Most educators are aware that some students utilize web-based machine translators for foreign language assignments, however, little research has been done to determine how and why students utilize these programs, or what the implications are for language learning and teaching. In this mixed-methods study we utilized surveys, a translation task, and interviews to discover some of the students' beliefs and strategies in using such tools. Our results suggest that students hold a range of beliefs about the usefulness of machine translators for writing assignments, and that many of them can articulate and reflect upon the strategies that they use. We discuss implications for the use of machine translation in the foreign language curriculum based on the example of university German.