alt Hacker NewsI was a constant frustration to teachers in high school because I would do well on tests, but I wouldn't do the homework [1]. I'm kind of glad that I didn't know you could pay people to do your homework, since I have to admit that it would have been tempting to do that. I would like to think I would be above that, but it's easy to act high and mighty when you've never been tested.
Similarly, I'm very glad that I finished my undergrad before ChatGPT or Claude was released. It would have been overwhelmingly tempting to get AI to do everything.
For this one I actually do know I would be able to resist that urge, because I only got my masters a year ago and I was able to do that without using generative AI [2].
[1] I wish I had a good excuse for this. I regret not taking high school seriously now.
[2] With the exception of getting ChatGPT to generate BibTeX citations because Easybib is terrible.
As another student who did the same, I similarly regret it, but also realize if I were put in the exact same scenario I would have behaved identically.
I literally had to retake trigonometry, while simultaneously being advanced into pre-calc, because my teacher saw that I aced the exams, but said I had to do the homework.
I ended up doing well enough: I dual-majored in CS and Math in undergrad and then completed a PhD in CS later in life, but I do sometimes think I could have achieved even more had I known better.