Tutoring

At the beginning of the semester, I volunteered to tutor at school. I was paired with a freshman taking the introductory programming clas. He contacted me once and I helped him out, then I didn't hear from him for the rest of the semester.

On Friday, he contacted me again. "I need some help!" he said, and we arranged a time on Saturday to meet.

I quickly realized that he didn't want tutoring, he wanted someone to do his projects for him. During the course of the semester, they had to do about 10 programming projects. The grade was important, but if nothing else they had to complete them to pass the class. This kid had skipped the three last projects, and had to complete them before Tuesday (tomorrow) to pass the class.

I helped him for a couple hours, but it was apparent he wanted me to look over his shoulder and tell him exactly what to do. I finally took my leave, and when he IM'd me again this morning, I politely pointed out that I was supposed to tutor him, not do his projects for them.

This morning:

Him: "Are you there?"

Me: "Yes. How're the projects coming?"

Him: "OK. I just need to do some of those labs I showed you."

There are three labs. Each lab takes a week to complete. They are due tomorrow.

Me: "I have an hour or two free later this afternoon, but I can't just help you code the projects. If you are stuck on a particular concept or question, I can help you with that."

Him: "Well, the problem really is that I have no idea as to where to begin with these labs. They're pretty complicated, and they're due tomorrow."

Then don't you think that ONE DAY before the semester ends is the wrong time to BEGIN them?

I feel bad for him, but I'm not going to sit down and code them for him. If I worked the next 24 hours, I could probably squeak them out myself. Helping him do them? Not a chance, even if I agreed to do it.