It’s the beginning of a new year at State. It’s warm and sunny all over campus and new students are beginning to find their way through the maze that is college. Parties abound on and off campus and Rush will begin soon, but underneath all the fun and Welcome Back Week events, you can see fear in many students’ faces. This fear is, of course, chemistry. Without a doubt, no subject gives as many students a hard time as chemistry. But as I experienced last year, some students have begun to take a different approach to their chemistry courses, in particular the online varieties of Chemistry – A Molecular Science and Chemistry – A Quantitative Science.
Last year, following the advice of one of my friends, I decided to take CH201 online. At the time, I thought I understood chemistry and enjoyed the subject enough that I could figure out the textbook, WebAssign homework and exams. There were no lectures in this class, only assignments from the book, homework and exams. I enrolled in the class and kept up with the reading, earning very high scores on all the homework assignments and the first online test.
The second test, however, got the best of me. Actually, I’ll just come out and say it: I got a 39. Not a grade to be proud of, I admit, but a grade that I earned while sitting in the Sullivan computer lab alone. As I frequented the tutorial center, I began to learn of an easier way to approach these online courses. Since the tests were through WebAssign and were administered over the weekend without supervision, many students found they were able to get in groups of 3 or more and take the tests together with each person tackling a specific problem or two and sharing the answers with the rest of the group.
Naturally, my first inclination was to get together with one of these groups to pull up my 39. I mean, who wouldn’t want to rebound with that much style? To go from a 100 to a 39 and back to a 100 — that would show the professor a thing or two, right? After some deliberation, however, I decided it was best to be honorable and go speak to the professor about the matter. He acknowledged that cheating was an aspect of the class, and frankly told me that nothing could be done due to budget constraints.
Frustrated, I dropped the course and went to speak to the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences where, after voicing my opinion, I was told that this issue would be resolved for next semester. Unfortunately, right after I brought this issue up to the department and was told that it would be resolved, a library assistant caught several students cheating on one of these chemistry tests but was unable to identify the perpetrators.
It’s also unfortunate that these classes are still part of our course catalog and available on Pack Tracks. I’m not trying to get any professors in trouble. I simply want to draw attention to a problem that I have noticed on campus.
When and if you register for an online course, think carefully about the decision you are making.
Think about how you will take the tests. If you have to cheat to pass a test, are you really learning the material? Chemistry is a very involved and hands-on subject and does not format well as a PDF or WebAssign. There is a huge difference in a brick and mortar school and an online university. You are paying for a real education — you shouldn’t get it from a computer screen.
Do you like online classes? E-mail your thoughts to [email protected].
