Friday, October 4, 2013

Pay for doing your homework?

I recently checked out Freelancer.com, a website to exchange work and expertise. However I suspected thet some "projects" were actually homework/school assignments instead of real-world work that is legitimate for freelancing.

Take this example I saw today:
Exercise 4 (Black-Scholes Formula) (5+15P points)
For a European call the analytic solution of the Black-Scholes equation is given by
...(some equations)
then later:
a) Establish an algorithm to calculate ....
b) Write a computer program in Java, C++, C or Fortran that calculates prices of European call and put options using the above Black-Scholes formula and the algorithm constructed in a). Then compute the following option prices at time t = 0:
 This looks like a homework assignment than a real project! HW assignment must not be tendered as project for other people to do for pay--not even if you have money to pay somebody else! They are fine to be offered as opportunity for tutoring. In this way the tutor receives the money and the hirer receives the education. The tutor can work out the solution together with you (although I prefer no one helping out too much lest the student would not learn what he/she is supposed to learn).
If you pay someone to do this and you are not taking this class for credit, it's up to you. I will have no complain for you. I just don't understand today's students. Many of them are not willing to learn, they just want the result and the grade.

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