Cheaters never win

Have you ever sat in class during an exam only to look up and see a fellow student pull a paper out of their bag, write something down, then sneak it back out of sight?

What about a student pulling up their sleeve to look at definitions written on their wrist?

Or have you ever noticed the desks we sit at offer the potential for a student to write test answers in pencil? It doesn't reflect off the desk and it's easily concealable.

Cheating isn't new to any of us and no longer receives the same shock value it did when we were younger. Of course it's easy, why do the hard work when we can simply do a little trick to get that A we think we really deserve, right? C’mon, what's a little cheating, it doesn't hurt anybody.

Wrong! It undermines the professors and your peers who studied hard and put in time to be in class. With all that schools offer like their tutoring sessions, study workshops and even office hours with your professor a student cheating should only be seen as lazy behavior.

In my opinion what makes it worse is that there are friends or even other students in class that condone the behavior. I have heard of students writing papers for a cash payout. But what begins to cross the line of ethics?

If you're in class and working your butt off on an exam, but get stumped on a question you can't place the answer to and you look over to see another student cheating, wouldn't you want to say something?

Personally, I get the urge to yell, "I don't get a cheat sheet! I know this answer but I'm blanking. I studied all week for this and you have the possibility of scoring higher than me?!" I don’t do that of course because that would be disruptive, but should I tell the professor?

If I told the professor and that student were questioned, proved guilty and then punished maybe even by suspension or expulsion that would be quite a burden on my conscience.

On the other hand there's the possibility that this student walks away with no consequences and a fabulous GPA.

So should I get involved? When were young it wasn't cool to be a "tattle tale" and I hate to say it but that might stay true through college as well.

I would like to think I have the balls to say something but the policy isn't out in the open. Every class syllabus states the school’s policy on cheating but it doesn’t cover the details.

I think the most important question is: what do we as students expect from each other?