[Original message removed due to another downvote. I guess I will not share personal anecdotes anymore. I feel that downvotes are for off topic or mean comments. I only shared a personal experience that I felt related to the OP's story.]
Sharing personal anecdotes is fine. You however seemed to be espousing cheating the system. You didn't go to class, and instead built this collaboration system (which is awesome) but then used it to cheat (not so awesome).
> You however seemed to be espousing cheating the system.
Doesn't that sound similar to hacking the system? We are using a website called hacker news. Not only was collaboration on homework encouraged, but the class actually had its own discussion forum for people to use. However, everyone disliked the forum because it was cumbersome and slow. So I built my own. At the end of the semester I had many people thank me for the website and asked to have it expanded to cover more classes. Using this forum I personally helped many students understand concepts and taught concepts that the professors couldn't teach properly. There were a few subjects I didn't understand and other students stepped in to help. You were not in my class and did not use this forum so I don't think you should rush to judgement about what was/wasn't cheating.
By definition, hackers do things that push boundaries. There will always be disagreement but you don't have to downvote just because you disagree. Voice your opinion, certainly, but please be careful with those downvotes.
"Doesn't that sound similar to hacking the system?"
Ha. No. The system is designed to make you learn about physics, in this case. You did not learn about physics. You actually hacked the system to take your time and money and not give you a good result.
>You actually hacked the system to take your time and money and not give you a good result.
And what if I earned 100% on the 2 midterms and a 94% on the final? I got a 96% in that physics class. Other students told me that their exam grades improved after starting to use the forum. Not sure how I didn't get a good result. Again, I'd like to say that rushing to judgement of other people's situations isn't beneficial to anyone. I feel as though my initial post was very on topic and was kind of hurt when it was downvoted within a few minutes. We're all here to help and support each other.
By the way, I'm new to posting on HN and am wondering how you made your text italics?
You're assuming that a particular grade is a good result. It's an issue I think a lot of students have -- I certainly did. And it's not exactly the fault of students... The whole system seems geared towards the "good grade = success" metric. It's a weird kind of institutional laziness.
I don't know your specific situation, and I also don't really care if you cheated in your class and still got an A. And I'm happy that you got some programming skills out of it! But -- as someone who now teaches at a couple of universities -- I want students to be engaged, to not treat the work cynically, and to actually do the work I assign. As a professor, I am not only more experienced than you, but I know a lot you don't know. Trust me. That's why they hired me. If you consider the class nothing but useless busy-work, get out of the class. An engaged student who tries hard and gets a C is preferable to a student who does show up, cheats, and gets a A. That C is way more respectable than the A and the C student should take more pride in it than the A student. (And it's sad that our system doesn't really allow that.)
Don't get confused about what the actual goal of education is.
Thanks for teaching me the italics trick! I promise, I love to learn!
I agree with most of what you said. In fact, it's due to a few of my classes (especially that physics class) that I'd like to become a professor some day. I want to teach kids much better than those few terrible professors I had to learn from (I had no other choice in teacher).
> If you consider the class nothing but useless busy-work, get out of the class.
Trust me, if I could have I would have. Unfortunately these classes were prereq's for the classes (and major) that I cared about. I knew the material well enough to get decent grades and didn't care beyond that. I would have gladly traded a seat for a student who cared (especially a student who couldn't afford to go to college!)
