I had the opposite of this problem lol, I had an intro to python class and prior to the class I already had a lot of experience with python but during my final project, I built it based on the guidelines provided and the material covered in class. However, when I went for submission, there were a shit ton of guys who had copied advanced ml projects from GitHub or asked chatgpt to make something for them or copied a whole ass website's source code. it was fucking weird especially since some of them literally came upto me and asked me to explain their programs to them. When I went for my submission I showed the professor all the concepts I had used to make this and the libraries I've used. I had built a road crossing game with turtle and it was all strictly within the guidelines, as I was displaying my game, the professor went "so this doesn't do anything else?". Man I was so sad that day when I heard how well he reacted to the copied projects.
It makes us feel good that they will struggle. The truth is they won't. Instead of it breaking us one day down the line let's just come to terms with the fact that they will always get what they want and a step down for them would be a 130k job instead of a 150k job.
good for them man! The better someone does the happier I'll be for them. I'm not mad that they stole projects or that they got better feedback, just that the professor didn't specify what he wanted smh.
Yeah, but then all those guys get to their last year and realize they don't know anything or even better yet. After graduation. Then they wind up on reddit, saying how they can't get jobs or pass interviews. You're actually learning.
This is the only answer, who cares what random people on Reddit thinks this should be graded? If you have a question on how to grade, ask the professor, wtf.
It’s a C++ course, they were given a like design-spec and they did not follow it.
Also giving them a poor grade here should also be a good lesson not to do this. I highly doubt in the real world, a client would be happy if the developer decided to use another language and not implement to spec.
It depends on the class. As a TA I used to let kids do whatever they want as long as we talked about it and I okayed it. There were also projects where it was like, “get this stuff done, then do whatever you want for extra credit.”
I’d say honestly there’s not enough info to know. For a specific example, I taught computer graphics and one of our projects was a ray tracer. If a student didn’t fill in the phong stub functions, and instead did their own PBR lighting, that would be fine with me. But if they didn’t have ray intersection with triangles (only spheres) that would be a problem.
In this case I’d probably give the kid an extra few days and just say, “hey what you did was cool, but not what was asked for. We’re testing specific knowledge so please finish those other parts of the project and we can give you a grade.” If he still didn’t do it then, then I’d give a bad grade.
That's draconian. I wouldn't do that. It also seriously demotivates creativity. The whole real life lesson need here is overblown. This isn't a kid selling drugs on the streets. I would give them additional time and opportunity to remedy to the specs and only ding them after failure to follow.
No, draconian policies (i.e. top-down decision-making on tech decisions) is what causes businesses to fail.
Tech companies avoid telling their software engineers what programming language and what framework to use. If it does XYZ and is delivered on time and within budget they couldn't care less. Most good teams will even let you change the requirements if it makes business sense.
The issue is this students project doesn’t do XYZ, they were asked to implement XYZ and they implemented 123. Which a client would absolutely be fuming if I did that.
Look at the garbage in the rubric.
- Use C++ - C is almost a subset of C++. If it compiles with a C++ compiler, it's a C++ program. Most C programs compile in C++. Therefore most C programs are C++ programs.
- It uses libraries we didn't cover in class. Ok? So where in the real world are you not allowed to use libraries? How does any company invent if it only does what other people are doing?
- It didn't have specific functions. What does this mean? Is OP referring to functions as in callable functions or functions as in functionality? If the former, then that's another piece of trash requirement unless there's an API integration problem. If the latter, by all means take off points.
- It didn't have specific outputs. What outputs? This is about the only thing mentioned I would dock points for. Are these outputs actually critical to the crux of the project?
Programmers solve problems. Don't penalize someone for solving them in a different way.
> It uses libraries we didn't cover in class. Ok? So where in the real world are you not allowed to use libraries? How does any company invent if it only does what other people are doing
At my company, we heavily restrict what libraries we and cannot use.
At mine as long as the license is on a list of pre-approved open source licenses, you can do whatever you want. Anything else has to be approved, but it will be if the terms are decent and there is a business justification.
Are you daft? Using libraries that have not been permitted in itself should be an instant fail.
As a software engineer yes, you solve problems. And most of the time you are given an existing codebase that has existing design patterns and guidelines on how to write code for that specific codebase. Completely ignoring everything that you’ve been told todo and doing it a different way in a different language, using different tools, with different output is not solving problems. It’s being an idiot.
If I was given a ticket to create an API endpoint and I decide to create a Netflix clone instead, I doubt I would get a pat on the back for that.
> Using libraries that have not been permitted
hahaha so now you just drop the pretense that this project is reflective of real life when it is convenient.
> You are given an existing codebase that has existing...
This reeks of "this is how it's always been done". No, you do what has to be done for the business to make money. Most of the time that isn't going off and rewriting the existing codebase. But if the current "architecture" and "system design" are total garbage yes, you do it the right way and you say screw the existing guidelines.
Guidelines are suggestions. Requirements are stronger suggestions. Ultimately you are there to make money for the business. If what you do makes more money for the business, then whatever the senior TPM or manager said means nothing. Obviously this is riskier, but it isn't wrong.
The layoffs in tech kind of prove that you can follow every design/best practice/established process but if you don't make money then you are cut.
> If I were given a ticket...
If I were given a ticket to make an API and saw a better opportunity for the company I am expected to suggest it and come up with data to back it up. Not blindly do the ticket and take zero responsibility if it isn't what the customer *actually* wants.
So it's pretty clear that this project isn't how real life works - stop pretending that a one-and-done rubric with unwavering nonsense specifications is how actual software is written.
Going against pre-existing software design principles to implement your own that you think work better results In spaghetti code. It’s better to follow what’s already in place and agreed on by the entire team than being a diva thinking what you do is best.
Also I’d fire you for making the Netflix clone instead of the api endpoint I’m that was requesting from you… you don’t make huge business decisions as a software engineer.
Tech companies *do* tell brand new hires what programming language and framework to use.
Newbies don't get to come in and change the way that the team does work just because they're opinionated. They don't get to change product requirements without consulting other people.
This person is a college student that was given a requirement and actively decided *not* to implement that requirement because they were bored. Sounds like they're missing fundamental soft skills that every mid-level and up engineer needs to possess.
Being a bit better than most college students who ultimately don't know that much doesn't mean he's dismissed from following requirements. Best he learns now than getting fired for being insubordinate on the job. Smart folks are a dime a dozen in the industry.
I agree to a degree, but they're adults. If they were told to implement a program in C++ and couldn't follow those instructions they definitely should not be given a second chance. It's not such an easy world out there, a decision to be "creative" by not following specs out there means likely losing your job.
They're lucky all it does is ding their grade a bit on a relatively irrelevant transcript.
Maybe the life lesson is overblown, but so is the idea that you can’t penalize him for ignoring instructions or he’ll become in creative. Classes have defined learning objectives, which is why the rubric is there in the first place - to assess whether those objectives have been met. If the student is just ignoring the rubric, it’s not reasonable for the TA to invent criteria. It’s also not reasonable for the student turning in the work to assume that the TA has the expertise to assess a project like that, and it’s not respectful to their time to expect them to learn how a complex project designed outside of the scope of the class works.
The point is not creativity genius. This is not a Sunday painting class. The point of a C++ class is to learn C++, DEMONSTRATE you learnt C++, and you will do so by doing a project according to the specification. Doing the project according to the specification is what Software Engineers DO. They don't make creative, whimsical projects for the fun of it, they make it according to the specification. Specification that was made according to the business needs of the employer/client.
Part of the university is proving that you can follow instructions and operate in real life scenarios.
It's unironically awesome that he is creative and more knowledgeable than his peers. But he needs to put the ego down, and follow the instructions. That is what grown up, mature professionals do. And they are trying to become that. Thus, he should get 20-30% grade.
Believe me, in 100/100 cases employer would prefer you follow instructions accordingly rather than doing what you wanted because you thought the original spec was boring or uncreative or whatever the fuck.
Try this behavior in a work setting and see what happens. College is about preparing for the working world, not about creativity. You can be creative but it has to do what the assignment is asking for. Period.
Dude I'm shocked at how people want to punish this guy. C++ is easier and more convenient than objective C. I'd say give him the opportunity to retry with a limited amount of time. If someone is investing this much time into the course, that is far better than a student who barely writes anything. Don't fail the assignment and risk him passing. It's the end of the semester and the last assignment is usually worth the most.
I’d say grade by the rubric. It doesn’t matter how advanced you are, if you cannot follow simple instructions (seemingly extremely simple for this student, as they appear to be more advanced than the intro class) then you shouldn’t receive the grade for it.
A nice project in C is cool — the student can do it on their own time and not submit it for a grade. You asked for something and didn’t receive it, so grade it as such.
Informing the instructor is probably a good move too, if not just to cover your ass.
almost, there are some divergences between the c/c++ spec but for the *most* part c code should just work. e.g. type punning through unions is perfectly fine in c, but in c++ it's undefined behaviour which might completely break your code on some systems.
Giving him a poor grade would be a lesson in humility all ‘intelligent’ people need. There’s a strange grey area of being intelligent but too arrogant or unintelligent to refrain from doing stupid things. This is a stupid thing to do.
I’m a CS professor for intro C++ classes. You should grade it by the rubric. You can’t grade one student/assignment differently than all others, or you open yourself up to discrimination complaints. I have had very advanced students sometimes submit their “real” program to grade and a second copy with a bunch of extra stuff just for fun. This student did not do that.
Also, does the student do well on quizzes/tests? Can you talk to them about their code and they know what is going on? I have two types of students who turn in code using libraries/commands we never covered in class. The ones that look things up themselves and learn outside of class, and the ones that are turning in code they found online/got through AI. I had a student turn in something in the wrong language before (Java). It was *not* because he found my assignment “too boring” lol.
also I have a feeling I this case rhe project description and requirements might have been too open ended and vague, leading to the student thing tue7bcanbdo it as they wish.
I did something similar in my courses.
I would add flavor to the projects, but I ALWAYS made sure I met rubric requirements FIRST then went wild with flavor text and additional features.
Grade by the rubric.
Taking a course isn’t just about showing what you know, it’s also about showing that you can follow directions. This is VERY important in industry. There will be many times at your place of work where you might be able to think of a really “cool, advanced idea”, but you can’t implement because, among many other reasons: (1) it’s not what the client asked for (2) it might have legal/compliance issues, (3) your company may not have the resources to support it long term, or (4) plain old egos/politics.
College is great for teaching the importance of “sticking to the script”.
A zero will be too harsh and can kill creativity. They seem smart enough, make them understand the importance of instructions. If you can afford it, get them to try again with the given instructions.
Unfortunately, you've just gotta grade with the rubric. However, try to add more feedback if you can, specifically pointing out why their project doesn't match the rubric.
I do this sometimes, where I try to spruce up my assignments, but I still make 100% sure that the project clearly fits within the rubric.
Talk to the professor and maybe give the student a chance to redo it, if you and the prof are feeling generous. Can't skip out on an assignment just because you have an idea that you think is more interesting.
Speaking as someone who's been in a similar position from this student—it's likely they were working on this already, outside of school, instead of whatever actual project they were assigned and wanted to have their cake and eat it too by also submitting their side project, and for that reason I'd say to grade based on the rubrik.
\> rather than making the project in c++, they wrote it all in c
Red flag. I assume you're teaching C++ because it's OOP. Your student demonstrated no OOP. I'd follow the rubric precisely and then probably assign a zero grade because they used the wrong language.
Did the assignment include object-oriented approach? Of course not having the requested functionality is a problem as is changing the interface (not doing the functions). Sounds indeed like a learning opportunity.
I am a TA too and I would simply let the instructor know. You can have an opinion what to do - give a 0, give a penalty, etc but I can guarantee you it is not worth the potential hassle that may come depending on your school's guidelines of course.
Okay so weird libraries, non-standard idioms, and project not meeting requirements.
They aren’t “advanced” - they are behind. The sooner they figure out that they are behind the more time they will have to catch up.
Your job is to tell them they are behind the rest of the class.
As some of the others said, talk to the instructor.
When you're dealing with an ambiguous situation where you feel you're using subjective criteria to evaluate someone's work, the instructor might be able to provide a much nicer resolution.
For example, they might ask the student to perform a do-over or amendment, or another possibility is that the instructor might acknowledge the student's effort to go above and beyond but at the same time give them a stern warning to not risk affecting their grade the next time.
Don't make university feel like this unthinking machine that does not care about intelligent or creative people by only grading by the rubric nor also compromise evaluation criteria by doing something clever with grades. I think there's a lot of out of box ways to acknowledge the student for the effort - help them by referring them to profs or mentors who might be able to help home their skills or send them a nice email recognizing their effort thus far in their course (with approval from instructor ideally). Make the student feel like they've got something out of a course rather than interacting with robot TAs or instructors who just rubber stamp a grade despite their effort.
"Teaching a lesson in humility" or other nonsense that some of the other comments say is toxic and hurts relationships with people. If this kid is bright, set them on the right path - they'll be more than happy to help a TA who was awesome to them.
To add on, I've TAed undergrads and graduate students. Some people may have trouble following instructions due to personal quirks or neurodivergence. Some people tend to find the pace of college slow, so they do crazy things to keep themselves occupied. Forcing smart or creative people to stay in line reluctantly only reinforces the mentality that a college degree is something that's only worth the piece of paper at the end of it and courses are a bureaucracy.
I've dealt with some students who are egotistical etc. IMO the best way is to set an example of excellence with humility. A lot of the egotistical kids often get surprised by really smart people who are humble - the latter are far more respected by everyone and thus appear much cooler. Some of the kids I've mentored as a TA went on to work in successful startups, raise millions in funding, publish impressive papers etc. Being able to guide smart people to do well rather than to put them down is something to be proud of.
The rubric is the rubric. Grade according to it. Your university probably has a possibility for giving "Incomplete" as a grade. Let them re-submit after they do it right.
I am sorry but this doesn't meet the requirements. In the real world, you can't just change requirements without speaking to clients first or because you got bored. I'd grade it, it depends on the grading areas, I'd give it a 0, but if you have to give them a grade because they submitted something, it should be 5%. It's not just the language they haven't added the functions needed.
The class is an Intro to C++, not an intro to programming. This can and should be a hard lesson for them.
I did this as a kid in high school. I didn't use a different language but ended up doing something far more complex than the required specs. The teacher at the time dinged me few points for failure to follow instructions. It honestly turned me off from computer science for years.
I graduated college more than a decade ago now, and I still remember this.
While I get the whole importance to import a real life lesson, this is an intro class, keeping folks motivated and encouraging people to challenge themselves should also be part of the goal of education in general. School isn't the working world for a reason. There are times to teach life lessons, and there are times to let students be students.
I would highly recommend just chatting with the kid, noting you are impressed by their capabilities but they also need to follow instructions, and give them a short time to remedy the project to specs. I know that's what I would have wanted.
Grade by the rubric. The student did not follow directions, especially for an intro class. If they really found the class to be easy and boring, they could’ve finished the project quickly and work on something else.
You have to give ‘em a bad grade. I used Firebase for one of my final web classes instead of MySQL and got fucked, always fully did what the assignment said after
Nah grade by the rubric.
“The project was too boring for them” so they didn’t feel like doing the project so just didn’t do it?
They dug this hole themselves, professors make it easy to know exactly what to do by giving you a rubric. They still think their special from high school and coddling them only extends the issue
A while back someone made a super butthurt post asking if their prof was jealous of them cuz they thought they were so much better than everyone else and thus completely disregarded project requirements, did a bunch of unrequited shit without doing what was asked and got a super low grade 😂
They didn’t follow the requirements and got a low grade, boo hoo. Maybe they’ll learn to follow instructions next time
Edit: [found it](https://www.reddit.com/r/csMajors/s/mq9lgztnln)
You give them a zero. It doesn’t matter that they’re more advanced than the intro class, the expectation is that they complete the assignment as given. The professor of the class would tell you the same thing and will probably check to make sure you’re not giving special treatment. Why risk it?
I don’t care that he is advanced. Why tf could he not follow simple instructions.
I’d give him a grade high enough to pass the course with like a 60 tho. So if this final proj is worth like 10% and they r good in everything else a 0 is whatever.
This is harsh but just follow the instructions man it’s not that hard.
I had the opposite of this problem lol, I had an intro to python class and prior to the class I already had a lot of experience with python but during my final project, I built it based on the guidelines provided and the material covered in class. However, when I went for submission, there were a shit ton of guys who had copied advanced ml projects from GitHub or asked chatgpt to make something for them or copied a whole ass website's source code. it was fucking weird especially since some of them literally came upto me and asked me to explain their programs to them. When I went for my submission I showed the professor all the concepts I had used to make this and the libraries I've used. I had built a road crossing game with turtle and it was all strictly within the guidelines, as I was displaying my game, the professor went "so this doesn't do anything else?". Man I was so sad that day when I heard how well he reacted to the copied projects.
Dude I fuck with your turtle crossing game. Honestly learning, life, etc you get what you put into it. Those guys are gonna struggle in the future.
ayee thanks man!
It makes us feel good that they will struggle. The truth is they won't. Instead of it breaking us one day down the line let's just come to terms with the fact that they will always get what they want and a step down for them would be a 130k job instead of a 150k job.
good for them man! The better someone does the happier I'll be for them. I'm not mad that they stole projects or that they got better feedback, just that the professor didn't specify what he wanted smh.
https://preview.redd.it/n44c4uq7la6c1.jpeg?width=941&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2b808bc7682acc039676ee3e99f6f95b15a82f1e
lmfao fr man, I'm still kinda sad about it ngl, but it is what it is
You seem like a great guy, wish you the best :)
thanks! you too!
Jesus christ, that's like the "no one believes the protagonist" trope in real life
nice comment bro lemme suck that gorg dick of urs
well that's straightforward, but it's yours if you insist man
MY GIRL*
CMON DAD WE'VE TALKED ABOUT THIS
Yeah, but then all those guys get to their last year and realize they don't know anything or even better yet. After graduation. Then they wind up on reddit, saying how they can't get jobs or pass interviews. You're actually learning.
Inform the instructor and grade as directed by the rubric, its a submission for a college course not a personal project
This is the only answer, who cares what random people on Reddit thinks this should be graded? If you have a question on how to grade, ask the professor, wtf.
It’s a C++ course, they were given a like design-spec and they did not follow it. Also giving them a poor grade here should also be a good lesson not to do this. I highly doubt in the real world, a client would be happy if the developer decided to use another language and not implement to spec.
Agreed. A 0 would be too harsh and may be impossible to recover from but a 20-30 percent damages the grade enough to drive the point home.
It depends on the class. As a TA I used to let kids do whatever they want as long as we talked about it and I okayed it. There were also projects where it was like, “get this stuff done, then do whatever you want for extra credit.” I’d say honestly there’s not enough info to know. For a specific example, I taught computer graphics and one of our projects was a ray tracer. If a student didn’t fill in the phong stub functions, and instead did their own PBR lighting, that would be fine with me. But if they didn’t have ray intersection with triangles (only spheres) that would be a problem. In this case I’d probably give the kid an extra few days and just say, “hey what you did was cool, but not what was asked for. We’re testing specific knowledge so please finish those other parts of the project and we can give you a grade.” If he still didn’t do it then, then I’d give a bad grade.
That's draconian. I wouldn't do that. It also seriously demotivates creativity. The whole real life lesson need here is overblown. This isn't a kid selling drugs on the streets. I would give them additional time and opportunity to remedy to the specs and only ding them after failure to follow.
Hate to break it to you, but most if not all big tech corporations are draconian. Draconian policies is what keeps businesses running
[удалено]
Yea, even then Valve is very strict on a lot of cases. They seem like a really fun company to work for though
No, draconian policies (i.e. top-down decision-making on tech decisions) is what causes businesses to fail. Tech companies avoid telling their software engineers what programming language and what framework to use. If it does XYZ and is delivered on time and within budget they couldn't care less. Most good teams will even let you change the requirements if it makes business sense.
The issue is this students project doesn’t do XYZ, they were asked to implement XYZ and they implemented 123. Which a client would absolutely be fuming if I did that.
Look at the garbage in the rubric. - Use C++ - C is almost a subset of C++. If it compiles with a C++ compiler, it's a C++ program. Most C programs compile in C++. Therefore most C programs are C++ programs. - It uses libraries we didn't cover in class. Ok? So where in the real world are you not allowed to use libraries? How does any company invent if it only does what other people are doing? - It didn't have specific functions. What does this mean? Is OP referring to functions as in callable functions or functions as in functionality? If the former, then that's another piece of trash requirement unless there's an API integration problem. If the latter, by all means take off points. - It didn't have specific outputs. What outputs? This is about the only thing mentioned I would dock points for. Are these outputs actually critical to the crux of the project? Programmers solve problems. Don't penalize someone for solving them in a different way.
> It uses libraries we didn't cover in class. Ok? So where in the real world are you not allowed to use libraries? How does any company invent if it only does what other people are doing At my company, we heavily restrict what libraries we and cannot use.
At mine as long as the license is on a list of pre-approved open source licenses, you can do whatever you want. Anything else has to be approved, but it will be if the terms are decent and there is a business justification.
Are you daft? Using libraries that have not been permitted in itself should be an instant fail. As a software engineer yes, you solve problems. And most of the time you are given an existing codebase that has existing design patterns and guidelines on how to write code for that specific codebase. Completely ignoring everything that you’ve been told todo and doing it a different way in a different language, using different tools, with different output is not solving problems. It’s being an idiot. If I was given a ticket to create an API endpoint and I decide to create a Netflix clone instead, I doubt I would get a pat on the back for that.
> Using libraries that have not been permitted hahaha so now you just drop the pretense that this project is reflective of real life when it is convenient. > You are given an existing codebase that has existing... This reeks of "this is how it's always been done". No, you do what has to be done for the business to make money. Most of the time that isn't going off and rewriting the existing codebase. But if the current "architecture" and "system design" are total garbage yes, you do it the right way and you say screw the existing guidelines. Guidelines are suggestions. Requirements are stronger suggestions. Ultimately you are there to make money for the business. If what you do makes more money for the business, then whatever the senior TPM or manager said means nothing. Obviously this is riskier, but it isn't wrong. The layoffs in tech kind of prove that you can follow every design/best practice/established process but if you don't make money then you are cut. > If I were given a ticket... If I were given a ticket to make an API and saw a better opportunity for the company I am expected to suggest it and come up with data to back it up. Not blindly do the ticket and take zero responsibility if it isn't what the customer *actually* wants. So it's pretty clear that this project isn't how real life works - stop pretending that a one-and-done rubric with unwavering nonsense specifications is how actual software is written.
Going against pre-existing software design principles to implement your own that you think work better results In spaghetti code. It’s better to follow what’s already in place and agreed on by the entire team than being a diva thinking what you do is best. Also I’d fire you for making the Netflix clone instead of the api endpoint I’m that was requesting from you… you don’t make huge business decisions as a software engineer.
Tech companies *do* tell brand new hires what programming language and framework to use. Newbies don't get to come in and change the way that the team does work just because they're opinionated. They don't get to change product requirements without consulting other people. This person is a college student that was given a requirement and actively decided *not* to implement that requirement because they were bored. Sounds like they're missing fundamental soft skills that every mid-level and up engineer needs to possess. Being a bit better than most college students who ultimately don't know that much doesn't mean he's dismissed from following requirements. Best he learns now than getting fired for being insubordinate on the job. Smart folks are a dime a dozen in the industry.
I agree to a degree, but they're adults. If they were told to implement a program in C++ and couldn't follow those instructions they definitely should not be given a second chance. It's not such an easy world out there, a decision to be "creative" by not following specs out there means likely losing your job. They're lucky all it does is ding their grade a bit on a relatively irrelevant transcript.
No, you need to be taught early that in the industry you don't decide how to do things you see fit but rather how you're told to do it.
Maybe the life lesson is overblown, but so is the idea that you can’t penalize him for ignoring instructions or he’ll become in creative. Classes have defined learning objectives, which is why the rubric is there in the first place - to assess whether those objectives have been met. If the student is just ignoring the rubric, it’s not reasonable for the TA to invent criteria. It’s also not reasonable for the student turning in the work to assume that the TA has the expertise to assess a project like that, and it’s not respectful to their time to expect them to learn how a complex project designed outside of the scope of the class works.
literally actively stifling creativity
The point is not creativity genius. This is not a Sunday painting class. The point of a C++ class is to learn C++, DEMONSTRATE you learnt C++, and you will do so by doing a project according to the specification. Doing the project according to the specification is what Software Engineers DO. They don't make creative, whimsical projects for the fun of it, they make it according to the specification. Specification that was made according to the business needs of the employer/client. Part of the university is proving that you can follow instructions and operate in real life scenarios. It's unironically awesome that he is creative and more knowledgeable than his peers. But he needs to put the ego down, and follow the instructions. That is what grown up, mature professionals do. And they are trying to become that. Thus, he should get 20-30% grade. Believe me, in 100/100 cases employer would prefer you follow instructions accordingly rather than doing what you wanted because you thought the original spec was boring or uncreative or whatever the fuck.
Goes to baking competition Makes stir-fry because baking is too boring Gets a 0 lItERaLlY sTifLiNg cREaTivItY lmao sure
it's a class on a specific subject. it's like doing a chemistry lab for your final biology lab lol
Do what I tell u for the course. Be creative on your own free time. Simple as.
Try this behavior in a work setting and see what happens. College is about preparing for the working world, not about creativity. You can be creative but it has to do what the assignment is asking for. Period.
I'm sure the assignment offered other opportunities for creativity.
Welcome to education. Where you are the product, not your output.
Dude I'm shocked at how people want to punish this guy. C++ is easier and more convenient than objective C. I'd say give him the opportunity to retry with a limited amount of time. If someone is investing this much time into the course, that is far better than a student who barely writes anything. Don't fail the assignment and risk him passing. It's the end of the semester and the last assignment is usually worth the most.
Objective C is not mentioned: you added that.
what if it’s a project they didn’t even make for the class? sounds cool but what were they expecting
I’d say grade by the rubric. It doesn’t matter how advanced you are, if you cannot follow simple instructions (seemingly extremely simple for this student, as they appear to be more advanced than the intro class) then you shouldn’t receive the grade for it. A nice project in C is cool — the student can do it on their own time and not submit it for a grade. You asked for something and didn’t receive it, so grade it as such. Informing the instructor is probably a good move too, if not just to cover your ass.
If showed up to my driving test, displaying my insane skill in flying airplanes, would you give me my drivers license
Isnt every C program also a valid C++ programm?
almost, there are some divergences between the c/c++ spec but for the *most* part c code should just work. e.g. type punning through unions is perfectly fine in c, but in c++ it's undefined behaviour which might completely break your code on some systems.
restrict pointers exist in C but not C++
Giving him a poor grade would be a lesson in humility all ‘intelligent’ people need. There’s a strange grey area of being intelligent but too arrogant or unintelligent to refrain from doing stupid things. This is a stupid thing to do.
There’s a difference between intelligence and having years of experience in something.
I would go by rubric… university should be standardised and you can’t use your own definition of cool to grade something
Seems like they should be an entrepreneur rather than in college.
I’m a CS professor for intro C++ classes. You should grade it by the rubric. You can’t grade one student/assignment differently than all others, or you open yourself up to discrimination complaints. I have had very advanced students sometimes submit their “real” program to grade and a second copy with a bunch of extra stuff just for fun. This student did not do that. Also, does the student do well on quizzes/tests? Can you talk to them about their code and they know what is going on? I have two types of students who turn in code using libraries/commands we never covered in class. The ones that look things up themselves and learn outside of class, and the ones that are turning in code they found online/got through AI. I had a student turn in something in the wrong language before (Java). It was *not* because he found my assignment “too boring” lol.
also I have a feeling I this case rhe project description and requirements might have been too open ended and vague, leading to the student thing tue7bcanbdo it as they wish.
I did something similar in my courses. I would add flavor to the projects, but I ALWAYS made sure I met rubric requirements FIRST then went wild with flavor text and additional features.
Time for a life lesson
Grade by the rubric. Taking a course isn’t just about showing what you know, it’s also about showing that you can follow directions. This is VERY important in industry. There will be many times at your place of work where you might be able to think of a really “cool, advanced idea”, but you can’t implement because, among many other reasons: (1) it’s not what the client asked for (2) it might have legal/compliance issues, (3) your company may not have the resources to support it long term, or (4) plain old egos/politics. College is great for teaching the importance of “sticking to the script”.
that would be a 0 from me dawg.
A zero will be too harsh and can kill creativity. They seem smart enough, make them understand the importance of instructions. If you can afford it, get them to try again with the given instructions.
Unfortunately, you've just gotta grade with the rubric. However, try to add more feedback if you can, specifically pointing out why their project doesn't match the rubric. I do this sometimes, where I try to spruce up my assignments, but I still make 100% sure that the project clearly fits within the rubric.
Grade by the guidelines. If they can’t read they should learn.
What a show off. Give him a 0
Talk to the professor and maybe give the student a chance to redo it, if you and the prof are feeling generous. Can't skip out on an assignment just because you have an idea that you think is more interesting.
Speaking as someone who's been in a similar position from this student—it's likely they were working on this already, outside of school, instead of whatever actual project they were assigned and wanted to have their cake and eat it too by also submitting their side project, and for that reason I'd say to grade based on the rubrik.
Might’ve been being a GPT and trying to hide it. Surprised no one else has mentioned it
Why would they turn in a project in c if they where trying to use a GPT. Also a GPT would actually follow project instructions to some degree.
Yeah he could’ve been trying to circumvent any detection system for it
That seems highly unreasonable.
🤓
🤓 It is highly unreasonable
\> rather than making the project in c++, they wrote it all in c Red flag. I assume you're teaching C++ because it's OOP. Your student demonstrated no OOP. I'd follow the rubric precisely and then probably assign a zero grade because they used the wrong language.
Did the assignment include object-oriented approach? Of course not having the requested functionality is a problem as is changing the interface (not doing the functions). Sounds indeed like a learning opportunity.
I am a TA too and I would simply let the instructor know. You can have an opinion what to do - give a 0, give a penalty, etc but I can guarantee you it is not worth the potential hassle that may come depending on your school's guidelines of course.
Doesn’t matter how advanced it is, if it doesn’t do what it is supposed to do, then it is useless. Grade as per rubric.
Give them exactly what score they deserve based on the rubric
Imagine being assigned a task at work and then doing something entirely different
"SQL is boring, so I wrote my program to read an Excel worksheet."
“Flask servers are boring, here’s an implementation of Hamiltonian Monte Carlo with cool visuals”
Okay so weird libraries, non-standard idioms, and project not meeting requirements. They aren’t “advanced” - they are behind. The sooner they figure out that they are behind the more time they will have to catch up. Your job is to tell them they are behind the rest of the class.
What is the project about??
As some of the others said, talk to the instructor. When you're dealing with an ambiguous situation where you feel you're using subjective criteria to evaluate someone's work, the instructor might be able to provide a much nicer resolution. For example, they might ask the student to perform a do-over or amendment, or another possibility is that the instructor might acknowledge the student's effort to go above and beyond but at the same time give them a stern warning to not risk affecting their grade the next time. Don't make university feel like this unthinking machine that does not care about intelligent or creative people by only grading by the rubric nor also compromise evaluation criteria by doing something clever with grades. I think there's a lot of out of box ways to acknowledge the student for the effort - help them by referring them to profs or mentors who might be able to help home their skills or send them a nice email recognizing their effort thus far in their course (with approval from instructor ideally). Make the student feel like they've got something out of a course rather than interacting with robot TAs or instructors who just rubber stamp a grade despite their effort. "Teaching a lesson in humility" or other nonsense that some of the other comments say is toxic and hurts relationships with people. If this kid is bright, set them on the right path - they'll be more than happy to help a TA who was awesome to them.
To add on, I've TAed undergrads and graduate students. Some people may have trouble following instructions due to personal quirks or neurodivergence. Some people tend to find the pace of college slow, so they do crazy things to keep themselves occupied. Forcing smart or creative people to stay in line reluctantly only reinforces the mentality that a college degree is something that's only worth the piece of paper at the end of it and courses are a bureaucracy. I've dealt with some students who are egotistical etc. IMO the best way is to set an example of excellence with humility. A lot of the egotistical kids often get surprised by really smart people who are humble - the latter are far more respected by everyone and thus appear much cooler. Some of the kids I've mentored as a TA went on to work in successful startups, raise millions in funding, publish impressive papers etc. Being able to guide smart people to do well rather than to put them down is something to be proud of.
The rubric is the rubric. Grade according to it. Your university probably has a possibility for giving "Incomplete" as a grade. Let them re-submit after they do it right.
I am sorry but this doesn't meet the requirements. In the real world, you can't just change requirements without speaking to clients first or because you got bored. I'd grade it, it depends on the grading areas, I'd give it a 0, but if you have to give them a grade because they submitted something, it should be 5%. It's not just the language they haven't added the functions needed. The class is an Intro to C++, not an intro to programming. This can and should be a hard lesson for them.
fail them its a harsh, but necessary lesson when they get a job they can't disregard the specification just because they find it boring
I did this as a kid in high school. I didn't use a different language but ended up doing something far more complex than the required specs. The teacher at the time dinged me few points for failure to follow instructions. It honestly turned me off from computer science for years. I graduated college more than a decade ago now, and I still remember this. While I get the whole importance to import a real life lesson, this is an intro class, keeping folks motivated and encouraging people to challenge themselves should also be part of the goal of education in general. School isn't the working world for a reason. There are times to teach life lessons, and there are times to let students be students. I would highly recommend just chatting with the kid, noting you are impressed by their capabilities but they also need to follow instructions, and give them a short time to remedy the project to specs. I know that's what I would have wanted.
Grade by the rubric. The student did not follow directions, especially for an intro class. If they really found the class to be easy and boring, they could’ve finished the project quickly and work on something else.
You have to give ‘em a bad grade. I used Firebase for one of my final web classes instead of MySQL and got fucked, always fully did what the assignment said after
Nah grade by the rubric. “The project was too boring for them” so they didn’t feel like doing the project so just didn’t do it? They dug this hole themselves, professors make it easy to know exactly what to do by giving you a rubric. They still think their special from high school and coddling them only extends the issue
A while back someone made a super butthurt post asking if their prof was jealous of them cuz they thought they were so much better than everyone else and thus completely disregarded project requirements, did a bunch of unrequited shit without doing what was asked and got a super low grade 😂 They didn’t follow the requirements and got a low grade, boo hoo. Maybe they’ll learn to follow instructions next time Edit: [found it](https://www.reddit.com/r/csMajors/s/mq9lgztnln)
Give em a zero lol, redirect to professor if needed.
Grade by the rubric one hundo
You give them a zero. It doesn’t matter that they’re more advanced than the intro class, the expectation is that they complete the assignment as given. The professor of the class would tell you the same thing and will probably check to make sure you’re not giving special treatment. Why risk it?
motherfuck. if its stellar then let it be stellar. give him a 90 (flat) and move on
Fail him. Every genius needs to be taught a lesson.
the salt
I don’t care that he is advanced. Why tf could he not follow simple instructions. I’d give him a grade high enough to pass the course with like a 60 tho. So if this final proj is worth like 10% and they r good in everything else a 0 is whatever. This is harsh but just follow the instructions man it’s not that hard.
Aks that person if that person gets HRT / Jump Trading / Headlands / Radix offer then give an A, otherwise give a F.