GUEST COLUMNIST: There is no honor among thieves

Christina Park, Guest Columnist Christina Park, Guest ColumnistWith finals swiftly approaching, one regards the elevated levels of stress with a mixture of sympathy and caution. While many of us work hard to achieve our grades, there are an equal number of students who opt for alternative methods with which to thwart the system via duplicity. Is apathy the culprit of dismantling such fine minds? Sadly, it is not only apathy, but also dishonesty. In a recent documentary-style video about cheating at universities, the University of Pennsylvania was portrayed as an institution in which academic integrity and personal honor were trampled and misused by students who had neither. In a few years when you regard your Penn degree hanging up for inspection, you may not feel the same sense of pride in the value of your education. It will dawn on you that all the while you were bypassing learning anything and gaining an unfair advantage over fellow students, you were really deceiving yourself. But wait, doesn't everyone cheat? Didn't you actually do yourself a favor by joining in on it instead of getting the back end of the curve? Many students get caught, often foolishly in a split-second bad judgment call or even more tragically because they were unaware that what they were doing constituted cheating. If a student has been caught cheating and found guilty, what happens? Remember that thing called the Judicial Charter that was passed just last year? It includes the "faculty grading option," which allows professors to assign any grade they deem appropriate, which would most likely be an "F." Furthermore, the student is also handed over to the Office of Student Conduct, which determines the appropriate punishment. Unfortunately, many students don't realize the serious consequences they face if caught. With Penn's rigorous curriculum complemented by a healthy dose of competition, it is nearly impossible not to acknowledge that while cheating is wrong and gives one an unfair advantage, it most certainly doesn't hurt to be well above the curve. The problem is when many students cheat in a certain class and it comes down to grades, it can actually be a "disadvantage" not to cheat. The dilemma challenging students isn't just the moral obligation, but the possibility of getting caught -- a formidable deterrent. And unfortunately, many students do come to a situation when they are faced with academic integrity violations. The University takes these infractions very seriously -- not only in careful consideration of the violation -- but also with the best interests of the student in mind. Many of us are able to recount various instances of cheating which we have all witnessed, and express our outrage at the blatant disregard for honor in our fellow students. Yet the failure or success of our University rests primarily on our personal responsibility not only in maintaining high standards of honor in ourselves, but expecting others to do so as well. I would bet that many of you have cheated before, albeit perhaps unwittingly. Allow me to give you some lesser-known cases of cheating. Did you know turning in a paper you wrote for one class to an entirely different class without permission from the instructor is cheating? It's called "multiple submission" and it's in the Judicial Charter. Using programmable calculators for an exam without specific permission from the professor is also considered a violation. Here's something with which we are all familiar: continuing to write on an exam when time is called to stop. It's not just "something" several students do to annoy teaching assistants by scribbling on in hopes of that one additional point -- it's called cheating. Violations of honesty are not limited to the classroom, however; misrepresenting yourself on a resume at CPPS also constitutes a violation of the Code of Academic Integrity. In other words, altering your G.P.A., claiming to be part of an organization of which you are not a member and other false information will prove far more detrimental to your success when the truth is revealed. Could we only be acknowledging the obvious forms of cheating such as misplacing books on reserve to deprive other students of vital information? "Yes," we might all agree, "Such lowly individuals ought to be expelled!" Yet consider your own past, after having considered the true unadorned concept of "unfair advantage" and "honesty," you may wonder if you have held to these principles of integrity and personal honor throughout your experiences at Penn. A compelling question is, "Why do people cheat?" Could it truly be the manifestation of sheer desperation? Is it to protect yourself from the damaging effects of the curve because so many people cheat in a particular class? Perhaps it is -- as in the case of MAPLE -- because no one knows how to navigate its murky waters and collaboration may be a survival mechanism. It may be because students just don't feel learning it would be of any use to them in the future. If one selectively learns something due to its potential value and relevance, does this mean one may bypass the tiresome effort of learning something deemed "useless" by cheating? We have all heard competing unfairly not only hurts others, but also hurts yourself. It is important to realize that the value of a Penn degree sharply declines every time someone takes the easy way out. (Unless you get caught and never end up receiving one.) Seriously, what is the point of getting a degree if you cheat your way through college? How can we as members of an intellectual community prevent the theft of ideas, the shameful absence of trust, the malice involved in deliberately harming fellow students? When you decide to cheat, in truth, you have nothing to gain and everything to lose. I urge you to think about this during finals. Anyone can get a Penn degree by cheating (relatively speaking), but not everyone can earn one.