus). If you are lucky enough to land such a job, your employer will not be paying you $50K/year to look up answers on the internet and copy them down. If that’s what they need, they can hire a high school intern at minimum wage to do that. An employer is willing to pay you that much money because they assume you can “think like an engineer”. And the only way we know how to develop that valuable skill is by assigning you homework and helping you work through those problems. The best way we know how to assess the development of that skill is by assigning comprehensive exams throughout the core courses. If you bypass the difficult and tedious process of working out the problems for yourself, you are cheating yourself of the educational opportunity for which you have paid good money. You’re cheating your fellow students who may not be rewarded as much as you, even though you took shortcuts. You’re cheating your employer who has very clear expectations of what they’re getting when they hire an engineer. And finally, you’re cheating the very profession you have chosen to practice.
Don’t be a cheater.
March 22, 2021