Cheating In College Is A Very Bad Idea

Cheating in college is not a very good idea. The truth is, cheating in college is a very bad idea, because the risk of getting caught has been increasing over time, and the penalties for cheating in college are very severe, much more so than in most high schools, especially public high schools.

It is not an exaggeration to say that getting caught cheating in college can set a person's life back YEARS.

This is because of the Honor Code that almost all colleges and universities have. The Honor Code is not some meaningless document or formality that the student is required to sign once and then it is forgotten about.

At many schools the student is required for every exam (and many times also for other assignments) to sign a declaration of complying with, following, and faithfully upholding the Honor Code by not cheating.

The Honor Code is taken very seriously and the penalties for violating the Honor Code by cheating can range from receiving a failing grade on the exam or assignment on which the student cheated, to receiving a failing grade for the course in which the student cheated, to complete expulsion from the school.

Most college professors take cheating very seriously and are careful to be on guard against it. In 2007, a big scandal occurred when 34 students in one class in the MBA program at the School of Business at Duke University were caught cheating (Read the story here). Shortly before that, 122 students in undergraduate physics were caught cheating at the University of Virginia, which has been described as having one of the strictest honor codes.

One of the many tools that tips the balance heavily in favor of the professors and against college students that cheat is the service provided by turnitin.com.

That website allows the comparison of all of the papers submitted for a class assignment to be compared to each other, as well as to text that is available on the internet.

So professors can tell, using that service, if students copied each other's work or sources on the internet.

There are many other similar services offering software to detect and discover cheating and plagiarism, and the list of those services and software programs is growing.

Cheating in college is simply not worth the risk, especially since it is possible to honestly do well in the race for good college grades.

College Cheating In the News

Click here for a July 2010 update on cheating in college from The New York Times. One of the most important points made is that now more than half (55%) of colleges are using software and/or companies that check for cheating by students.

This report on cheating in college, "Duke: 34 MBA students punished for cheating", even though now a few years old, is still important reading [from The Boston Globe online].

Two more stories, also in very prominent news media (The New York Times, and Newsday [NY]) talk about cheating in college, and why it is becoming more and more of a risk for students.

The New York Times: “Lessons in the School of Cut and Paste”

Newsday: “NET.CETERA - Students Lie, Cheat and Steal, Courtesy of the Internet”

***Now, more and more often, teachers, professors and colleges are determined to discourage students from cheating and to catch students who still cheat.

Cheating in college: Why take the risk? Cheating in college simply is not a good idea, and there is no need at all to cheat in college when you follow the easy to use, proven system and strategies in “Get Good Grades In College Now”.

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