Commuter

Issue date: 2/3/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Jared Silfies NCC students Emil Ramsingh and Matt Fuchs study calculus in the Learning Center on the third floor of College Center

Students using NCC's Learning Center include some who are struggling academically, some who are succeeding, and some who are just plain cheating.

The Learning Center is stocked full of tutors and resources to aid students' quest for knowledge as they fulfill their degree requirements, but some choose to exploit these services, say those in a position to know.

The lengths some students will go to in order to get the grade are disappointing, said Jonathan Perry, a math, computer science, and physics tutor.

Math tutor Craig Wolfe said students hand-write take-home test questions and attempt to pass them off as homework assignments "all the time."

One of these students treated Wolfe like the maitre d' of an exclusive restaurant by trying to slip him $50 to answer his test questions.

"They go to college just to get a degree," Wolfe said, referring to students who resort to bribery. "Heaven forbid they actually learn something along the way."

A few students have tried to outsmart Learning Center tutors by bringing their take-home tests to the tutoring centers of nearby colleges, such as Penn State or Lehigh Carbon Community College. These attempts have also failed, because "we know people," Wolfe said.

When these students aren't busy trying bribery or seeking help from other schools, they're soliciting assistance from tutors via text message and in hallways.

A student took a bathroom break during a test, brought a question with him, and tried to get it solved when he "cornered me in the stairwell," Wolfe recalled.

In another instance, Wolfe said, he received text messages containing pictures of test questions.

When it's too late for students to compensate for weeks of laziness and the semester comes to a close, "the smell of desperation and failure is in the air," he said. "Everyone is trying to scam, lie, and cheat their way to a higher grade at the end of it."

If tutors tried to write down the name of every person who tried dishonesty to get the grade, it would be a "non-stop effort," Wolfe said.

Continued...

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