Final exams are often the most stressful time of students’
lives.
And when it’s 3 a.m. and the Red Bull has lost its effect,
creating a cheat sheet, rather than continuing to slog through a
study list, is an appealing idea to many people.
But while taking the easy way out may seem tempting, there are
too many reasons not to cheat.
If a student is caught cheating, his or her status as a UCLA
student ““ and future plans in the academic and professional
world ““ will be in serious danger. Even if they’re sure
they can get away with cheating, students may leave themselves
unprepared for future classes or jobs.
If this ““ along with the concept that dishonesty is, in
general, not a good thing ““ isn’t enough, students
should realize the old saying “you’re only
cheating yourself” isn’t true. Not at UCLA.
That’s because professors and TAs nearly always take into
account how well a student performs in comparison to his or her
peers, even for classes that are not graded on a curve.
Honest students suffer the consequences when others refuse to do
their own work.
So, why do people cheat? It doesn’t do much good for
anyone ““ administrators, faculty, honest students ““ to
try to stop cheating without first considering this question.
Many might assume it is the bottom dwellers who cheat ““
those close to flunking out or who couldn’t master course
material no matter how hard they tried.
That’s not always the case.
Numerous students told the Daily Bruin they cheat in hopes of
making their applications for graduate school more competitive.
Indeed, some cheaters at UCLA are also some of the most intelligent
people here. (They could probably earn top grades if they put as
much effort into studying as they did toward beating the system.)
Very often, it is students who aim the highest who feel compelled
to stoop to the lowest levels. Whether they feel pressure from
parents to get outstanding grades or they simply want a stronger
transcript, it’s all too common that those striving for Yale
Law or Harvard Medical School are the ones stealing tests or
plagiarizing essays.
These students recognize they are giving themselves a
comparative advantage by dishonestly boosting their GPAs. What they
may not consider is that each time cheaters like them earn
admission to graduate programs, they take spots from those who did
their work honestly, but were not admitted.
The basic purpose of a university is for faculty and students to
come together in academic inquiry. And when students are dishonest
in their part of that equation, they hurt the integrity of their
school.
But they don’t only cheat a huge, impersonal
university.
They also cheat their colleagues ““ other students. They
cheat the people with whom they work, their drinking buddies, their
roommates, their boyfriends and girlfriends.
Doing so is quite a price to pay for a fraction of a GPA
point.