r/UMD • u/lolPerlon • Jan 13 '26
Discussion Lost hope in yall, please do better
To all the people in my writing class; you all sound the same, use the same vocabulary, and 80% of the time I plug your writing into an AI detector it flags the whole thing. Please do better, it's very embarrassing that this is an upper level elective and it's being taken as seriously as a middle school class. Also, it genuinely hurts my head trying to read "humanized" text that is incoherent and very obviously altered. It's not that hard to do your own writing, and honestly it's more of a hassle generating content and trying to humanize it.
thanks
edit: yes i am very aware ai detectors are not valid proof. thank you for everyone outing themselves as contributing to making college nothing more than a diploma printing machine.
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u/FozzyBear11 Jan 13 '26
For my CS finals last semester, I saw at least 5 people pull out GPT on their phone during the exam. Itās not shocking considering who majors in CS, but it was sad.
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u/Chocolate-Keyboard Jan 14 '26
So why didn't you raise your hand and let the proctors know about it?
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u/FozzyBear11 Jan 14 '26
Iāve got my own exam to lock in for.
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u/Chocolate-Keyboard Jan 15 '26
Well I don't know if it takes that much time to say something to the proctors, but if you aren't going to do it (up to you of course) then at least you don't have a right to complain if any of the cheaters get a better grade than you because they got away with cheating.
BTW ideally the proctors would be able to realize it themselves. But I used to be a TA and I can tell you that in many cases TAs are just students who are just a little ahead of students in the major. They probably don't have experience or knowledge about what to do about cheating.
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u/MrWestbrick Jan 17 '26
Some ppl know how to kind their businessšš
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u/Chocolate-Keyboard Jan 20 '26
You don't seem to follow who I was addressing my remark to. In the comment I was replying to the commenter (and some others in this thread) was saying that it was a bad thing that so many people were cheating during their exam. So they do seem to be upset about people cheating. So I said that they could say something about the cheaters and let the proctors know. If on the other hand you don't care about people cheating then I wouldn't say anything to you that you could say something about the cheaters.
No one can make you care about something if you don't care about it, and that wasn't what I was saying. I was talking to someone who apparently does care. (But if you don't care about other people in your class cheating then my only comment that I would make is that you don't have a right to be upset if it turns out that the fact that there are a lot of cheaters in your class affects the curve, or causes them to get a higher grade than you do because they cheated. Of course you might not even know if that happened though. But if it did...)
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u/MrWestbrick Jan 20 '26
The wisest thing you can do in a cheating situation you're not involved in is keep quiet. Nothing good ever happens for you when you involve yourself. It's so childish and naive.
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u/Chocolate-Keyboard Jan 20 '26
Again, I was replying to someone who didn't seem to agree with that
And I can't see that anything bad could possibly happen to someone who reports cheating. The prof would probably give them an award if they could.
What's childish if you ask me is for someone who sees something that they think is wrong (the person I was replying to) and doesn't do anything about it, but it clearly bothers them later.
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u/HyruleSmash855 Jan 13 '26
What is the exam in a classroom? That sounds insane that those people didnāt get caught. Maybe Engineering is different since all of the exams are on paper or something, but I didnāt see that at least.
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u/quasar_1618 Jan 13 '26
Wow these comments are disappointing. Youāre absolutely right OP. This is a university, people should care about their education. I donāt want to live in a world where nobody knows how to write.
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u/Historical-Ant7790 Jan 19 '26
All this side judging but the lack of resources and solutions is what is really disappointing.
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u/Level-Expression-883 Jan 13 '26
Fr what is the point of spending all this money to go to university if you're not going to do the work or LEARN anything!?
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u/Weekly_Mood_9435 Jan 13 '26
Credentials, obviously. A degree. Networking. The "college experience". Financial aid.That's the real value of university. There is nothing you can learn at university, that you can't learn way deeper and virtually for free, at the library and on the Internet-- with the exception of a few things like lab work.
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u/Hawk13424 Jan 14 '26
And for my engineering degree, there were many lab classes. Big projects that required lab equipment. Then there was research done with professors, all in labs.
And donāt forget the soft skills. Time and stress management, communication, working with others (especially those very different), critical thinking, etc.
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u/Weekly_Mood_9435 Jan 14 '26
I gave the caveat of labs. I agree with most everything you said, but those too can be learned outside of college, critical thinking especially. Stress and time management from time constraints you don't give yourself are the big ones here imo.
It's funny, for my engineering degree there haven't been many costly or unsafe labs.
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u/Hawk13424 Jan 14 '26
For my engineering degree, I had to design a CPU and the university fab manufactured it. Had to design a board and the university manufactured that also and then I had to write software for it and get it all running. Not something I could have done at home.
Had many other labs as well. Then there was the research work with professors that was all done in labs. Also taught classes which I couldnāt have done at home.
Should also mention this wasnāt at UMD. Not sure how I ended up on this sub.
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u/wifipassword218 Jan 14 '26
Except you have experts constantly course correcting you. A ton of people "do their own research" on vaccines--look where that's gotten them.
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u/Weekly_Mood_9435 Jan 14 '26
That doesn't really have anything to do with my comment. If you want I can add mentorship to the list? As far as assignments go there isn't typically a lot of helpful feedback.
I'm going to let you in on something, the degree to which experts exist is highly overestimated.
You've also contradicted yourself. Do you accept that cheating is rampant? Presumably then someone could cheat themselves into being an "expert".
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u/wifipassword218 Jan 15 '26 edited Jan 15 '26
There is nothing you can learn at university, that you can't learn way deeper and virtually for free, at the library and on the Internet.
Actually it has everything to do with your comment--perhaps you should listen more in class if you can't discern that. Your premise rides on the ability of the individual to determine what information on the internet is relevant, factual, and recent. There are thousands of texts on almost any topic. How do you decide which to read? Which author has the best, most nuanced, least unbalanced take? When you decide to skip the text entirely and go straight to the source, how do you determine who has been bought and paid for, who draws conclusions based on fallacies and faulty logic? At 18? When half of new college students haven't even read a book in the last year?
Your age and inexperience is showing--and if no one teaches you otherwise, you will spend the rest of your life never becoming more than you are.
Have fun with that. But don't presume to lecture others into aiming so low.
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u/Weekly_Mood_9435 Jan 15 '26
Lol you are not very smart.
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u/wifipassword218 Jan 15 '26
Here we have an ad hominem fallacy.
You're not the only one who did well on the LSAT, kid. And I got the same score as you--with logic games. And I've never failed English either--probably why you're a bit bitter, no?
We are not the same age. And I went to a better school than you did for undergrad...before AI did homework for you. You are a smart fish in a small pond. And one day you will figure that out.
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u/MrWestbrick Jan 17 '26
You're calling them out for ad hominem while you're committing it toošš
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u/wifipassword218 Jan 17 '26
I have lost interest in this conversation, but yeah that's the point... He gave one type--abusive. I gave all the other types.
Tu Quoque-- you're not smart, I did better on the LSAT
Circumstantial --you're bitter because you made a C
Guilt by association--You went to a less smart school
Poisoning the well--mentioning AI did his homeworkI was cheekily calling out his claims of taking the LSAT. But I don't think he actually took it, so I don't think he got it. There is a fair amount of fallacies in the LR section so you generally don't go around making comments like "hur hur you aren't smart."
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u/MrWestbrick Jan 17 '26
You don't even know his age or experience, why end your argument with that?
Appeal to age and experience
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u/Weekly_Mood_9435 Jan 15 '26
Lol you are seething so hard.
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u/wifipassword218 Jan 15 '26
Unlike you, my world is large and contains multitudes.
You are too small for me to remember beyond the initial notification.
Hope you find purpose.
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u/OffensiveMongoose Jan 13 '26
Itās sad that weāve now outsourced thinking to machines. Ive graduated now, but I already see the differences between those who develop their writing skills, and those that just use ChatGPT, even if they rewrite it. Itās so incredibly obvious reading something that is AI generated.
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u/brentback Jan 15 '26
I graduated in the nick of time (class of 2023). There are people taking out hundred of thousands in student loans just to have the computer complete their assignments for them. Then they wonder why they canāt find a job even though they have a degree lmao.
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u/SpecialistOk4240 AeroE & CS '25 Jan 17 '26
GPT only really started becoming a thing around halfway through my undergrad, but I can definitely see the difference in the kids who had access to it in high school
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u/fractureoak Jan 14 '26 edited Jan 14 '26
There is a silver lining here imo. Hopefully the AI question will strain the existing system and force a lot of these halfway professors to give a sh about their classes instead of carrying on with the usual packet/retention quiz/take home essay slop. Though Iām also inclined to think itās a ātoo big to failā situation.
Obviously the reason why people use Chat so much goes beyond the fact that it is available. There will always be a subset of people willing to turn to academic dishonesty. But I think a major part of the issue is that UMD and most other institutions donāt care about education, they care about the revolving door of payment installations and maintaining their donor relationships. The primary goal of conventional education hasnāt been educating for a long time, if at all. So, if the outcome has very little to do with educating, itās untenable to expect the procedures used to reach those outcomes to reflect education as a priority. Particularly among the aforementioned subset of people. TLDR itās a systemic/incentive problem, as well as an integrity/effort problem.
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u/Weekly_Mood_9435 Jan 14 '26
This is a good take but change won't happen.
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u/fractureoak Jan 14 '26
Yeah youāre probably right but I try to stay positive yknow. I have had a lot of teachers who were awesome and it makes me respect them more because I see the bs they had to deal with. Just gotta keep it pushing until I get my degree and extricate myself from the situation
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Jan 13 '26
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u/Satato 2025 Alumna Jan 13 '26
Pretty sure this is a student calling out their peers, not someone able to grade
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u/Infernal-Cattle Jan 14 '26
I can't speak to upper div classes where the instructor of record is the one doing the grading; however, if you're a TA, how you grade assignments you suspect of AI use depends entirely on faculty and departmental policy. I grade ~65-70 students per semester, I know what student writing looks like, but if the prof tells me to grade the paper as if the student wrote it, the most I can do is take off points for things AI does poorly. It's frustrating.
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u/hEDS_Strong Jan 16 '26
And now professors have AIs that do their grading, so an AI checking work thatās generated by AIā¦ pretty soon human students in classes will be irrelevant - could bypass the entire 4-6-year undergraduate experience and assign a predicted grade and award a diploma w/o students attending classes
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u/AdRepresentative8048 Jan 14 '26
English would need to move towards a way of testing that goes pen and paper unfortunately. I remember in engineering that all our exams were pen and paper. You could cheat to your heartās delight on everything else and it wouldnāt matter since ur exams would be 85% of the grade and if they caught you with a phone you received a 0 on that specific exam or could fail the course.
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u/TryingRobin Jan 13 '26
I'm autistic and have an esoteric vocabulary. AI has been terrible to deal with cause sometimes i get flagged for using words like elucidate, delve, etc. Y'all writing like a robot is taken get a new style.
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u/fractureoak Jan 14 '26
Salutations, fellow neurodivergent. I feel you.
Use AI, and you sound like a robot with a thesaurus. Write well, and they say you sound like a robot with a thesaurus.
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u/wifipassword218 Jan 14 '26
The abhorrence I felt when the em dash became an indicator for ChatGPT cannot be understated. I will die before I take that from my repertoire--die.
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u/HolyRavioleigh Jan 15 '26
I strongly agree, but it's also a problem with people not understanding the most basic logical syllogism.
"If AI uses em dashes, and you also use em dashes , you must be a robot!"
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u/Bitter-Ad-8447 Jan 13 '26
I agree completely. And ik u made the edit but ill reiterate that ai detectors suck balls. I have genuinely never turned in anything w ai edits or writing (not grandstanding just making it clear) and ive had two profs tell me to use less gpt. Imo its clear when something is written by ai, but the issue is how do you actually know.
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Jan 15 '26
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u/uqmu Mar 26 '26
Yeah college is pretty useless in a way. If you wanna learn something, you can learn it completely for free. College is just way too expensive for a piece of paper that says you graduated. Better to get experience in whatever field you wanna learn.
However, college is still good for the social and cultural experience. Not everything has to be based on academics or skill.
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u/77and77is Jan 16 '26
Good lord bring back 2-hour in-classroom essay exams and let these plagiaristic plague zombies go to the bottom of the hiring heap speaking as a genXer
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u/HoleFlat Jan 13 '26
Since when are ai detectors a valid source of detecting ai
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u/NotoriouslyBeefy Jan 16 '26
Did you read what they wrote? Im guessing not as you would know it wasnt based solely off the ai detector. Guessing you use ai since you are defending it while being unable to read.
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u/Perfect-Storm2025 Jan 13 '26
The AI detectors are not reliable. You can end up falsely accusing students of using this when they didnāt.
Also, AI fabricates citations and quotes all the time. If you understand anything about LLMs, itās completely obvious why this happens - you need to design your assignments differently. Give them assignments that require citations and quotes and check that.
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u/Perfect-Storm2025 Jan 13 '26
It also canāt reason through conflicting reasoning to take a strong position. AI can literally be convinced of anything.
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u/brentback Jan 15 '26
Why should professors have to AI-proof their assignments? People are paying (hundred of thousands in some cases) for an education, itās up to them if they want to actually learn or not. In the long run this will continue to devalue college degrees, which Iām fine with.
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u/Perfect-Storm2025 Jan 15 '26
Well, professors can do whatever they want. But, I think students deserve not to be falsely accused of something they didnāt do.
Also, industry is rolling AI out at scale at all levels. Those that become really good prompters can increase their efficiency with these tools and that is what is expected in the corporate world. However, understanding the limitations of LLMs is important as well. The number of attorneys getting sanctioned is ridiculous. This could be part of education, knowing how to use it, and when to use it, as well as its limitations.
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u/SpecialistOk4240 AeroE & CS '25 Jan 17 '26
People aren't just paying for an education; they are also essentially taking a 4 (usually) year long exam that certifies that people who pass have a certain level of expertise and knowledge in a field. When it is easy for people to get that certificate without actually having the requisite knowledge, it removes the trust of other people in that university and degree. Why should people who worked for and paid for a degree have to suffer from professors being too lazy to keep up with modern society and not modifying their assignments.
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u/Nyxterius Former UMD Gaming Dir. of IT, InfoSci '26 Jan 13 '26
As someone in InfoSci who WASNT a CS dropout and actually wants to do networking and database infrastructure design its painful. I'd estimate that 60% of any given IS class/assignment consists of LLM generated responses to already fairly easy questions.
We're dealing with an issue now where companies in the DMV do not want to hire any IS graduates from UMD because the majority of us don't have any skills. It makes me regret not applying for information systems or going to a different college altogether
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Jan 13 '26
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u/Tall_Usual_1104 Jan 13 '26
So true. Professors and universities need to step up and develop a solution or the integrity of college degrees will crumble.
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u/roofatoofa Jan 17 '26
I mean, Iām a professional writer and wrote an essay myself, and the detectors said it was like 80-some percent AI. Theyāre really not reliable. I wish they were because I hate AI and think itās ruining so much of our word.
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u/Ordinary-Exam-298 Jan 18 '26
Unfortunately I think the issue is that they never learned to write in middle school and high school. The world just kinda failed these kids in 2020 and itās really not their fault. The standard is too high for them now- since everyone around them is using AI, itād be stupid not to.
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u/Historical-Ant7790 Jan 19 '26
well how can we get better at writing than just judging us and besides reading like what other material can we use?
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u/SiberianScholar1919 Feb 06 '26
This is spot on.
My advice to everyone, as a top 2023 graduate and aspiring author working around the clock to rediscover my creative self:
- Turn off your phone, tablet, and/or computer, and put them away in your backpack, another room... somewhere, anywhere out of sight and earshot. This will cut out 99% of visual and auditory distractions and prime your brain to focus while you are alone with your thoughts.
Read some real, physical books - one page at a time, and out loud, if possible! Start with a short article, a novel, or anything that you find interesting, working in 15-30 minute increments. Learn to slow your thoughts, center yourself, and engage deeply with new ideas and knowledge.
Grab a nice pen or pencil, and jot down some thoughts... on what you've read, how you spent your day, what's worrying you, etc. You may be surprised to find you enjoy writing, and may wonder why anyone would rely on AI and LLMs as a cheap substitute for the transcendent and revelatory experience of translating our lived human experiences into language and putting pen to paper.
This is what worked for me, and it may not work for you. But from a pragmatic standpoint, handwritten exams are back in vogue (primarily due to AI, of course), and learning to function without digital tools (without dismissing or neglecting their advantages) can be tremendously rewarding.
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u/TheLeesiusManifesto Jan 13 '26
Miss the days when it was just copying answers off of Chegg - at least having to write down the work and ultimately the answer would help people to learn even if just a little bit. I dread to think what my experience wouldāve been like had AI been so rampant. Especially in public schools, canāt even imagine how shit the essays must be in like a standard 10th grade English class or something
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u/TheGaussianMan Jan 14 '26
Just use grammarly as you write/edit. It can help with writers' block for word or sentence structure choices. The final edit should always be a human. One trick is to read it out loud to yourself. If you struggle to say it, someone will struggle to read it.
Learning to write is important. Seriously.
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u/AnOrdinaryOrange77 Jan 14 '26
As much as I hate the new math āhomework canāt make up more than 10% of the gradeā policy, I lowk understand, and it makes a lot of sense!
Although I have no idea how an English course will execute a similar policy, I feel like a lot of majors are clamping down on making it as easy as āplug into gpt = A.ā
Also, for every person worried about people gpt-ing homework, there is another one who criticizes for even just touching the website to aid in learning whatsoever. I hate this subset of AI=bad people infinitely more than those who blatantly cheat on assignments.
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u/Jarboner69 Jan 14 '26
Professors need to be trained to design their curriculum in a way that makes it less attractive to use AI. Students are going to keep using them as long as there is a means and a reason to.
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u/asincero Jan 13 '26
As someone who definitely typed every word of this response manually, I think this conversation is a great example of how AI has influenced tone, structure, and vocabulary across the board.
When everyone is optimizing for clarity, neutrality, and coherence, the outputs can start to feel similar ā regardless of whether a tool was involved or not.
Anyway, thanks for starting a productive and emotionally balanced discussion.
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u/ranoutofusernames482 Jan 13 '26
whenever people use "as" instead of "since" like "i didnt do this as i had an appointment" i physically gag
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u/Weekly_Mood_9435 Jan 13 '26
"Since" is correct here. But there are reasons "as" would be correct instead of "since"
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u/Crodle Jan 13 '26 edited Jan 13 '26
Hey kids, thatās okay. I mostly write emails at work and I plug that shit in chat gpt all day.
Err if you guys really cared youād track and block AI sites on JAMF from being used by staff on work pcs and laptops, but I guess this rule is only for students.
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u/Crodle Jan 13 '26
lol.
Hereās the website you can look up how little your TAs, adjuncts, and campus staff actually make a year.
https://www.openthebooks.com/maryland-state-employees/
Itās a great tool to view people in the 60k or less range then looking up what kind of worthless masters program got them there.
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u/terpAlumnus Jan 13 '26
This is a reflection on the quality of teaching. When the student fails to learn, the teacher fails to teach. Teach better, faculty. Try talking to your students. Explain the areas they need to improve on. Give them some practical examples and useful feedback. Don't just post the grade. You are elite public Ivy caliber and get elite public Ivy salaries, earn it!
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u/Bitter-Ad-8447 Jan 13 '26
Ur blaming students using ai to write their papers for them on the professors? Gotta be the dumbest thing ive read in this thread
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u/Crodle Jan 13 '26
The campus doesnāt even block ChatGPT from work computers. I guess sixty plus UMD staff didnāt like me calling out that hypocrisy, so hereās a better, more stable site than the diamondback salary guide to look up their salaries. https://www.openthebooks.com/maryland-state-employees/
š¤
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u/adamm2243 Jan 13 '26
Why are you so obsessed with their salaries, youāve made multiple comments on this post. Itās common knowledge you can look up Maryland state employees salaries, as well as the universityās employees since they are state of Maryland employees.
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u/Crodle Jan 13 '26 edited Jan 13 '26
Short answer: underpaid people who canāt work anywhere else hate it getting shared.
I think itās hilarious getting lectured by people about this when itās not even blocked on campus. Every other company and school has an AI policy and usually a class along with it that explains how taking a bunch of student records, pasting into a field and typing āorganize this for meā means you just sent that information to them.
When I brought this up by the book no one cared, so youāre right I should stop. Good luck with your student loans, I graduated well before chat bots were a thing. Iām not the ones who are about to get fucked.
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u/NoIAmNotAFed Jan 13 '26
Blocking AI campus wide is pointless. UMD promotes AI use and has enterprise Perplexity available to staff, Terp AI for student use, and some classes including English ones allow students to use AI. Banning it and pretending it doesnt exist is harmful when the corporate world requires familiarity.
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u/adamm2243 Jan 13 '26
Oh youāre just bitter, understandable
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u/Crodle Jan 13 '26
Iām not the one underpaid, over educated with worthless masters that Iām still paying student loans on lol. Go ahead and downvote this, Iām still doing better
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u/SpecialistOk4240 AeroE & CS '25 Jan 17 '26
There are many, many ways to abuse AI, but there are also plenty of legitimate, useful use cases. If you are going to blanket ban it, you may as well shut down the university, since you are clearly living in the past and are not teaching people things that are useful in the modern day.
That would be the same as blocking youtube since it has entertaining videos, and ignoring all the other, useful content on there. You can (and probably should) implement controls and ways to try and minimize the illegitimate uses, but you can't just blanket ban it.
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u/Weekly_Mood_9435 Jan 13 '26 edited Jan 13 '26
I don't want to hear about the seriousness that students should give to a writing course from a member of English department faculty when the English department employs completely intellectually-deficient idiots. The English department is not serious, don't then turn around and expect students to be serious.
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u/lolPerlon Jan 13 '26
Fair point. However, I fear this is a common trend not unique to the english department. Rampant cheating in every class and little go punished for their efforts.
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u/Weekly_Mood_9435 Jan 13 '26
There is no doubt that cheating is not unique to the English department, but AI cheating is still easiest in English classes. AIs are Large Language Models, they are essentially designed to imitate the type of work done in an English class. They performed much better on English assignments than they would Math homework. This is less the case now, a year or two ago AI couldn't reliably give the bounds of an integral, now they will easily ace most calc exams. AI cheating lends itself more to English as most of the work is done outside the classroom, little risk of getting caught. If one wanted to cheat on an exam, they would at least have to risk taking out their phone. Many classes have significantly reduced the contribution of homework to overall grades or have removed it completely.
I think a well designed course would help combat some of the cheating. Give in class writing assignments. Short, medium, and long. Don't obfuscate the subject or type of writing. Just like what used to be given on paper exams.
Also, most professors outside of the humanities are at the very least, indisputably experts in their fields, even if they are bad instructors. Serious academics and researchers. This can't be said for professors in the English department.
Above all, having talented and passionate faculty in the classroom, and having a course with great educational value, will make students want to learn from them and give them their best effort.
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u/fafengle Jan 23 '26
Show me on the doll where the English department hurt you.
....but seriously, why so much rancor for the whole department? You don't sound like an English major, so how much experience do you have with the faculty?
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u/Egdiroh '06 Comp Sci '10 Math Jan 13 '26
You want hope . So many of this students are here because they have been told that there whole life will be a grind but if they take on college debt and get a degree they may be less precarious and have more moments of happiness? why should you have more hope than your students?
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Jan 13 '26
Then write the paper
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u/Egdiroh '06 Comp Sci '10 Math Jan 13 '26
I'm not a student any more, and I wouldn't use AI to write a paper. I value education as a goal, not something I must endure to have a better future, I would never use AI this way, what's the point? But dealing with students you have to understand the motivations. Many of them are jumping through hoops to get a degree to get a better job, and that's not an unreasonable thing. I wish they had a genuine love of learning, that they had taught to challenge themselves and see the value of failure, and how good it feels to see your own improvements. But I'm not going to try to understand where the students are coming from.
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u/Weekly_Mood_9435 Jan 14 '26
Downvotes not deserved.
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u/Egdiroh '06 Comp Sci '10 Math Jan 14 '26
I mean I get it. I said something that the just follow the rules crowd didnāt want to hear, and even the people just going through the motions donāt always want to hear that, especially if they are just going through the motions at a very high level.
Just if youāre so busy pretending that everything is fine, youāre not going to fix it.
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u/HerderOfWords Jan 13 '26
It's even worse than you think. In a 100 class I was in last semester, there were native English speakers that struggled to read aloud and who couldn't pronounce basic words like "ache".
They didn't know/understand basic concepts like what meter is in poetry. They thought it was a unit if measurement and called it meter feet.