Cheating In Today's Colleges

Twila Poston 21546081 05054300 Page 1
38 Landward Way
Savannah, GA 31406 [e-mail] Cheating in today’s Colleges Cheating has become a common behavior in today’s college classrooms. Most students have pondered with the idea of cheating at one time or another during their college education. It seems to have become easier to act upon this urgent to cheat and fell less guilty about it, totally disregarding the consequences. The most common reason for cheating, that I have experienced in college, is the urgency to complete ones course work at a more rapid pace. To completely understand what cheating is would be to define the term itself. The best possible way I can define cheating
is to say that it is intentionally presenting some one else’s work as your own. Whether it is by looking at another’s work, using the internet, plagiarizing, having someone else sit in an examination for you, or by receiving the examination content before the exam itself, all forms are wrong and deceitful. There are many forms of cheating and just as much reason why someone may cheat. The most common reason for college students to cheat, that I have seen, is because of the need to complete college at a more rapid pace. In a cheaters mind they feel that if they cheat to make good grades that will help them to progress faster and produce the career they
Twila Poston 21546081 05054300 Page 2
38 Landward Way
Savannah, GA 31406 [e-mail] are in need of. Completing your ones course work at a much quicker pace and with good grades is what we all need and want. However, cheating is not the way to achieve anything in life. I am assuming that with more non-traditional students in the classroom now, more parents being laid off, and fewer jobs available may be the main reason for this urgency to complete your studies much quicker as well.
Look around you now, do you not agree? When you have a single parent who has lost their job, gone through a recent divorce, or any other life changing event in today’s economy this may assist you in pondering on the idea of cheating for a moment of two as well. Think twice, it is not worth losing your education. Let me stop a moment and bring us back to reality. A college student violates the most honorable golden rule of all when they make the decision to be deceitful by cheating. You are deceiving your parents, your professor, your future employer, your peers, your family and not to mention the entire college. How will you explain to your parents that the college education they have been paying for you have not been earning honestly. If a college student, whom is campus based, gets caught cheating and they are receiving financial aid it is going to cause a severe problem. When you are caught cheating you will be given an “F” in that class. We all know that in order to keep the Hope Scholarship, grants, loans, or any other assistance a college student must keep a “B” average. I do not know about you but I cannot afford to pay the full price for tuition.
Twila Poston 21546081 05054300 Page
3
38 Landward Way
Savannah, GA 31406 [e-mail] Distant learning students do not have financial aid to worry about.
On the other hand, they have to worry about how mom and dad, their spouse, or their employer will feel when they find out their college student has been cheating. With it being a distant learning course they more than likely will be caught cheating by way of plagiarism. Yes, they can cheat by many other ways but will probably not be caught. No matter which method of cheating one may choose to accomplish their goals of completing their course work more quickly really does not matter. Nor does it matter if they are distant learners or they are traditional students. Cheating is cheating and no one likes a deceitful cheater. College years are one of the most critical periods of our ethical development. Yet this is the time period in which a large number of adults make the ignorant decision to cheat and put the rest of life in jeopardy. You could even quite possibly be expelled for cheating. After all, if other students take the time to become dedicated to their education and learn the material, then all students should have to do the same as well. Today’s college students are tomorrow’s learners! That is why the college years are the most effective and the most critical period in which you develop and nourish your ethical characteristics. With our economic state getting worse day by day it has forced our ethics to be on the back burner. Take my advice, do not let the urgency that you may feel to persuade
you to be deceitful and cheat. The consequences and reproductions you may experience can

Twila Poston 21546081 05054300 Page 4
38 Landward Way
Savannah, GA 31406 [e-mail] destroy any chances of having a career. Take your time, learn the material, do your homework. All of these things combined will produce a wonderful education, career, and life, at the pace that is right for you.