Blog 12: Chapter 12: Cheating

Is cheating part of our social culture? The dictionary definition of cheat means to deprive something valuable by the use of deceit or fraud, to influence or lead by deceit, trick or artifice or to elude or thwart by or as if by outwitting (Webster Dictionary). Undergraduate students have managed to cheat their way to the top for numerous years in various ways. “A major factor determining whether a student will cheat or not is the academic culture of the specific institution that he or she attends.” (Sperber 123). Large research universities tend to see more of the cheating process because undergrads are resentful or the large size lecture halls, the TA’s that are inexperienced and the professors who are distant. Is this because large universities tend to treat undergrads as just tuition dollars? For some reason there is a connection between undergraduate students at “BIG-TIME” universities and schools with the highest number of cheaters. Some of the reasons for cheating are that they want to party, party, party and hit the books less and less. One Michigan State student stated that he hardly ever attended lecture halls, paid for his notes and papers to be written. He felt MS was insulting his intelligence therefore that was his way of retaliating. “It’s an eye for an eye, it’s my insults for the school’s insults” (Sperber 123). Are faculty members helping students to cheat? At the University of Michigan a tutor admitted that she wrote at least twenty papers for the varsity men’s basketball team. Is there a difference between tutoring a students and helping a student to cheat? NCAA Division I universities have been helping students with their course work for years. Tutors are hired to help athletes with their papers but end up rewriting the entire paper. Faculty members at UM were aware of this scandal but they “turned the other check” and graded the papers as if the athlete himself actually wrote the A paper.