Cheaters Beware....

[Margie]

Met with the profs today, and they all were extremely nice and helpful to my dad and I...They were friendly, and mostly all from Canada or the US (easy to understand). Met a lot more students as well, and they were all so nice! An interesting thing that I learned about today, is that the current 2nd semester class got caught cheating (I wasn't clear of what they were doing exactly) but what happened was their reputation with the professors went DOWN exponentially! I guess they couldnt catch the few students who were cheating, and the whole class got punished. They made/are making their tests extremely hard-impossible to "punish" the students. Everyone says that your class's reputation is VERY important, so lets hope our class has no cheaters in it...Kind of sucks that a lot of people had to suffer for one or two people's idiotic decision to cheat...=( JANUARY 2009-->NO CHEATING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[huxald]

Met with the profs today, and they all were extremely nice and helpful to my dad and I...They were friendly, and mostly all from Canada or the US (easy to understand). Met a lot more students as well, and they were all so nice! An interesting thing that I learned about today, is that the current 2nd semester class got caught cheating (I wasn't clear of what they were doing exactly) but what happened was their reputation with the professors went DOWN exponentially! I guess they couldnt catch the few students who were cheating, and the whole class got punished. They made/are making their tests extremely hard-impossible to "punish" the students. Everyone says that your class's reputation is VERY important, so lets hope our class has no cheaters in it...Kind of sucks that a lot of people had to suffer for one or two people's idiotic decision to cheat...=( JANUARY 2009-->NO CHEATING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL!!! Yeah, I know one of the guys who "cheated"; He memorized everything in the lecture notes so well that he was teaching that block to everyone the night before. In fact, he cheated so well that he was able to explain everything that was asked of him. The reason they weren't able to pin it on him was because all his notes were in his head, so there wasn't any tangible evidence to substantiate all the "cheating" he did. LOL!!!

Remember folks, if somebody says it or writes it, it MUST be true!!!! So lets believe everything everyone says; and not practice evidence-based decision making.

I'ma get my pitchfork ma; we's gonna find us a witch!

[thomasfx10]

He memorized everything in the lecture notes so well that he was teaching that block to everyone the night before.

What is wrong with memorizing lecture notes and helping his fellow students. There had to be more than that.

[Da86]

Im confused, hows that cheating???

[BrendaB_MD]

When I was at MIT, I had a course in fluid mechanics which, as you probably know can be a very difficult course. I am no fluid mechanics genious but I somehow got lucky on the midterm -- I got a 94. The next closest score was 65 and the class average was 31. So the prof thought I must have cheated. No cheating -- I just got lucky. But, alas, the fluid mechanics gods are fickle -- one day they smile on you and the next they smite you down. I ended the course with a B-.

I will make no claims to sainthood, but I have never cheated in school. I had another course in queuing theory (stochastic processes) and the professor gave a take home test that consisted of problems assigned from the text. I am a bit of a book nut and I happened to have a copy of the answer book to the text -- which stayed closed until I turned in the exam. I got a B- in the course.

[darkmansaad]

granted, this thread is on point but the most important thing is you cant cheat on the step 1 which people routinely fail/do subpar on after studying a lot and "not cheating" to begin with. personally there were cheaters in my class i just didnt care as i knew the day step 1 rolled around theyd get PWNED HARD and at the end of the day would not be competing with me for residency spots. And just so u guys know, being an IMG with less than a 90 on the USMLE, you can get a residency but expect to get owned hardcore, work ridiculous hours way over the 80/hr a week limit and basically expect nothing but "pooh pooh" (thats for the admins so they cant say i curse) for your entire residency. The hospital I am rotating at now has an average USMLE score of 95 for incoming internal med residents and out of 15 only 2 are from US schools....and I know many others that arent even University-affiliated that require 95 to even apply for Internal Med, forget specialties.

Just for you incoming students to keep in mind = focus on your goal at the end of Saba, dont get hung up on little tests in little classes. Personally, I came close to failing anatomy but I think i made it out ok in the end......

[wolfvgang22]

Cheating or allegations of cheating happens every year, and happens at every school, offshore or otherwise. It happened when I was on the island. I agree that "punishing" a whole class with even tougher tests is not the best solution. When I was teaching I remember staff sometimes threatening to do this to try to bring peer pressure to bear on students and thus prevent cheating. It is a common tactic in med school and in training programs of all types, as I'm sure you've noticed. Sometimes it works.
The paramount thing to do as a student is to remain above reproach and show your professors that as a group you are hard working regardless of what else is going on. Communication builds trust.

[CrazyDiamond]

I'm a little confused here. You first say:

"An interesting thing that I learned about today, is that the current 2nd semester class got caught cheating"

But you later go on to say:

"I guess they couldnt [sic] catch the few students who were cheating"

Perhaps what you meant to say is that some among the second semester class were suspected of cheating. As a matter of fact there was insufficient evidence to prove that anyone cheated.

I would hope that the administration would not be so immature as to punish an entire class for the alleged sins of a few. So far, that doesn't seem to be the case....thank goodness. The block 4 histology test was extremely hard and the majority of the class failed, but the block 5 test yielded the highest class average of the semester.The level of difficulty in anatomy remained unchanged and in fact many did extremely well on the final exams.

Have the profs decided to make semester 2 much harder? I guess we'll find out soon enough :D

[tpw2k]

cheating is taken very seriously here. Anyone caught will get kicked out. Just dont do it.

I think its unfair to punish the whole class but thats what happened (66% class average on that exam that teacher suspected cheating occurred).
And now the upcoming class has like a 32% cumulative final for histology and the presentation 4% now (which helps failing ppl pass) which I think is absurd.

Just look at it as another hurdle that you have to cross and you'll be fine. Hope the 2nd semester profs treat current 2nd's well. They did great for us :)

Study hard, and let the system weed out the cheaters cuz in the end it will be the USMLE that separates the people that worked hard and the people that cheated.

[Reggie_Mantle]

This has gotta be one of the most un-productive posts I've seen yet on ValueMD.

1) You shouldn't cheat (period), the reasons should be very clear. USMLE / Morals / etc etc etc and NOT because of the punishments that could come from it.
2) Why post something that now labels a 'semester' as cheaters, even though there was NOT any evidence nor was there any accusations of it.
3) A post like this would only degrade SUSOM in the eyes of the medical community and nothing positive would come out of it.

Please, "Margie" next time, think through before you post an un-productive message, that has no bases and an obvious meaning.

[darkmansaad]

i hate the yankees and to agree with a post by a user named Reggie Mantle it would take the post making 100% complete sense which it does

future posts that will possibly be as bad as this one

Procrastinators beware....

Lazy People beware....

People who expect do to no work and pass beware.....


and the hits keep on coming

[PHARMDMD]

Reggie Mantle made a good point!! We already have hurdle to jump being an IMG..thus, post like this does not help!!!

[Mike77]

This has gotta be one of the most ridiculous posts I've seen yet on ValueMD.

1) Obviously you shouldn't cheat, the reasons should be very clear. USMLE / Morals / etc etc etc and NOT because of the punishments that could come from it.
2) Why post something that now labels a 'semester' as cheaters, even though there was NOT any evidence nor was there any accusations of it.
3) A post like this would only degrade SUSOM in the eyes of the medical community and nothing positive would come out of it.

Please, "Margie" next time, think before you post a ridiculous message that has no bases, has an obvious meaning and down right pointless.

I read that only people that were accepted for this May semester cheat, due to the unique environemental circumstances faced by this cohort. I heard it had something to do with a combination of global warming, a high pressure front from the North, and the NY Giants winning the superbowl. All other semesters don't cheat, because the previously stated conditions weren't met.

Sarcasm over, I agree completely. I don't give ashit if a couple people cheat in my class, cuz it won't affect me at all. I'll only care if like 10+% are cheating, because then it might cause the administration to make the exams tougher,thus causing potential USMLE passers to possibly fail. Cheating will always occur, but it is an exrtemely short term solution. Unless 2/3rds of the kids are cheating, causing good students to not write the USMLE due to a higher bell curve, then who gives a crap? (this could never actually occur-- realistically)

[Margie]

''Obviously you shouldn't cheat, the reasons should be very clear. USMLE / Morals / etc etc etc and NOT because of the punishments that could come from it.''<--DUH...I was saying that regardless of whether the people cheated or not the fact of punishing an entire class for it is bogus. From what I stated, obviously no one WAS caught and I really don't care whether people were cheating or not, but the way the school dealt with the situation was a bit unsettling. Im not "labeling a semester as cheaters". This little incident was just a very popular topic with the students there and it was brought up to me on quite a few occasions by the current students without me mentioning it at all (The only reason I even knew about it was beacause the students obviously thought it was important for me to know about it)! I don't mean to degrade SUSOM at all but I do wish to make any discrepencies common knowledge so that other prospective students who didn't have the opportunity to visit the campus and ask questions/observe first hand can go into this with as much knowledge as possible before they make their final decision on a school. My sole purpose of visiting Saba was to see what it was like first hand, and I did like a lot of things about the campus---but as with every school there are goods and bads and I just want to make both sides know. I didn't mean to cause anyone anger from my post, so I apologize if I did...I can see that MANY people are sensitive about this subject and very defensive, so again sorry.....Just wanted to discuss the issue and put it out there....but hey...being the "worst post on value MD" is kind of a big deal :) haha..now I just gotta put it up on SDN I guess...LOL :D

[covarubious]

No need to explain. Your intent was pretty clear. Some people just need to chill while others enjoy manufacturing drama. Thanks for the scoop on campus life! Next time post pics ;)

''Obviously you shouldn't cheat, the reasons should be very clear. USMLE / Morals / etc etc etc and NOT because of the punishments that could come from it.''<--DUH...I was saying that regardless of whether the people cheated or not the fact of punishing an entire class for it is bogus. From what I stated, obviously no one WAS caught and I really don't care whether people were cheating or not, but the way the school dealt with the situation was a bit unsettling. Im not "labeling a semester as cheaters". This little incident was just a very popular topic with the students there and it was brought up to me on quite a few occasions by the current students without me mentioning it at all (The only reason I even knew about it was beacause the students obviously thought it was important for me to know about it)! I don't mean to degrade SUSOM at all but I do wish to make any discrepencies common knowledge so that other prospective students who didn't have the opportunity to visit the campus and ask questions/observe first hand can go into this with as much knowledge as possible before they make their final decision on a school. My sole purpose of visiting Saba was to see what it was like first hand, and I did like a lot of things about the campus---but as with every school there are goods and bads and I just want to make both sides know. I didn't mean to cause anyone anger from my post, so I apologize if I did...I can see that MANY people are sensitive about this subject and very defensive, so again sorry.....Just wanted to discuss the issue and put it out there....but hey...being the "worst post on value MD" is kind of a big deal :) haha..now I just gotta put it up on SDN I guess...LOL :D

[Margie]

i hate the yankees and to agree with a post by a user named Reggie Mantle it would take the post making 100% complete sense which it does


Rude, immature and unnecessary.

[AZcopperJim]

BNC invasion is approaching

[Mike77]

dont worry margie,pre-med and med students are notorisuly anal :D. You'd hope that this rate would go down for med students, but the anal ones tend to suceed the most! :p

One guy even flipped out on me when I asked how important was the attendance rule ;).

I remember learning in psychology that hypochondriasis is nicknamed 'med student syndrome' for pretty straightforward reasons. I think there should be a med student personality disorder: A combination of narcasistic personality disorder and a type A personality :).

O psychology, I will miss you!

'don't worry, be happy'

[Margie]

Haha yeah I notice a lot of freaking out on this forum...now I see the explanation ;)

[Mike77]

Haha yeah I notice a lot of freaking out on this forum...now I see the explanation ;)

Yea, as sad as it sounds, the personality of the typical pre-med students that I met were what made me doubt a career in medicine for the longest time. I figured there's no way in hell i'd be able to get along with all these people, and even worse, I feared that I would become like them ;).

It took me a smack in the head to realize that the only way to do something about it would be to apply myself. I mean, chances are that my med school spot would be replaced by someone, who statisticly would be more likely to be anal and narcasistic than me :p. By applying, I prevented this imaginery asshole from becoming a doctor! :D

[darkmansaad]

you must be a yankee fan, i was saying that for effect. if you get past my immature statements there's valid points that make lots of sense. However the best way to get my point to people that are semi intelligent is to disguise them as stupidity so that med school herbs get upset instead of figuring out what im saying

[wolfvgang22]

Thanks again for your insights, particularly the original post. Let us move on to other threads, or to the relaxing lounge for further discussion of sports and student psychology.