I’ve expressed my love for Gannon University in a plethora of columns over the past two years. I’ve said it before and I will say it again: I am truly blessed to have been included as a part of this wonderful community.
A community which, despite love and gratitude from its members, does have flaws. No one is ever perfect, but there’s one thing about some Gannon students – presumably all college students in general – that will never fail to irk me.
It all comes down to this question: if you’re in college to learn something, then why would you cheat your way through it?
I’ve heard plenty of rumors in my time here about faculty “cracking down” on students by handing out multiple versions of the same test, so no neighbor will have the same one, or other fool-proof methods of catching cheaters in action.
It’s a shame that they have to do this, especially at the college level.
Students come to college for one reason, when it all comes down to it: we want jobs. And for most of us, we’re hoping those jobs will turn into lifelong careers in a specific field.
So when we aim to do well in our classes, it makes total sense. In fact, I would highly criticize any student who doesn’t aim to do his or her best in every class.
But if doing our best (i.e., achieving the desired letter grade) is achieved through cheating, then what purpose does college really serve at all?
It only makes us – the students – look incapable of putting in the time and effort to really know our trades. And if we can’t do that, how can we expect anyone to hire us?
Before I switched my major at the beginning of my sophomore year, I took an education class where this problem was more than prevalent.
A rumor spread rapidly around the classroom the first night that this guy gave the same exact multiple-choice tests every year, never bothering to mix up the questions or answer choices. Since he always gave the tests back to students, someone from years past had all the answers to share.
When it came time for the first test, about half the class came prepared with a memorized list of letters and quickly jotted them down the pages of the test, making a few mistakes here and there so they didn’t all get 100 percent, but all came out with a sturdy A.
It worked.
I don’t know about them – I didn’t participate in the cheating, which showed when I got the test back with a giant C-minus – but I felt really lousy when I left the class that evening. I couldn’t stop thinking about what could possibly motivate these future teachers to cheat in their education classes.
I just don’t understand how, as a student, you can justify cheating your way through something that you will need to know in the future. And for teachers, how you can justify doing this in college and then standing in front of a classroom of your own, promising discipline to any student who does the exact same thing.
It’s certainly not responsible, and it’s not fair to the future students (or patients, clients, etc.), regardless of whether they know you cheated your way through college.
Most students aren’t going to get caught cheating, and I highly doubt any of them will stop doing it at my words, either.
But just consider this: if you take the time to learn all the things you’re supposed to know now, you won’t have to be reprimanded for doing it wrong at work later.
