The Art of College Management:Cheating

Whether one has cheated or not, it has been a known fact for years that the majority of college students have either cheated or thought about cheating academically. Cheating gives one the false belief of succeeding on a test, on a homework assignment, or anything else for that matter. Cheating has been seen not only in schools, but also in the workplace and other social situations. We all know it’s wrong, but that doesn’t stop most of us from doing it. As said by Rebekah Nathan, it has been estimated that 81% of students in 1963 had been involved in some form of dishonesty. Thirty years later in 1993, that statistic had risen 2%. I can only imagine how much that number has risen since. Although the numbers were high, this really doesn’t surprise me. Last year in high school, cheating would take place literally every day, and it was looked upon as normal among the students. Classmates swapped homework answers or maybe just copied completely from one of their friends. Test taking was much worse, having seen immediate shifting of eyes when a classmate didn’t know an answer. Students would think of basically anything to get out of studying. Cheat sheets were popular in my school, and people were proud of them too. Since a lot of the kids had to take relatively the same courses, after using the right answers on the sheets, they would simply pass them on to friends so they could take the test with that very same little piece of paper in their pockets. Sometimes they would get caught, but most of the time they got away with it, and I thought nothing of it. I figured if they really needed it that bad it wasn’t any of my business. I feel as if cheating is now just an everyday thing, and it is taking away from the integrity of high schools and universities across the country. But people cheat, and there really isn’t ever going to be a stop to it. They do it to feel accomplished without having to study rigorously. By doing this though, they are just sliding by with a free pass. The people who are being dishonest aren’t learning or bettering themselves in the process. They are just cheating themselves out of striving to be the best they can be on their own. When a student who has cheated receives an excellent grade, it is obviously meaningless and it’s taking the credit away from a student who earned a good grade through hard work and effort. I’m not saying everyone is perfect, but people should gain success out of their own efforts rather than stealing the spotlight from the ones who truly deserve it.