Opinion: Cheating out of education

Opinion%3A+Cheating+out+of+education

By Hariadhi [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (via Wikimedia Commons

LAUREN BENCHOFF, Staff Writer

Fake it until you make it, right?

Schools all over the country have been cracking down on cheating. From cheat sheets to copying answers and plagiarizing, it’s getting harder to cheat and consequences are getting  more and more severe.

GHS is one of the many schools that have a strict “no cheating” policy. Consequences for cheating and plagiarism are stated in the Compass. According to the Compass, a first time violator will be given a grade of zero, while multiple offenders could receive an academic failure.

Cheating for some is just a basic way to get by in school. Some people feel that the material they learned never clicked in time for the test, so they cheat to just get by. Others may have stayed up into the late hours of the night to finish work for other classes and couldn’t find the time, or were too tired to study.

While cheating may not seem like a big deal to some, others have different opinions. For those who took the time and studied or stayed up late to get their work done, it’s unfair that their hard work is being copied and turned in by another student.

A survey taken in the last five years conducted by the Josephson Institute Center for Youth Ethics shows that in both public and private schools, 59% of students admitted to cheating on tests in the past year.

The same survey also showed that one in three high school students admitted to using the internet to plagiarize. Plagiarism is common mainly because students don’t realize they’re plagiarizing when they are writing down a definition or taking down quotes.

I understand why kids do it. School is stressful. You have seven classes. If you are having a test in three of them that day, you don’t have enough time to sleep, study and do other classwork.

Sometimes, it is just easier to take a short cut and make a cheat sheet or copy or whatever you have to do to get the good grade.

But personally, I want to benefit from my education.  I think that being an intelligent person is important. While cheating may be happening all around the country, students who are are copying answers and plagiarizing are only cheating themselves out of an education.