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PENN FOSTER HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT HERE….I need help with the developing written exam section the writing section and it’s another exam I have to write an essay on but can’t get to my Electives until I get those 3 exams/essays done. It doesn’t say what I’m supposed to do…

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Canteens: How I Survived by Jared Creel

On July 11, 2022, I entered a hell that could never be properly explained to another person. No one can ever understand what happened there, but with my canteens having been there too, it is as if they understand. During my four months in Marine Corps basic training, I was faced with terror like no other. I constantly wondered if I would ever see home again and had to push my own limits further than I had ever believed possible. My old life had been ripped away from me, but there was one thing that stayed with me from the moment I stepped onto those yellow footprints to the moment I stepped off the island.

The first week of basic training is called Receiving Week, and it is the most jarring and terrifying experience spanning from the moment you step onto the buses to Black Friday, when you meet your chain of command for the next 13 weeks. The journey starts with the bus ride across the gates of Parris Island, SC, where everyone is forced to put their heads down in order to disorient you. The bus lurches to a stop, and your heart skips a beat as the first drill instructor leaps into the bus and screams at you to line up on the yellow footprints. Then, all hell breaks loose as the various drill instructors begin screaming at everyone to sprint into position. The lead drill instructor speaks up above the screaming of the others and explains to you that tens of thousands of Marines have stood in that very same spot. They explain that you are no longer a person, but rather property of the government. You can no longer call yourself ‘I,’ instead you must refer to yourself as ‘this recruit.’

You are then rushed inside where you are processed into your platoons. You get one phone call, where you must scream at the top of your lungs and recite a script, so your family knows you have arrived safely. For the next 48 hours, you run from one place to another collecting your equipment and signing papers. By the time Black Friday comes around, you wake up at 0400 and line up in formation outside. You proceed to take your IST (Initial Strength Test) which assesses if you are physically fit enough to begin training. After the test, you return to your squad-bay (barracks) to meet your new Chain of Command. As soon as your senior drill instructor introduces the other drill instructors to you, all hell breaks loose once again. They plunge you into chaos to adapt your mind to the anarchy that is now your life. For the next 13 weeks you will be watching over your shoulder day and night. As you stand on the line with backs straight and eyes forward, the drill instructors proceed to flip every single bunk (bed) and footlocker. If you let your gaze wander and set upon a drill instructor, they will pick you up by your collar and slam you against the wall, screaming in your ear about discipline. By that point, if the impending reality that this is your life for the next 13 weeks has not hit you, then it soon will. Nights full of tears, loneliness, and confusion are common in those first few weeks.

As recruits, our canteens were our lifelines. With the extensive physical activities and tremendous stress we were put through, we had to constantly rehydrate, despite having them knocked from our hands or thrown across the deck simply because the drill instructors felt like it, to prevent heat cases in the relentless heat. We were not allowed to leave the squad-bay without both canteens by our sides. Thus, what I experienced, so did my canteens.

My canteens have been kicked, thrown, burned, and cut. Each scratch in the olive-green plastic reflects my own bruises, cuts, burns, and overall scars that I have retained. Something my boss once said to me has really stuck with me. He said, “You are different from most people, because while most only have one lifetime, you have experienced more than one already. You have fought for your life day in and day out for months.”  I have been picked up off my feet, thrown across rooms, had my legs kicked out from under me, and even had my own rifle taken from my hands and pointed at me. That is only a fraction of what I have experienced, but my canteens were there for every terror-filled experience. That, in a way, solidified my connection to them as not just a souvenir, but a lifeline.

In his book Souvenir , Rolf Potts explains the idea of souvenirs having power over one’s individual experiences rather than how society views them. One person might have a simple rock that others would see as just that, but that person sees it as a link to the past. Looking at my canteens, one would simply observe a couple of beaten-up water bottles. When I look at them, I am reminded of what I have accomplished and how hard I fought to make it back home. A souvenir is not about where it came from or what it looks like. It is about what it means on the inside to the owner. There are several reasons why a person would create such a deep meaning to something that seems rather bleak on the outside. For instance, my canteens kept me alive, because my body literally depended on them to keep me moving through the toughest of times. This link between my life and the object creates a deeper meaning to that object than others would have to it.

When Potts writes about anti-souvenirs and war-time souvenirs, he mentions that in times of war, soldiers would bring home objects, sometimes parts of dead enemies, to signify their experiences in those times. Explaining the reasoning behind these souvenirs, Potts writes, “Primarily, souvenirs appeared to give the soldier some assurance of his future beyond the destructive environment of the present. They represented a promise that he might survive” (pg. 76). In my case, the canteens served more as a reminder that I am no longer there, and that I have made it farther than I have ever thought possible. In that place, as recruits, we had our humanity stripped from us until there was nothing left but a hollow shell they could control. Having to build myself back up from that point felt hopeless at times.

Despite obviously having made it home, and leaving that island behind, sometimes it still feels as if I have not stopped fighting. It is almost like I have not stopped fighting since July 10, 2022, the night I turned away from my family and walked into that hotel lobby. For the longest time after I arrived back home, it felt like I was still battling against the world for just a break from the constant fear and hopelessness caused by the change in lifestyles. Through all this opposition, the canteens would often remind me that I no longer have those bruises and cuts. When I had decided to leave the Marine Corps, I knew my journey would not be an easy one, but nevertheless, after my return home, life was a constant struggle. I had lost many friends and was struggling with my own purpose in life after having left the only future I knew of. For months I had to battle with memories of that island, and the occasional nightmare still plagues my sleep. Those months were full of hours of running in the dead of night and many unsafe coping methods. When I would recognize those moments, I would pull my canteens out of my old ditty bags (rucksacks) and remind myself that I am still here. They served as a constant reminder that no matter what I was facing at that moment, there was no possible way it could be worse than what I had already faced. I could accomplish so much more than what I believed, and no matter what came at me, I knew I would be able to conquer it.

When people speak of their souvenirs, they most often still have them in their possession. Most souvenirs exist to maintain a life-long connection to the owner to serve as a reminder of their past experiences or accomplishments. But sometimes, the connection to a souvenir only serves as a temporary connection that lasts only as long as it is needed. Potts even had this occur with the first of his own personal souvenirs that he mentions in his book, “Souvenir.” He recounts how he felt that it no longer belonged to him, with it having given him a “…sense that I had somehow desecrated the scene of the crash” by removing it from its original location. He also recounts how he returned years later and “unceremoniously placed the fuse box back amid the wreckage…” and how, “as a souvenir…it had left me feeling unsettled by the notion that it didn’t really belong to me” (pg. 48). As with my canteens, he no longer felt that connection to his souvenir. As the connection to an object fades, it becomes just another burden a person carries around with them.

Before moving up here for college, I went through my duffle bags of equipment from boot camp. After sifting through the bags full of raw emotions and connections to the past, I no longer felt that I needed those so-called souvenirs. They had served their purpose in assisting me out of the hole I had been left in to dig myself out. Growth is a wonderous thing that is always happening without us realizing it. I had been struggling for so long that by the time I realized I had grown past the experience, weeks had passed. When I looked at my canteens, I no longer saw a reminder that I had survived, but rather a weight reminding me of the past that I no longer needed. Even to this day I still use lessons I learned there, but I have grown so much in the past year that it seems nothing but distant memories, save for the occasional nightmare. At that point, those bags were just weighing me down with their constant reminders of the past. Throwing them away felt like I was shedding a massive weight that had been dragging me down. But those canteens were different. It was like waving goodbye to someone who, however briefly, was there for me through thick and thin.

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Lauren Ambrosio

Nov 15, 2023

AI isn’t just a tool for educators–students are using AI in a variety of ways that weren’t widely accessible until the 2020s. There are ways to misuse AI in academics, and we’ll cover that. But what are some ways that AI can be a helpful tool, and how can students–and educators–get on the AI train in an ethical way?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions. Every day examples of AI include Google Maps, you social media algorithms, face ID for unlocking your phone, autocorrect on your phone and computer, customer service chatbots, and Siri and Alexa.

That may sound complicated–and it is–but for the end user, accessing AI tools has never been easier. While some students may use tools like ChatGPT and Grammarly ethically, other learners may be tempted to do otherwise. So, is using AI considered cheating? Where is the line between using it as a resource and having it do your work for you? Let’s break down the ethics of AI, cheating, and plagiarism, and then we’ll talk about how to use AI the right way.

Read more: How to Write A Quality Essay

Here’s what Penn Foster’s 2023 academic year undergraduate catalog says about using AI tools like ChatGPT:

“Using artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT, to write all or parts of any assignment is a form of academic dishonesty.”

In other words, if you use artificial intelligence like ChatGPT to write all or parts of your assignment, it could be just as bad as copying someone else's work. When you write for school, it's a way to show that you understand what you're learning, can think deeply about it, can find out more on your own, and can explain it well.

Academic dishonesty is taken seriously at Penn Foster. If students are suspected of cheating, they are notified and must respond to the accusation in writing. Then, the Academic Review Board will make a decision that could include termination of the student’s enrollment.

So, let’s talk about the consequences of cheating and plagiarism since having AI write your assignments for you is akin to copying someone else’s work and passing it off as your own. Plagiarism of any kind is not tolerated at Penn Foster, and it’s handled with disciplinary measures as severe as expulsion.

• Instructors use Grammarly to scan assignments for plagiarism and ensure the work is original or other works referenced are cited correctly.
• If it detects less than 20% plagiarized content, the teacher grades the assignment based on the rubric. However, if it’s obvious that part of it was copy-and-pasted and not just a coincidentally common string of words, then the student will receive a 1% grade and an academic warning.
• If there is more than 20% copied work, the assignment will receive a 1%, and the student will receive an academic warning.

Read more: 4 Tips for Being Successful in Online High School

There is a difference between using a resource to help you study or gather your thoughts for an assignment and having it write all or parts of it for you. So, what qualifies as ethical use of AI for students, and when does it fall into cheating territory?

• Completing assignments: Students might input their homework or essay questions into ChatGPT and submit the generated responses as their own work.
• Feeding it test questions: During an online test, a student could use ChatGPT to answer questions for them, especially if there is no proctoring system in place.
• Copying content: Utilizing AI to paraphrase content from the internet or other sources makes it difficult for plagiarism detection tools to identify misconduct, but it still falls under academic dishonesty.
• Skipping the learning process: Relying on AI for quick answers without attempting to understand the material being reinforced.
• Research assistance: Utilizing ChatGPT to sift through given research, generate ideas, or understand complex topics, which can then be used as a starting point for a student’s own work.
• Writing aid: Using an AI tool like Grammarly to help proofread and edit assignments for grammar, punctuation, and style, while the student actively learns from the corrections and suggestions.
• Study buddy: Prompting AI to create flashcards, practice quizzes, or explain difficult concepts in a different way to aid in studying and knowledge retention.
• Creative inspiration: Using AI to brainstorm ideas for projects or papers, helping to overcome writer’s block or spark creative thinking.
• Learning new skills: Using AI to learn coding, languages, or other skills through interactive lessons and personalized feedback.

Did you know… AI chatbots like ChatGPT are language learning models and can’t discern between fact and fiction, so they may respond to your questions with inaccurate data or facts? It’s called hallucinating, and it’s why it’s best to use AI as a jumping-off point more than a way to gather information on a topic for a school assignment.

Read more: How to Break These 5 Bad Study Habits

Something that educators should be excited about is the use of personalized, one-on-one tutoring with chatbots. In-person tutors are expensive and aren’t always accessible in rural areas.

As Dr. Andy Shean , Chief Learning Officer at Penn Foster, explains in a conversation about AI and education , there’s “inequity in [in-person tutoring], and so you fast forward to AI, and to me it’s the beginning of one-on-one tutoring for everybody… there’s a real democratization and at least what I view as the potential of AI.”

AI chatbots like ChatGPT are going to level the playing field. Now, everyone has access to one-on-one help 24 hours a day. So, how do you use AI to help you in school–the right, honest way?

• Researching can be daunting since it requires a lot of reading and rereading, along with annotating passages to cite in your papers. An AI tool like Humata.AI , Wordtune Read , and some premium ChatGPT plugins act as research assistants that summarize your research to understand better and find what you’re looking for. You can upload academic papers and ask questions to find the information within the document instead of searching the web at large, where results will be affected by AI’s limitations to recognize researched facts over opinions.
• Studying used to involve hours of tedious flashcard making to help with rote memorization. With generative AI, chatbots can create digital flashcards and even multiple-choice quizzes–within minutes–if you copy and paste your study guide into the chatbox. Then, you can prompt it to ask questions without multiple-choice answers to ensure you have a good grasp of the material [1].

Read more: How to Study for an Online Course

If you use ChatGPT’s generated content and pass it off as your own work, that’s plagiarism. ChatGPT can be used to help create an outline and for brainstorming, but it doesn’t count as a citable research source, nor does it count as original if you didn’t write it yourself.

Using AI-generated content in academic work is plagiarism unless properly cited. However, it’s acceptable to use AI for brainstorming and idea generation as long as the student writes the final work and showcases their understanding.

Using Grammarly’s editing function is not considered cheating. It’s a resource that helps you spot and fix grammar mistakes, improve word choice, and make sure those commas are where they’re supposed to be. It’s a tool to help you identify writing errors, which can make students become better writers by seeing grammar rules applied in their writing. Grammarly has a generative text feature, which would be considered cheating if you have it create your writing for you.

Using AI to generate parts or the entirety of an assignment is considered academic dishonesty according to Penn Foster's academic policy, as it misrepresents the student's own work and abilities. However, AI can be ethically used for brainstorming, creating outlines, and learning citation styles, as long as it doesn’t replace the student’s own work.

While AI is a great tool for studying, it’s important to use it as such rather than as a replacement for original thought and comprehension. Ultimately, the onus lies with students and educators to uphold academic integrity, using AI as a guide rather than a ghostwriter, ensuring a future where technology and education coexist to make a brighter, smarter future.

Unlock the potential of AI for studying and take your education to the next level. Our accredited programs may help you develop the skills and knowledge you need to succeed in today's world. Plus, our Admissions Specialists are here to help you every step of the way so you can be sure you're making the right decision for your future. Call us today at 1.888.427.6500, and let's talk about how Penn Foster and AI can help you reach your full potential.

Read more: 5 Facebook Live Videos to Help You Be a Successful Online Student

The author wanted to add that she ran her copy through Grammarly’s plagiarism detector, which said that 4% of the text matched already-existing content on the internet. The goal isn’t 0%. The goal is to cite your sources and make sure you’re thinking critically and not just copying someone else’s (or a robot’s) ideas.

• Chen, B. X. (2023, June 30). Don’t Use A.I. to Cheat in School. It’s Better for Studying. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/30/technology/ai-chatbot-study-aid.html

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