To report this girl to her university?

[no1understands]

I am a private tutor, working with A level and degree students. This academic year, I have had enquiry after enquiry from university students asking me to do their coursework for them. I always say no, I'll help, point you in the right direction, do an assignment outline but I will not do the assignment for them. They show no interest! I feel like saying 'so, you are telling me you aren't prepared to put in ANY effort whatsoever to get your degree?' One girl said she has got someone to do her coursework for 2 years but now he can't do it, she's looking for someone else. She told me what uni it was and I've had others from there asking the same thing. I feel like ringing the university and telling them what's happening. I need more students to make my business viable. I feel like just doing the coursework for a wad of cash but when it comes down to it, I can't because I'm so angry with them! I feel like I should do something!

Oh well, let's just hope they don't go on to get a job where they have to write reports in English then.

Damsel: don't get me wrong, I don't like this industry at all. And as a lecturer, I've wasted precious hours of my life proving cases of plagiarism, etc., so it is of consequence to me more generally.

And I dislike very much that certain groups of people can buy advantage in this way. (T'was ever thus, regrettably).

But getting outraged with an anonymous stranger on the internet as people are here is, as I said, a bit pointless: you are unlikely to change their behaviour.

I did say the bulk of moral blame. Still a bit left there for agency/responsibility on the part of the provider!

OP I admire your stance.

YANBU.

Please, please shop the cheating little swine to the University.

Well, best of luck then, because I feel no sense of blame or shame at all. If I didn't sell it, someone else would, and as it pays and suits me, I'm more than happy to do it. It's a good learning experience, too. The first time you get a job like this in a field that wasn't your course of study, there's a steep learning curve that's exciting. You're always learning, and it's interesting to see how teaching, assessment and what's expected of students differs and changes.

Report her if you'd like. If she's been purchasing bespoke work and claiming it as her own since the day Fresher's Week ended, though, it's going to be very difficult to catch her out.

'If I didn't do it someone else will' That is the worst excuse ever. There are lots of things that would apply to doesn't make them right.

Presumably, these students give you all their notes and reading lists, etc., so that you know what they are supposed to have learnt?

Do you have access to JSTOR, etc.?

This is all rather interesting!

This is pretty much - IMO, at least - the only reason why Cambridge & Oxford are right to retain the examination-only system.

This is hilarious. SansaLannister is all over MN preaching the moral virtues of hard work and earning your own way etc etc!

And her "career" is to help people cheat at degrees!

But that's alright, dear, I'm sure you're working really hard to do so.

Penthe, Cambridge and Oxford haven't retained the examination-only system.

My undergrad degree is from Cambridge and 2/5 of my degree marks were from coursework. A good thing too, in my case.

"This is hilarious. SansaLannister is all over MN preaching the moral virtues of hard work and earning your own way etc etc!"

Is she really?

Really? What subject? I am lazily and ignorantly extrapolating from my own subject (and my DH who still works there).

Shocker!

Ok, so I will modify my post. They should have retained it in ALL subjects.

Oh my god, I'm so dozy. 25% of my final year's mark (and thus my degree mark) was a dissertation.

Ignore me, I'm a total idiot. And forgetful too. (NB. Do not entrust your DC to my teaching.)

Nooo! I'm so glad they didn't retain it.

My degree was English Lit. You had to do a dissertation, and you had to do three exams (Tragedy, Prac Crit, and a special options paper). You could then choose to do another exam, or another dissertation (obviously I chose the latter).

From memory, most Arts students had some form of coursework, and I believe Oxford English also includes coursework, though I could be wrong.

I think it's great, because exams really don't suit everyone, and are not good for getting a sense of whether or not you'd enjoy going on to do more research.

Forging anything is presumably interesting and highly challenging. And it obviously pays well because why else would anyone do it. Somehow, as someone who has a background in languages and writes for a rather meagre living, I still wouldn't think getting into producing essays for rich slackers was a great way forward. I have found this thread very interesting, though, as it makes me wonder about the point of going to university in the UK.

I didn't plagiarise though.

Or pay anyone to write it.

Cross-posted. I'm sure you're a great (and only very occasionally scatty) teacher.

strop, most students don't plagiarise though. And surely the point of going is to learn the transferable skills, not just get the bit of paper? I'm sure you'd get sacked quite often if you really didn't learn those skills, even if you did get some job interviews on the basis of an undeserved degree mark.

(Though I agree forgery is interesting and find it most disconcerting that my supervisor is apparently well-versed in the theory of it!)

Bonkers! Course you need to tell the uni, if students have never written their own work then there's nothing to compare it to so they presumably wouldn't be caught out by recognition software.

As a completely unrelated aside, what's the going rate for a thesis.... ;)

Ah, but why get yourself into vast amounts of debt and slog your guts out to get a good degree whilst watching some rich gits pay their way through to come out with the same or better degree and no debt?

After all, you could go to a very good university in various other EU countries and pay lower or no tuition fees. Lectures at many universities elsewhere are in English these days, as are the exams and all high level academic work has to be submitted in English. Or at least an approximation thereof (I see a fair bit of this in my work). Then it's a win-win situation: you end up with little or no debt and can earn lots of money writing everyone else's essays.

i just think it is outsourcing :)

I use their notes or handouts (they give out far more handouts than they used to be in my day!). Having the syllabus is key. I've been working so long now I have notes in some courses going back a while. If I need more material, the client is always more than obliging to provide it. I have other means, too :o.

What is the going rate for a thesis? Well, that depends on a lot of things.

First thesis I did, aside from my own, of course, I should have charged more just for the boring factor! I'd forgotten what a slog those can be.