Cheating in college

[Richard320]

You did the right thing.

Cheating on a test is a form of LYING. You are saying that you know the facts and understand the material when you don’t.

People can argue that cheaters are only hurting themselves. Not true. If a professor sees that 90% of his class scored 90% or better on a test, he might assume he’s a pretty good teacher. Or that he’s dumbed it down too much and he needs to make the next test harder. And the honest student next semester gets a terrible score because the test is impossible.

And then there’s the follow-up course. If the Chemistry 1B professor has to spend a lot of time rehashing subjects that should be mastered in Chemistry 1A because nobody learned anything but how to cheat, it’s a waste of time and tuition for the student who did learn the material by study.

And then there’s the finished product. A college degree with nothing to back it up but the ability to cheat. The diploma is just a handsome certificate suitable for framing. An employer might look for grads with a 3.5 GPA or better. Is that 3.5 for real? Maybe the hard worker with a 3.2 GPA actually knows the subject better than the 3.5 who got it by cheating. How would one know? Maybe the employer ought to play it safe and look for a MS instead of a BS.

How’d you like a doctor or pharmacist who doesn’t really know the effects of certain medicines upon each other because they didn’t study, but cheated on that test? Sometimes it’s important to know a subject, really know it, and not just long enough to pass a test!

Finally, cheating becomes a habit. Bad habits need to be stopped early or they get harder and harder to break. And in the real world, as opposed to academia, cheating can lead to lawsuits for things like patent infringement. And firings.

Cheating is wrong. It is evil. All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. You have to report cheating.

:twocents:

 

[Jessup]

Nothing you learn in school you use in the real world. When I finished trade school, the first thing they told me was to stop what I was doing and do it their way if I wanted to keep my job.
When I talk to potential job offers for engineering positions after I finish the university. They don’t want to hear a thing about my engineering studies. They want to hear about my trade school studies, and what experience I have on the job.
I’ve had one company owner who was a self made 39 year old millionaire/ M.E./ MBA / Para Rescue/ veteran tell me to; or
" forget all that #$%# $#@% T^$$" they teach you in school, don’t be a #%^%#@.
I’ll let you fill in the explicit remarks with your own imagination.
If universities where so worried about integrity, they would get rid of all the non productive organizations there. The Greeks fraternities; the NORML organization, Gay and Bi clubs Aithiest or Christian fellowships, , Pro-Life,/ Pro-Choice, activist, and other various protesters, and make it a place where you go and work.
Like it is suppose to be.
Cheers!

 

[Allegra]

You need to tell the head of the department that by allowing these people to cheat they are not only hurting themselves they are hurting the reputation of the college - in turn hurting the value of the degree you are working for and paying for. In a sense - these people are stealing from YOU.

This is absolutely right! Just recently the elementary school I work at got a handful of absolute duds for student teachers from a local university. This bunch of bums were so ill-prepared it was rediculous. One teacher absolutely refused to leave her classroom untended with the guy in there because he was so incompetant. The music student teacher was beyond incompetant. I wrote on her paper work that her advisor should never have recommended her as ready for student teaching. The university continues to lie and say that these students should be licensed by the state. It is a disaster. Because of this, our district has refused to accept any more student teachers from that university. Now what do you think the chances are that they’d actually hire someone with a degree from there?

 

[Allegra]

Would neglecting to report cheaters be sinful? If so, why?

I would be very reluctant to report anyone I knew was cheating.

Even if you don’t report the individual, you could still report that there was cheating going on. Several posters have demonstrated that cheating is harmful to the other students and to the university’s credit. Reporting it might cause that harm to stop, so it is clearly the right thing to do.

 

[jmcrae]

Would neglecting to report cheaters be sinful? If so, why?

Because cheaters devalue the worth of your degree or diploma to worse than nothing. If your college becomes known as “that cheater college” then your diploma or degree from “Cheater College” won’t get you a job - not even at McDonald’s - because once you have a reputation as a thief and a liar, no one wants to trust you with the cash box - even if it wasn’t actually you who was cheating.

I’d rather get kicked out of school for reporting the cheaters. That way, my reputation stays clean, and I can still work at a minimum wage job with my honest and integrity intact.

 

[misspriss]

First off, to the OP, you did the right thing. I reported cheating once too, I cannot for the life of me remember what class or how they were cheating, but I was scared to death to report them but I did it anyway. I do know it was an upper level class though.

@ Jessup - you’ll get no argument from me that higher education is, by and large, a racket. Unless you pick a field of study that pays well after graduation. None of that changes my basic question, which is - does no one value learning for its own sake anymore? I don’t give a $$^^&&*^% if everyone else in my class is cheating - I want to learn what my profs have to offer. Maybe it’s becuase the profs at my college were awesome, but I really got a lot of knowledge and wisdom out of college. (University of Alaska - Fairbanks, if anyone’s taking notes.)

Getting through college was THE REASON I can provide for my family - once my husband abandoned me with 2 kids, I realized it was up to me to be the breadwinner. So I picked a field of study that paid well after graduation (for me, accounting, but I am told engineering does well, too), and I threw myself into it. Oh - and I was on WIC, food stamps, and took out student loans to get where I am today.

In short, yes I do know “what that education means to some people.” I am that person. And I accept no excuses for cheating.

Good choice of majors (Me too!!)

Nothing you learn in school you use in the real world. When I finished trade school, the first thing they told me was to stop what I was doing and do it their way if I wanted to keep my job.
When I talk to potential job offers for engineering positions after I finish the university. They don’t want to hear a thing about my engineering studies. They want to hear about my trade school studies, and what experience I have on the job.
I’ve had one company owner who was a self made 39 year old millionaire/ M.E./ MBA / Para Rescue/ veteran tell me to; or
" forget all that #$%# $#@% T^$$" they teach you in school, don’t be a #%^%#@.
I’ll let you fill in the explicit remarks with your own imagination.
If universities where so worried about integrity, they would get rid of all the non productive organizations there. The Greeks fraternities; the NORML organization, Gay and Bi clubs Aithiest or Christian fellowships, , Pro-Life,/ Pro-Choice, activist, and other various protesters, and make it a place where you go and work.
Like it is suppose to be.
Cheers!

Well, yeah, work isn’t like school. But you learn a lot in school, it is hard to explain. Nothing I did at work was what I learned in school, but what I learned in school taught me to understand what I would need to understand beyond that. School was really the foundation for what I would build on with experience. But in the same way, employers didn’t want to know about school, they wanted to know about my work experience (I worked the entire time I went to school). BUT, the only reason they didn’t need to ask about school is because they knew my school, they saw my transcripts, they knew what classes I took and what grades I got and what my GPA was when I graduated. And you know what? I wouldn’t have gotten the interview without the college degrees.

And the only “group” I joined was an Accounting/Finance organization that required you to keep your grades up and introduced you to future employers. Not really a “entertainment” based group. It was called a fraternity, but it’s not the frat house type of fraternity.

And yeah, cheating devalues the education for everyone else who doesn’t.