Need help with MATLAB programming final project

[dr325i]

^^ I think you are confusing very different issues.

However, had I been in your class and known that you loaded your calculator, I would have certainly alerted the instructor. Same if you had written the material on your arm or a sheet of paper.

I realize cheating is common and generally condoned by students (and usually instructors). I'm not ignorant.

No, that is the US view. Others do not give a crap if someone's cheating and possibly ONLY hurting him/herself in the end. Why would I report anyone cheating, not doing anything to me. I mind my own business and find my own ways out. Throughout my undergrad and graduate school (EE), I have helped MANY people pass their exams or achieve better grades, call it cheating or not. I have also cheated on some exams. And have done it great throughout my 15-year industry career. You see, that is your problem. Same in industry, you would probably report your own teammate for obtaining marginal info. I do not want people like that on my team, so...
I would much rather hire someone who can find the way to obtain information and complete a task than someone who will run to me an tell me what (bad things) others did...

 

[Polaris]

No, that is the US view. Others do not give a crap if someone's cheating and possibly ONLY hurting him/herself in the end. Why would I report anyone cheating, not doing anything to me. I mind my own business and find my own ways out. Throughout my undergrad and graduate school (EE), I have helped MANY people pass their exams or achieve better grades, call it cheating or not. I have also cheated on some exams. And have done it great throughout my 15-year industry career. You see, that is your problem. Same in industry, you would probably report your own teammate for obtaining marginal info. I do not want people like that on my team, so...
I would much rather hire someone who can find the way to obtain information and complete a task than someone who will run to me an tell me what (bad things) others did...

I disagree. Honestly, I did a double take to check whether you were being sarcastic.

I didn't report people in school who, I knew, used unfair methods to their advantage. But, I never resorted to them myself. I just always believed that I can achieve the same goal using my own ability if I work that much harder. I realize that this is sometimes a foolhardy belief, but I'd rather work my ass off than use the ends-justify-the-means approach that you seem to advocate.

I would never hire someone who used unfair methods to their advantage, in the way you describe. I agree that, you want to hire people who can get things done, but given that we spend roughly half of our daily lives with our workfellows, it is desirable to work with people who haven't sold their integrity, right ?

 

[r2473]

No, that is the US view. Others do not give a crap if someone's cheating and possibly ONLY hurting him/herself in the end.

This is funny for so many different reasons.

I can't believe you are this arrogant and naive all at once. Tremendous.

Thanks so much for posting. Believe it or not, you and the OP have restored my faith in people a bit.

Merry Christmas.

 

[dr325i]

This is funny for so many different reasons.

I can't believe you are this arrogant and naive all at once. Tremendous.

Thanks so much for posting. Believe it or not, you and the OP have restored my faith in people a bit.

Merry Christmas.

Christmas...How do you know I am not Jewish?
Anyway, I am not.
The reason I said that is because I finished HS in Europe and my College in the USA. I have seen the Europeans at the US colleges and talked to many of them.
I may have stated things wrong a bit... I do not encourage cheating, however:
1) If you do it, not my business (especially in the school environment). I would NEVER report anyone doing that, especially if it absolutely has nothing to do with me.
2) If I know the answer and someone asks me for it, I would share. Unlike you, and I know this for sure, I would not be afraid that the person asking may get a better grade than me. Grades never interested me a bit, though, I did very well in College. Real life is what really mattered to me.
3) putting equations in my calculator was completely natural to me and I COMPLETELY condone teachers making people memorize equations. Never worked well, never will. They used to do that in Europe and I learned the lesson. Just like in a real world, it is where and how you get the info and use it, rather than how well you memorize lines...

Now, back to the OP -- I agree with those who stated that the OP is doing a wrong thing asking for help, THIS WAY. However, he/she is doing it to himself and reporting him is none of your business. Why report him??? Are you (or whoever reported him) afraid that he would do better than you? So what? Grades and GPA are not going to get you a job and even less -- will not get the job done later in your life...

 

[r2473]

We are miles apart and not for the reasons you assume.

I studied at a German University (economics) some years ago and have traveled more than a little. I have some familiarity outside of the US.

 

[sureshs]

This is an old debate. Americans feel that people abroad are slimy and cheats and opportunistic without morals. People abroad think that Americans are stuck up on a pseudo-morality which works only because military power on a large scale subdues foreign opposition and paves the way for jobs and contracts for Americans, who can then pretend to be very moral on the small scale (like the high school class which sends money to Iraqi orphans without questioning the war in the first place). Truth is both do what they accuse each other of doing.

 

[Polaris]

This is an old debate. Americans feel that people abroad are slimy and cheats and opportunistic without morals. People abroad think that Americans are stuck up on a pseudo-morality which works only because military power on a large scale subdues foreign opposition and paves the way for jobs and contracts for Americans, who can then pretend to be very moral on the small scale (like the high school class which sends money to Iraqi orphans without questioning the war in the first place). Truth is both do what they accuse each other of doing.

Quite true.

But why so negative? And why invoke the American/non-American dichotomy for something in our personal lives which rarely has anything to do with the slimy business of world politics? If you are in Silicon Valley trying to understand how to make your company's widget better than your competitor's, world military and political policy often has little to do with your goals. To be fair though, invoking this blanket distinction wasn't your doing, it was dr325i's.

 

[sureshs]

Quite true.

But why so negative? And why invoke the American/non-American dichotomy for something in our personal lives which rarely has anything to do with the slimy business of world politics? If you are in Silicon Valley trying to understand how to make your company's widget better than your competitor's, world military and political policy often has little to do with your goals. To be fair though, invoking this blanket distinction wasn't your doing, it was dr325i's.

There is a retired Navy scientist I sometimes hit with. He told me: everything is politics. Even our little insignificant lives are consequences of politics. We think we are not into politics, but it is politics which shapes what we are.

 

[dr325i]

There is a retired Navy scientist I sometimes hit with. He told me: everything is politics. Even our little insignificant lives are consequences of politics. We think we are not into politics, but it is politics which shapes what we are.

I like that...makes a lot of sense...

 

[dr325i]

Quite true.

But why so negative? And why invoke the American/non-American dichotomy for something in our personal lives which rarely has anything to do with the slimy business of world politics? If you are in Silicon Valley trying to understand how to make your company's widget better than your competitor's, world military and political policy often has little to do with your goals. To be fair though, invoking this blanket distinction wasn't your doing, it was dr325i's.

This example has a lot to do with American/non-American stuff. I was blown away 18 years ago when I attended the US University to find out that the guy sitting next to me called the Professor to report on another guy who tried to cheat during the test. And just the night before, they studied together. Then, I saw it hundreds of times during my 6 years of studies.

Again, I am not sure what r2473 is trying to say with his German and WW experiences above, but it is very common to see things like these happen in the US environment rather than (pretty much) anywhere else.

 

[Talker]

If they grade on a curve then someone elses grade will effect mine.

I saw one lady and a few friends cheating in strength of materials course, a lot of formulas in that class.
They wrote the formulas down on the desk before the test.
She was in the top 5 as far as GPA in the whole college of engineering.
I didn't report her but should have.

 

[Polaris]

There is a retired Navy scientist I sometimes hit with. He told me: everything is politics. Even our little insignificant lives are consequences of politics. We think we are not into politics, but it is politics which shapes what we are.

Yes, in a reeeeaally broad "a butterfly flutters its wings and somebody eats an ice-cream on the other side of the world" kind of way.

Though, I'm just talking day-to-day stuff. For example: How I write a matlab program to reconstruct a compressed image, has really nothing to do with US foreign policy now, does it? Hmmmm. Maybe, it does!

 

[SFrazeur]

Here is a video of me when I found out that the OP did not take his homework seriously.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIX_0nMlIBU

Only my favorite film!

-SF