Cheap Degrees

For the last several days, the Dear Abby column has been devoted to the topic of cheating, which, according to the letters she has printed from students and teachers across the nation, has reached epidemic proportion.

I’m not a sociologist, or a psychologist, or an ethicist, or any kind of expert on the topic of cheating, but I, too, have had to deal with this problem over and over again in my classroom, usually in the form of plagiarism. Through these unpleasant encounters with students, I have become aware of some of the things that contribute to student cheating: laziness, procrastination, excessive parental pressure for good grades, fear, lack of moral character, an end-justifies-the-means mentality, poor role models, a sense of entitlement. The list could go on. Some students want the piece of paper more than the knowledge and accomplishment that it signifies. In this, of course, they are actually cheating themselves. But additionally, it is quite likely that students who cheat turn into adults who cheat on their taxes, who fudge on their expense accounts, who take credit for their co-worker’s ideas, who are unfaithful to spouses. This list, too, could go on and on.

But I believe that students who get their degrees by cheating are also cheating somebody else: me, and everyone else who got his or her degree by lots of honest hard work. Besides the actual dollars and cents that a university degree costs (and it’s quite a lot), each degree also cost me family time, and sleep time, time with friends, and personal time. Sometimes it cost me anxiety and tears; it cost me some hard decisions and prioritizing. But in the reading of every book, every hour of research, every project completed, every paper written, I gained, not only the knowledge and experience to perform well in my chosen field, but also a sense of accomplishment in a job well done. But somehow, the thought that their piece of paper reads the same as mine still rankles a little.