I have given up.

I am on a throwaway account due to my workplace.

I am tired; I spent years, countless hours studying, learning, and working to earn my master's degree in space studies. It took effort, sacrifices, some of which I do regret, especially now. I worked at NASA for a time and worked with many amazing teams. Learning more than I ever could in school. I was more of a hands-on learner, haha. I decided to quit NASA after a while due to life changes and major burnout, though my love for engineering and space never really went away; I just had to find something that brought back out my love. When it was all said and done, I found my passion: teaching. I found great pride teaching new generations what I have learned, took joy in these young prsople self descoveries, seeing their eyes spark like mine did when I was in their shoes.

Though all good things must come to an end.

But I’m not here to brag about my academic and workplace success. No, I'm here to talk about the death and academic integrity of our education system, the very thing that builds our future. I don’t know when exactly it started, but I know how. It started the moment our primary and secondary school systems started with grading polices like No Child Left Behind, makeup credits, where they can do a whole semester's work within a 4-week online period. Graduating as many students as possible, devaluing a high school diploma and GED’s.

This bred laziness within our education system, kids who, instead of learning, will take any easy way out possible, kids who had no idea what real education is, who are not ready for a high level of education. We, and higher education educators, get these not-ready, lazy kids, and it makes our jobs so much more sad, as these kids take no pride in what they do, they turn in lazy work expecting a good grade, and there is no passion. This breaks me because I don’t see the spark, the passion, I don’t see me. I guess that was my mistake, trying to compare everyone to me. I can only imagine what the primary and secondary school teachers are going through on the inside, as I know these students' parents don’t help either, from what I’ve heard, nor do the administration or state. But we, as higher education, did not have to follow those horrible grading practices; we could give 0s, we could fail, and as much as it pains me to say that, it’s true, I can’t trust thrusting someone into the workforce who may work on our future as a species who is not ready, I will deny them.

But that's where things have changed. AI, AI has killed whatever integrity was left. The worst part? The universities are supporting it. I can’t even begin to explain my frustrations with how this all started, but I have been ridiculed by my supervisors when I brought the issue up. I have students who will do whole projects through AI, even leaving the prompts in the submissions. But every grade I put gets flagged and checked. Then they brought out the new policy, how AI is now a learning tool, a partner, how they don’t have to cite that it was made by AI, just make sure to proofread that the AI is not plagiarizing and cite. This, among many other new polices has killed any sort of integrity that was left, all in a span of 2 years.

AI has killed my passion, the educational systems polices killed my passion. I am done, I am quitting, I refuse to be a part of a system that fails our future generations. I will NOT be complicit.

We have to do something, I don’t know what, I don’t know how, but we have to force a change, we have to adapt to newer technologies in a way that does not devalue education, for ours, a nd our future generations' sake.

TL;DR

New education policies at all levels of education and AI have ruined academic integrity. I have lost my passion, students have lost their passion... I quit.