The word “cheating” is associated with images of answer keys, clandestine signals, or students looking over each other’s shoulders. However, cheating takes many different forms–some less obvious than others. What causes this urge to take credit for something that isn’t yours or giving away your work? Cheating becomes a constant necessity in order to get better grades and succeed.

“I don’t think it is all wrong; sometimes getting answers from a another person can help. There are other times when it is completely wrong though,” sophomore David Nicholson said. Cheating removes a small amount of stress off a student for a short period of time.

“Cheating is an outlet for students to achieve more without stress placed upon them,” Nicholson said.

Senior Helen Derechin differs from Nicholson, “We shouldn’t do it because it is not really displaying our full potential it; [it] cheats ourselves and other people as [well].”

Sophomore Madeeha Rizvi agrees with Nicholson that cheating is largely motivated by stress.“Students usually cheat if they feel if they want to do better on their grade or if maybe they are pressured by other people to get good grades.”

Students place their priorities with cheating because of the pressure of getting good grades, compared to the need for education. Good grades means students will succeed, get a good GPA, and eventually get into a good college. Cheating over the years has changed from just trying to get by in high school, to where there is a need to receive the “A” grade, according to ETS. The pressure just increases in order to get the high grades which the students need.

Cheating is easier in some subjects compared to others. “[In] any writing class, it is easy to copy and paste something, and claim it is your own,” Derechin said. According to statistics from plagiarism.org, “One out of three high school students admitted that they used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment.”

Cheating becomes a natural action once, a student has cheat¬ed and received a good grade on a homework or test, the natural action is to cheat again. This causes problems, for the long term process of learning because the student does not learn how to learn and study, just how to cheat.

To read more about cheating, click here. To read Dean of Students Judy Cummins’s perspective, click here.