I pushed a button on my computer screen verifying that I agreed, \on the honor system, not to cheat or help anyone else cheat,"" and then for a long time I thought about cheating.
It was just 10 questions on cloud identification, and I knew cheating probably wouldn't help me. But, I also knew it wouldn't hurt me either, and I knew if I didn't cheat, everyone who did would have an advantage. It's always this way, and I always wonder who ""everyone"" actually is.
In this case, I was pretty sure that ""everyone"" consisted of just about my entire class. Our professor, after all, had assigned 10 take-home exam questions, which came practically right out of our textbook.
Maybe I could answer eight of the questions correctly without cheating, but then I'd still be two points short of everyone else. Of course, maybe I was wrong, and not everyone was cheating, but I don't know.
I used to think cheating was a lot more prevalent than it actually is, but I also used to have a much stricter definition of cheating. Now, I don't even know if I consider it cheating when you use your textbook to answer questions on a take-home exam.
Sometimes, I have to wonder if professors don't want you to cheat like that. And I also have to wonder if professors actually want you to do the readings or to go to class, because sometimes I get the feeling they don't.
When I was a freshman, I thought skipping class and not doing the readings was some form of cheating, so I read everything and missed only two classes all year. I had the same attitude as a sophomore, and I did everything my professors asked.
One professor suggested that we read each of the 15 plays in his Shakespeare class twice, and I did, because I didn't want to cheat. In the end, I got a B in that class, while a friend of mine got an AB without reading any of the plays at all.
Since then, I've cut back on the amount of reading I do for class, and I definitely don't think I'm cheating. Cheating is buying term papers and copying someone in an exam, and I can't even imagine doing that in college.
In high school, everyone cheated, and I think they had to do it because everything seemed to matter. Everyone was under the impression that if they didn't get straight As something terrible was going to happen. Now, I can't see why anyone would worry so much about school as to cheat.
Maybe students who want to get into medical school or law school are under a lot of pressure so they cheat, and then they probably just consider it practice for the rest of their life. But, I don't need to cheat. I don't have career ambitions. I don't have any pressure in school. I just go, and I don't fake it.
I don't go to discussion section and pretend I know what I'm talking about when I haven't studied for three weeks. I don't pretend to be interested when I really don't care. I just do what I think is honest, and I didn't think it was honest to use my book on the take-home exam. I got seven right out of 10, and I knew all seven of them.
andrewmiller@students.wisc.edu
