I can’t stand people who cheat. Whether it’s cheating in a relationship or cheating on an exam, the people who do this make me want to scream. I remember the first time someone I knew cheated on an exam and basically got away with it. During my freshman year of high school, my honors biology class had a final exam that consisted of 100 questions. The thing was, this teacher gave everyone 200 questions to study, and said that 100 would be on the exam. I could tell that others in the class were terrified they were going to fail. The course was especially difficult for me, but I just studied and tried my best.

There were two girls that took their phones out during the test and started getting answers for the questions. When someone tried to tell our teacher after the test, he already knew what was going on. The protocol for cheating was supposed to be an automatic zero and a trip to the principal’s office, but instead, both girls got a 70 on the exam and a warning. This irritated me so much, and clearly I’m still a little bitter over it. Some students who actually tried to study didn’t even get a 70, and these girls who cheated their way through still got credit.

Cheating irks me because I put effort into my work and I do it all on my own. I figure if I have to cheat to do well, I’m doing something wrong. Then, I also think about how irritating it is when I do my own work and somebody copies off of me. The person who’s copying is doing the bare minimum, and in an unacceptable way.

Recently, my roommate was the victim of cheating. She is very bright, and incredibly motivated to succeed in school. Following her efforts to help a classmate with an assignment, she discovered that they had taken her work and copied it word-for-word. Then, she was blamed, and asked to “do her own work.” This made me angry for her, because she received a D on the assignment, even though she did all the work and someone was too lazy to do the work themselves. She told me that the work itself is not that difficult, and all it requires is a few pages of reading to complete.

The situation could have been much worse. Had the professor decided to be strict, they could have given them zeros and sent them to the disciplinary board for plagiarism and academic dishonesty. The person who didn’t do their work was not just lazy, but they didn't consider any of the consequences. Even when friends help each other with homework, they don’t directly copy each other’s words. The point of helping each other with homework, at least in my opinion, is to help each other learn the basic concepts.

I would like to think that in college the standards would be set just a tad bit higher than high school. I understand that college is more difficult than high school, and much more stressful, but it doesn't give you an excuse to cheat. The assignment that my roommate had to do shouldn't have required cheating in order to succeed. If one person can do it then others can too, and they can do it on their own. There's obviously a difference between getting help and copying others work- we should all be able to differentiate between the two.

If you still have to rely on cheating and using other people’s work to make it through college, maybe you shouldn’t be in college. If you’re getting so much help from people that they’re basically doing all the work for you, you might want to re-evaluate your goals. Cheating is immature. It shows a lack of motivation, and it shows that you don't care enough about school to do your own work. I understand that some courses are very difficult, but that’s the risk you take when you decide you want to go to college and pursue a higher education.

Personally, I have a course that I severely underestimated the difficulty of, and it did have the potential to seriously damage my GPA. Rather than trying to cheat my way to a good grade (which honestly would have failed), I spoke with my advisor, and the professor of the course to discuss my options. Because I showed maturity and responsibility in the situation, I was able to change my credit options for the course, and not damage my GPA. I showed that I cared about my work, and that I was motivated to make the best decision for my academic career.

This person who cheated my roommate out of the grade she deserved isn’t just harming a close friend of mine, but they are harming themselves. Instead of cheating, and copying work word-for-word, they should have done the work on their own time and figured it out. Or, if they couldn’t, they should have found a way to get help, whether that be from classmates, TA’s, or professors. Choosing to cheat harmed them, because now they are not going to understand the material as well if they had had to learn it for themselves. College is not all fun and games - most of it is challenging work that you haven't experienced before, and maybe this person just didn't realize that.

College is supposed to be a way to challenge yourself and to learn more about the world, in the hopes of becoming a well-rounded, productive member of society. But, if you cheat your way through school, how can you actually deal with real-world problems? You have to have some way of solving issues, or a way to find help and learn what you need to do in the future. You can’t cheat in any job in the real world and get away with it (unless you’re a Wall Street banker, of course).

Maybe I’m being overly dramatic about cheating, but I have always tried to do my own work in school, and I have always pushed myself to do as well as I can. I figure that if I’m just copying someone’s work I’m not going to understand the content. Any chance I had of understanding the material enough to succeed is completely gone.

So many people I know work incredibly hard in college and still don’t get good grades. The college experience is a difficult one, but most can get through without cheating if they put enough time and effort into their education. If you’re cheating, I don’t want to be associated with you - especially the person who wronged my roommate and put her reputation as a student in jeopardy. This person comes from a place where they probably aren’t used to having to put effort into their work. My roommate and I have many other deeply rooted issues with this person, but the main point is that cheating was an immature, costly, and stupid decision. Cheating in general makes me upset, and the fact that my roommate was trying to a helpful friend just adds to my anger.