<p>I’m facing an issue with a student. I’m a grad student working with a group of undergrad interns and an advisor at a University Career Center. One student in particular has raised some red flags on a project that was to be presented at the kick-off event next Friday.</p>
<p>This student was in charge of editing the presentation and said it would be completed over the winter break. There is no hard deadline, but the career center advisor emailed him last week and CC’d me to see how the project was going. He responded back today, saying that he sent his laptop to apple, and they wiped his computer clean without asking him, causing all files to be lost.</p>
<p>I feel like the student is BSing. I’m not too far out of undergrad and know all the tricks and excuses, and this seems to be one of them. I do not own an apple product though, so I’m not completely sure. Should I step in and tell the advisor my concerns? Or should I just the student be and see if he completes the project in a timely manner, regardless of the lie?</p>
<p>I do not feel as though it’s my place to call him out on my own, but I want to ask for proof of having the computer sent in. If he is lying, it is completely unnecessary. He doesn’t have to have the whole project completed right now, but made this excuse instead of saying he didn’t do the work like he said. I don’t really know how to handle this, and I think the advisor is too believing of this kid’s BS.</p>
<p>LOL, I was thinking the same thing. This technically could be more believable, except for the fact we can ask for proof of having the computer sent in, like a receipt or work order. Too bad I have an old PC laptop so I have no clue how Apple works.</p>
<p>Sometimes they do actually wipe your drive for various issues. Sometimes it happens by accident when they’re trouble shooting.</p>
<p>I did actually have a hard drive crash three days before a major lab writeup was due my first year in grad school (after I had been a good student for once and finished it ahead of time, lol). Professor didn’t believe me. Took a heck of a lot of work to redo everything on public computers without the particular analysis programs I was familiar with in order to get things done in time. :(</p>
<p>It is not entirely inconceivable that “my computer ate my homework” happened, since most computer users do not back up their important data (meaning their home computers, not workplaces that generally do back up their data), so that their precious data can be destroyed or lost in a hard drive crash (or computer lost/stolen). But that speaks of carelessness on the part of the user (an admittedly common form of carelessness, though).</p>
<p>We have sent computers into for servicing–both were PCs but we always got proof that we had mailed it in. I’m quite sure apple products are the same way. Most people also back things up BEFORE they send it out for servicing (if it is possible to back up–sometimes that’s why they had to send it in–because they can’t even turn on the machine).</p>
<p>I would be shocked if there is no paper trail showing that the machine was sent in for servicing, but would feel it is the faculty member’s responsibility to ask the student for proof. If the student still meets the deadline, no big issue. If the student’s work will affect others, you may want to ask the student for his projected timeline when he’ll meet benchmarks and complete the project, cc’ing the faculty member.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice everyone. It does affect other students, since it is a group effort of the interns. After he completes it, one more intern has to edit and do a litte more work on it. Just some small technical things that probably won’t take long since he is tech-savvy. Definitely going to try and keep things on schedule. I was just worried he was using this excuse to extend time, which we can’t really do. Not too sure about that, though. </p>
<p>If everything gets done and the final project is not delayed, I’ll let go of the concerns with this issue. Thanks again!</p>
<p>Basically, you just need it to be finished in time to be handed off to the next intern for editing, right? Make the judgement based on whether that occurs as scheduled.</p>
<p>I’m on the side of seeing if he makes the necessary hand-off. It is true that depending on the issue you can loose the information on your hard drive. Generally, you are notified about this when you send the computer into service. It is also true that there are people in this world who can only operate at the last minute under intense pressure and they are a pain in the butt to work with if you are a planner and someone who works hard not to have the pressure of a deadline. At this point it doesn’t sound like it’s your position to speculate anything until the kid misses a deadline. You were to check on progress and you did. You think he’s BSing. Why do you feel the need to ascertain whether he’s telling the truth? If you’ve warned him to get caught up I think you’ve done “your job.” If he hands it off on time then so be it. It’s only if he does not hold up his end that there is a problem.</p>
<p>My son DID loose a year end paper at college when his computer crapped. He learned a hard lesson because he had not saved it to the college network. He got it redone from notes, etc. pulling at least one all nighter. It WAS a team project and his part was writing up the project documentation. Lesson learned the hard way about backing things up. ***** happens.</p>
<p>I know with iPod touches (and so I assume, Apple laptops) they wipe the hard drive entirely as a matter of course if you send it off for repairs. However, they do warn you of this in advance.</p>
<p>Have you talked to the other students in the group to see if they have concerns about finishing on time? Maybe they have better information and can support or refute your instinct.</p>
<p>I’m with boomting. Having just sent my Mac Book air in with a major failure they asked me if there was anything on my computer that I would not want to lose before they serviced it. Luckily, my husband copied everything on to a thumb drive before they took it.</p>
<p>Slightly different situation, but I work at a university. Sometimes students seem surprised they owe money for classes they claim they dropped. Or tried to drop but had an issue. If the students contest the charges, I am frequently asked to look into the matter. I search the helpdesk logs to see if we have any record of the student contacting us having a problem. We can also check logs to see if the student even logged in to our system during the time they claimed to.</p>