Cheating & College

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Greetings all, I am a third year computer science major, and I have seen so much cheating nowadays. It is actually making me very concerned. My peers who cheat, who I know cheat, constantly get A+'s on their assignments while I struggle to get B+'s and A-'s.

They get the scholarships, the praise, and the grad school offers while I don't.

I really wish I could tell someone to level the playing field, but I don't want to be ostracized from my department more than I am already (me being autistic, bipolar, and transgender). People slash tries of bikes/cars of people who tell or damage them or their property in some way. I don't want that to happen to me.

Besides, it costs so much resources for the university to investigate claims of cheating that I don't think the university would investigate anyway.

Everyone says that the cheaters will get caught. But when will they get caught? They have already made it this far into college with their cheating sprees. I have the feeling they'll never get caught.

Anyone else frustrated about cheaters? I want them to be weeded out the university.

Cheaters actually do hurt me, and my grades, because classes are curved too. Especially upper division courses.

How do you know they are cheating?

In my classes, I get all B+'s, A's and A+'s on assignments by actually just doing them, this in turn leads to me getting A's in my classes. I don't cheat, and so far I've not really had to work all that hard.

I'm not saying they aren't, but I'm curious as to know what they are doing and how you know they are doing it?

I've seen them. They either copy code straight from the internet or they work together on most of the assignment therefore splitting the work (which is NOT allowed).



The problem is that the cheaters are hardly trying. At least you work on it, understand the material, and you earned that grade. Cheaters don't earn their keep (yet they do).

So what they are doing is plagiarism. Is there no equivalent anti-plagiarism site for coding as there is for other papers (Turnitin.com, etc)

Other than an anonymous tip, there's not much you can do here. And really, they're hurting themselves in the long run by half-assing their assignments and not knowing as much about their field as you do. There's no cheating when they're on the job.

college is meant for learning ( at least that's what some people believe.) If they're copying someone else's work then they're really just paying for a grade. Some would say it's unfair (and it certainly is unfair if it's affecting your grades through the curve.) They did choose to take the risk and that's a risk you could also choose to take. The fact that you don't choose to cheat suggests it's either against your values or it's not worth the risk or a combination of both. Either way you have something over them.

Most universities do investigate reports of cheating.

I've seen a few people get caught before and their punishment ranged from scolding and an F on the assignment, to being failed in the course, and possibly expelled.

I recall one course, where apparently the instructor caught everyone cheating....except me. I would never intentionally cheat of course, and aside from that, I always worked on my assignments alone and everyone knew it, so I didn't have anyone to copy off of even if I were of such character.

You might talk to your department chair about the problem and ask if the department/college has considered requiring students to sign an honors code.

No disrespect; but that's prob worth the paper it's written on. My college has a strict anti-cheating policy and they catch people all the time.

Cheating interests me because of the lengths some go to cheat. It's almost a talent they have.

I'd let it go. Karma will get them one way or another.

I was an A student and only cheated once, in high school. I got caught. I cheated on a science test because all my friends had to cheat and I wanted to do it too and see what it was like. I was not the sharpest crayon in the box when it came to making good decisions.

I knew the material. I made a cheat sheet and had it in my jacket pocket. I was not slick about getting it out and reading from it in my lap, although what I actually did was take it out of my pocket, unfold it in my lap and then forgot about it and started on the test. I hadn't needed the book to even look up the answers for the cheat sheet. I was an idiot at times, huh?

When the teacher came by and saw it she reached down and took it and took me to the office and they chewed me out and called my mother and sent me home. The teacher knew I knew the material but the only reason I could give for cheating is "I don't know". She made me write reports to make up for the test so she didn't have to give me an F, which she didn't want to do because she knew I knew it, wasn't actually cheating because I did know it, and because she believed me when I told her I didn't know why I did it.

I'm glad I had some restraint though and forethought and didn't blurt out "Because my friends are all cheating and I want to see what it's like and if I can!"

Are you sure they're actually cheating? I'm not sure what assignments are like in computer science, but except in exam situations, I would have thought it's kind of hard to actually cheat (unless you make someone else write your thesis, or copy an article word for word). Sometimes if instructions are vague, different people have different interpretations of what is 'allowed' or not.

I agree, cheaters are infuriating, but what grade you get in college isn't that important at the end of the day, as long as you get the piece of paper. In many jobs, the degree is just a check box; you make your mark during the interview.

I'm not worried about cheating, unless it's during the test, which I believe is rare. If you study a science, you know cheating is stupid.