.NET Ramblings - Brian Noyes' Blog - Do my project for me

Friday, February 20, 2004

OK, so I just don't get this, but it happens all the time...

In other countries, is it acceptable to walk up to a total stranger and demand that they devote significant amounts of their time to perform some task to make your life easier?

Maybe it is just a language barrier thing, but because of my email being all over the place in my article bios, I frequently get emails like the one I got yesterday. This one basically read something like this (shortened considerably):

Hi, i need to do a project for a class. Here is the project assignment:
...
I need your help to proceed. Please tell me how you would do this project.

Now I do my best to help out any readers or people who attend my talks who write me with questions, whether they are specific to the topic or not. But these kinds of emails just drive me nuts. I want to respond and politely explain that I do not have the time to help them, but the sarcastic person in me just wants to write something like:

Can I drop everything I am doing in my life and do your work for you? Absolutely!! Why not?? It is what I live for!!

Community

Friday, February 20, 2004 1:55:41 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [2] |

Friday, March 05, 2004 8:12:31 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Brian,

I just attended one of the conferences you offered in Chicago for the company switching to .NET after doing Fox Development.

I found this an interesting observation that I shared while attending Northern Illinois in the Computer Science undergraduate. Obviously, no one single group is soley guilty of the behavior you documented, but I too found that it was often the international students in the programs that were crossing the line between sharing ideas and blatant plagarism. My thoughts were later confirmed by several of the Teaching Assistants and Professors, who added that it is the rampant sharing of entire projects amongst these groups that force the grade scales of the classes to be based nearly entirely upon testing.

I find this unfortunate as a student spends a rediculous amount of time completing complex assignments that ultimately determine 20% of thier final grades.

Justin Livesay

Saturday, March 06, 2004 1:31:36 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Hi Justin,
I enjoyed having you in the class! You seemed to grasp a lot of the more advanced topics much quicker and better than some of the "old-hands" so I'm sure you will kick butt there. Hope to see more of you in the future.

I guess maybe those college degrees are worth something if you go to a good school! :)

Brian

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