Story from a professional cheater

[iago]

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2011/1/13/141736/786

Really good story. It's written by a guy who writes papers for students professionally. He's a master of every subject as well as writing, "It was true. At this point, there are few academic challenges that I find intimidating. You name it, I've been paid to write about it."

Well written (I should hope!) and a super interesting (albeit long) read.

"I haven't been to a library once since I started doing this job. Amazon is quite generous about free samples. If I can find a single page from a particular text, I can cobble that into a report, deducing what I don't know from customer reviews and publisher blurbs. Google Scholar is a great source for material, providing the abstract of nearly any journal article. And of course, there's Wikipedia, which is often my first stop when dealing with unfamiliar subjects. Naturally one must verify such material elsewhere, but I've taken hundreds of crash courses this way."

[CrAz3D]

"For the last, colleges are a perfect launching ground--they are built to reward the rich and to forgive them their laziness. Let's be honest: The successful among us are not always the best and the brightest, and certainly not the most ethical."

That PRETTY much sums up my view of the entire academic system in America.  Fuck "education."  It has nothing to do with learning, and everything to do with indoctrination.

[Ender]

The article sounds halfway honest and highly fabricated. You can't verify any of it.

Also:

I work at an online company that generates **tens of thousands of dollars a month** by creating original essays based on specific instructions provided by cheating students.

[...]

In the midst of this great recession, business is booming. At busy times, during midterms and finals, my company's staff of roughly **50** writers is not large enough to satisfy the demands of students who will pay for our work and claim it as their own.

Since he said "tens of thousands of dollars a month" we can assume his company makes less than $100,000 / mo. For hypothetical reasons, let's say the company makes $100,000/mo. There are 50 writers, as he mentions. That means that the most a writer could hope to earn in a month would be

$100,000 / 50 = $2,000.

It is probably less, since the head person is also probably taking a cut, but since we don't know about that we'll leave it out.

My point is that this "ghost writer" / "shadow scholar" / "academic mercenary" is making less than $24k/yr. working full-time for an online cheating support group. And that's without health benefits.

That's a dirt-poor salary and he sounds like a huge loser. No wonder he's trying to write a book about his experience - he wants a way out.

What's more likely? That a person with his skill set is working a $24k/yr salary job without benefits, or that the article is unreliable? One can see through this reducto ad absurdum that there's some key information missing here... It doesn't help that the article is anonymous and absolutely nothing can be verified.

Maybe the whole article is a lie.

[Sidoh]

"For the last, colleges are a perfect launching ground--they are built to reward the rich and to forgive them their laziness. Let's be honest: The successful among us are not always the best and the brightest, and certainly not the most ethical."

That PRETTY much sums up my view of the entire academic system in America.  Fuck "education."  It has nothing to do with learning, and everything to do with indoctrination.

I think this is less true in the more technical disciplines, and I'd be willing to bet that the overwhelming majority of his customers are in the social sciences.

The article sounds halfway honest and highly fabricated. You can't verify any of it.

Also:

I work at an online company that generates **tens of thousands of dollars a month** by creating original essays based on specific instructions provided by cheating students.

[...]

In the midst of this great recession, business is booming. At busy times, during midterms and finals, my company's staff of roughly **50** writers is not large enough to satisfy the demands of students who will pay for our work and claim it as their own.

Since he said "tens of thousands of dollars a month" we can assume his company makes less than $100,000 / mo. For hypothetical reasons, let's say the company makes $100,000/mo. There are 50 writers, as he mentions. That means that the most a writer could hope to earn in a month would be

$100,000 / 50 = $2,000.

It is probably less, since the head person is also probably taking a cut, but since we don't know about that we'll leave it out.

My point is that this "ghost writer" / "shadow scholar" / "academic mercenary" is making less than $24k/yr. working full-time for an online cheating support group. And that's without health benefits.

That's a dirt-poor salary and he sounds like a huge loser. No wonder he's trying to write a book about his experience - he wants a way out.

What's more likely? That a person with his skill set is working a $24k/yr salary job without benefits, or that the article is unreliable? One can see through this reducto ad absurdum that there's some key information missing here... It doesn't help that the article is anonymous and absolutely nothing can be verified.

Maybe the whole article is a lie.

Hah!  That's an interesting point.  I think he mentions somewhere else that he makes $66K/year, though.  That does seem pretty odd, but I'm not comfortable with the $100,000/month assumption.  Maybe it's more than that?

[Sidoh]

I'm always a little annoyed when someone like this projects their bad experience with education onto others.  His account of university is the antithesis of mine.  Sure, there were some classes that were stupid and I could've done with out, but I learned more about subjects I was interested in than I could've ever done alone.

He said he never writes about math.  For me, this is evidence that his experience with the education system is uselessly biased.

That said -- still an interesting read.  Thanks for sharing. 

[nslay]

I'm always a little annoyed when someone like this projects their bad experience with education onto others.  His account of university is the antithesis of mine.  Sure, there were some classes that were stupid and I could've done with out, but I learned more about subjects I was interested in than I could've ever done alone.

I don't think any class I took was worthless or stupid. I always took courses that interested me despite any potential difficulty. You know those cultural credit requirements that everyone tries to satisfy with easy fluff? I tried my hand in Russian literature and (Scholarly) Biblical courses even though I come from the technical side of campus. I took these because I thought they were interesting, not for reasons of difficulty that most people abide by.

If you thought any courses you took were stupid, you wasted your time and money.

[deadly7]

I don't think any class I took was worthless or stupid. I always took courses that interested me despite any potential difficulty. You know those cultural credit requirements that everyone tries to satisfy with easy fluff? I tried my hand in Russian literature and (Scholarly) Biblical courses even though I come from the technical side of campus. I took these because I thought they were interesting, not for reasons of difficulty that most people abide by.

If you thought any courses you took were stupid, you wasted your time and money.

For many people, taking advanced courses that don't actually suck is impossible unless they have lots of free time. My choices for some of these required "lib ed" courses boiled down to a handful of stupid 1000-level courses. I assure you, if I had an alternative to "Introduction to Sociology" I would have taken it.

[Sidoh]

I'm always a little annoyed when someone like this projects their bad experience with education onto others.  His account of university is the antithesis of mine.  Sure, there were some classes that were stupid and I could've done with out, but I learned more about subjects I was interested in than I could've ever done alone.

I don't think any class I took was worthless or stupid. I always took courses that interested me despite any potential difficulty. You know those cultural credit requirements that everyone tries to satisfy with easy fluff? I tried my hand in Russian literature and (Scholarly) Biblical courses even though I come from the technical side of campus. I took these because I thought they were interesting, not for reasons of difficulty that most people abide by.

If you thought any courses you took were stupid, you wasted your time and money.

I always selected courses that sounded the most interesting.  I never took a class because I thought it'd be easy.  I did a decent amount of graduate coursework as an undergrad.

I took Prehistory instead of the "American history", which is what I told was the easiest selection for that requirement.  I consider it one of the better decisions I made as an undergraduate.  I thoroughly enjoyed that class.

There are some subjects that I find inherently uninteresting, and there's really no way around fulfilling the requirement without feeling like I'm wasting my time.

It's completely short-sighted and dishonest to say it's a waste of time and money, though.  You assume that there was a better selection, or that my degree has no worth to me.  Neither of these things are true.

[nslay]

It's completely short-sighted and dishonest to say it's a waste of time and money, though.  You assume that there was a better selection, or that my degree has no worth to me.  Neither of these things are true.

When it comes to satisfying various requirements (cultural, writing, etc...) there's always a large set of courses to choose from. These aren't the core courses set in stone (which are absolutely essential and useful).

In my university experience, I have yet to take any uninteresting course. Even the various core requirements did not limit my selection to anything inherently uninteresting. I'd be very surprised if you could not find an interesting course in the history department that would have fulfilled your history requirements.

I mean, for example, my computer literacy requirements were met by a Linux Device Drivers course... Are your university core requirements so strict that you must take only the inherently uninteresting ABC1234, 1235, or 1236 to satisfy X requirement? I mean c'mon ...

[deadly7]

I mean, for example, my computer literacy requirements were met by a Linux Device Drivers course... Are your university core requirements so strict that you must take only the inherently uninteresting ABC1234, 1235, or 1236 to satisfy X requirement? I mean c'mon ...

Yes.

[nslay]

I mean, for example, my computer literacy requirements were met by a Linux Device Drivers course... Are your university core requirements so strict that you must take only the inherently uninteresting ABC1234, 1235, or 1236 to satisfy X requirement? I mean c'mon ...

Yes.

Are you sure said list isn't suggestive? The suggestion for Computer Literacy at FSU was a course that taught Microsoft Office. However, it wasn't the only course that satisfied computer literacy.

I remember looking through a large course guide book that listed courses and requirements they met. That's how I found Russian Literature as an option to satisfy some cultural and writing requirement.

My undergraduate years were a blast. There wasn't a single course I took that was inherently uninteresting.

[Sidoh]

When it comes to satisfying various requirements (cultural, writing, etc...) there's always a large set of courses to choose from. These aren't the core courses set in stone (which are absolutely essential and useful).

The few classes I took that I felt weren't worth my time were on a very short list of options.  I was usually pleasantly surprised (I very much enjoyed my speech class, for example -- even though I despise public speaking).  In a few cases, though, I was let down.  These classes were always silly social science requirements.

It may have been the case that some of the classes were, in fact, more interesting than the ones I chose, but I don't think I could have inferred that from the information I had.  By the time I knew the class was crap, it was too late.

I don't feel that the knowledge I gained through non-technical classes is beneficial to me in any substantial way.  Sure, I found most of it interesting, and I like knowing things about the world I live in, but it doesn't improve my performance as an engineer, mathematician or researcher.

I'd be very surprised if you could not find an interesting course in the history department that would have fulfilled your history requirements.

I did find an interesting course that satisfied the history requirement, as I already mentioned: prehistory...

[deadly7]

Are you sure said list isn't suggestive? The suggestion for Computer Literacy at FSU was a course that taught Microsoft Office. However, it wasn't the only course that satisfied computer literacy.

I remember looking through a large course guide book that listed courses and requirements they met. That's how I found Russian Literature as an option to satisfy some cultural and writing requirement.

My undergraduate years were a blast. There wasn't a single course I took that was inherently uninteresting.

I assure you, I understand how my university system works. They have set classes that fulfill requirements based on a review by the Regents / departments. Subtract classes that conflict with other (read: better) classes, classes that sound like a complete tardfest (who the hell really wants to study gender studies?) and you're left with a handful of classes. And I'm at one of the largest universities in the US. I can only imagine what it's like for people at small universities/collegs.

In addition, factor in that many of the more interesting classes have been cut because of recent budget setbacks that cannot afford classes of 30 each semester in a discipline, and college sucks.

I enjoy college. I enjoy the classes I chose. Liberal education requirements are the stupidest shit on the face of the planet though. Sociology, mass communication (I've done public speaking since I was about 7), etc. have not benefited me in any discernable way.