If I were a whistle blower...

[Calligirl]

I'd blow this kid out of the water. But I'm not and I'm trying to mind my own business so I'll just grit my teeth and take the degree I'm handed and smile when he's handed his...

I wasn't a part in this particular assignment, thank God. The assignment in studio graphics: Take a photo and turn it into a movie poster. As in layout, you know, think of a concept and develop it? Obviously, I misunderstood. Mr. Whiz jumps on the computer an hour before assignment is due and finds a website (gasp!) that has templates for making movie posters and wa la...kid gets A for the class.

Meanwhile, Mr.-Older-and-not-so-good-on-the-computer has been coming in for a week to figure out how to do Illustrator so he can take his pics and form them into something reasonable. He got a B for all the effort.

This is the same whiz kid that grabbed a bunch of photos off the Net to design the CD cover which was chosen before mine was even turned in. I'm still wondering what's gonna happen when that thing goes retail...

Would there ever be payback for this kid? Makes me cynical about working so hard for my degree now.

[hewligan]

When I did my GD course, there was one guy who paid a friend of his to do his assignment. Everyone, including the tutor knew he did this, but there really wasn't any sufficient grounds to actually accuse him.

The thing is though, while he was getting good grades for those assignments - certainly better than most of the rest of us - we were, by actually doing the assignments properly, learning.

By the end of the course, we got to assignments which, for a variety of reasons, would have been really hard to cheat on. Those of us who'd done the assignments - who'd actually learnt something - well, I can hardly say it was easy, but we could do the work, and do it well. He was lost.

Now, that's not necessarily the way it'll always work out, but at the end of the day, he's not learning anything from taking the easy way out on these assignments. Pieces of paper like degrees are nice and all (I certainly have enough of them :) ), and they certainly have their value, but learning real skills is ultimately more useful.

[morea]

karma... what goes around, comes around. Hang in there Calligirl. In the real world, slacking doesn't get you ahead. Keep at it. What you put into it can definitely be what you get out of it. Don't let people like this get you down!

[budafist]

You could always anonymously send a note to the tutor of the web template - if you recognise it.

But karma will get this guy. Don't worry, I'm sure of it.

[Calligirl]

I'd like to think the instructor is not totally stupid and can recognize what's going on. I heard her question him on the fonts he used and he stumbled and muttered something. Also, anyone who wants to know where he got it from can just look at the computer and see what websites have been visited so there's no hiding it, really.

The irony is that he's trying to get his degree in Art Education so he can teach!

[budafist]

Good god! Hopefully he doesn't teach his students his bad habits.

The upside is that he won't be working as a designer then...

[Gromit801]

Don't worry about him, Whiz Kid will get whacked in the real world. He may get a job based on his school portfolio, but he won't be able to keep it very long.

[Red Kittie Kat]

Liars and cheats get caught up with eventually ... some don't, but most do. It will become apparent at some point and time that he doesn't know what he is doing.

[mac.FINN]

Something similar happened when I was in school.

Our assignment was to design a book cover, one of my classmate's submissions was the poster for the movie version of the book in an almost identical reproduction. Which she then claimed as her own.
Teacher loved it and even put it up in the display case in the hallway.
Another classmate found a copy of the poster and stuck it to the wall right beside the "original" book cover. The next day the poster and the book cover were removed. :D

The following year the exact same thing happened with another student and a logo submission.

So you've got to be wary of bitter design students. They'll rat you out if you try to cheat.

[budafist]

When I was at design school, one of the "popular" girls (how the hell do they have popular people at uni? I thought that reserved for high school only) would leave it until the absolute last moment - a hour before deadline before starting her work. By then she had seen everyone else's ideas and just borrowed the same pics they were using. At uni, we had a design server where everyone had their own folders. Unfortunately, these could be accessed by anyone.

[undressedmonster]

The irony is that he's trying to get his degree in Art Education so he can teach!

Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.

That's what my professor, a former student of Josef Albers, told us often.

[Exodus]

Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.

That's what my professor, a former student of Josef Albers, told us often.

...and those who can't teach, teach gym class.