Cheating in School

Corey Lehtinen

Ms. Williams
English 1101J
The Easy Way Out Cheating is something known to students throughout the country and throughout the world. I define an act of cheating as using someone else’s information to gain an advantage on a topic you are not familiar with, that you are supposed to know. In other words, you don’t do the work needed to do well; you use someone else’s work so you can do well or help you do better than you actually should. There are three main reasons why I believe students cheat in school in my opinion. Pure laziness, bad habits, and the fear of failure. For the most part I believe that pure laziness is the main contributing factor in cheating, but the other reasons also play a significant role in this behavior. Students have a tendency to wait until the last minute to do everything. No matter how big or important the assignment, it always ends up being put off until the day before it’s due. This tendency is called procrastination, which is a form of laziness. Being lazy is the main reason why students cheat in our society today. Students don’t study because they’re lazy and then show up to a test and have no clue what’s going to be on it, is what I define as a lazy student. So what do those students do when they realize they have no clue what’s on the test? They ask another student, who knows the information because they studied, if they can attempt to whisper them the answers or if they can use they’re test when the teacher isn’t paying attention so they can copy their answers. Maybe that student will be willing to let them cheat off them or maybe they won’t want to take that chance and won’t let them cheat off them. But in the end it’s your fault that you didn’t care enough to take some time to study and get off your ass. So since you were lazy and decided not study, you have to try and cheat because it’s your only way out of not failing the test. Everyone has some laziness in them; it just comes down to either doing what you have to do, to do well, or letting that laziness in you, take over and not do what you have to do and in turn, then having to resort to cheating to not fail the test. Everyone in this world has some form of a habit they consider to be not helpful at all and would like to break. For example, most high school students develop the habit of not having to study for a test. So in turn they show up to class and have to cheat in order to get a mediocre grade. Bad habits are only broken by routinely doing the opposite of what you once did. If you don’t study for class, the only way you’re going to be able to break that habit is if you start studying each day. When I first came to college I didn’t study because I didn’t study in high school either. I didn’t study but maybe once or twice my senior year and made all A’s. But then I realized that college is completely different and that you have to study your ass off if you want to achieve good grades. That’s when I woke up and started doing the thing I hate the most, studying. I set a time out of the day that I will sit down and go over all of my classes to make sure I’m on top of everything. It’s the only way to break the habit of not studying, so I did what I had to do, and now I’m used to studying everyday. What was once a bad habit of not studying for me, is now a good habit because I started studying. Habits are created and destroyed, if you keep the good habits you create and destroy the bad ones you have, then you will never have to cheat for a single thing in life again. If you destroy good habits and never develop them into real habits and continue to use bad habits, your life is going to be a lot harder than it has to be. It’s really all up to you. You may be wondering why I put, “fear of failure” as a reason, but it is true. True in the sense that no one wants to fail. When you take your drivers test, you sit in the DMV nervous as hell, and fear that you will fail the test while you sit there. It applies to cheating as well because believe it or not, they’re people out there who like to take short cuts so they won’t fail. Cheating in a sense is a way to almost guarantee you don’t fail, unless you cheat off someone who is clueless like you. Studying almost always guarantees that you will at least pass the test, quiz, etc. It also gives you a much greater chance to excel on the assignment as well. But most people do not want to put in the work, again referring back to doing what you have to do. They’re lazy and don’t put in any work, but they’re still afraid to fail. That is why they cheat, because it doesn’t matter to them that they didn’t put in the work. The only thing that matters to them, is not failing, because they fear it. They know if they fail they’re going to be sunk a whole, which in all likely hood they are not going to be able to dig out of. Why, because THEY’RE SIMPLY NOT WILLING TO PUT IN THE WORK. They would rather cheat, and use other people so they don’t fail. But hey, in the long run if they keep cheating as a habit, they will never put in the work for anything in life and in turn will probably go know where because eventually they won’t be able to cheat and will immediately fail. I completely disagree with cheating. Yes, I’m being a hypocrite because I have cheated in the past, but if there’s one thing I’ll never do again, it is, to cheat. It’s not worth it at all. You may believe that it’s worth it at the time, but in the end all cheating does is negatively affect the type of person you are. Cheating means you take the easy way out; putting in work to you is not possible because you want to find an easier way. That easier way is cheating, but taking the easy way shows how much you are not willing to challenge yourself. Cheating means you’re afraid to challenge yourself. Afraid to learn things that you feel aren’t important but in the long run really are important. I disagree with cheating for many reasons, but the main reasons are, it shows no character, requires no motivation or ambition, and proves that your priorities are not where they should be. Cheating shows no character because you are asking another person for answers that you should already have learned just like them. While you did nothing and sat on your ass, which shows no character within yourself, they were in their room studying, doing what they need to do. Proving to themselves that they do have character and that they will be prepared for the things that will lead them to success. Character is who you are, if you’re a cheater, you have very little character. Cheating requires no ambition or motivation because you don’t do anything literally. You know that there’s a test coming up, or a project due, but you don’t have the motivation in yourself to get the project done or the ambition in yourself to open up your book and study. You sit there and wait for things to come to you that will never come, instead of going out and getting those things. Cheating shows that you don’t prepare yourself for things that will make you successful in life. You won’t succeed in life because if you don’t have the motivation and ambition pumping in your veins, then “making it” to you is going to be like working at McDonald’s. Working at McDonald’s, in my opinion is not succeeding at all. Ambition and motivation really do determine where you take yourself in life. If you cheat, and continue to cheat, then you will continue to not a give a fuck about the most important things in your life. You have to have the ambition and motivation for education, because acquiring knowledge and bettering your education is really the key to success. Cheating paints a clear picture of a very unmotivated person. A person who’s afraid to challenge themself to exceed all limits that they think they have. The truth is, we all believe that there’s things we can’t do, but the people who believe those things can be overcome are the ones who put in the work and become successful. The first thing that runs in my head when I see someone cheat is, “Damn they must have their priorities in the completely wrong order.” It makes sense because everyone has time. EVERYONE. You are not busy with your life 24/7 I don’t care who you are. Cheating proves that with your time, you do not do the important things like study. You do things that you like to do, like watching TV, playing sports, etc. There’s nothing wrong with doing things you like to do, but the problem is you don’t take the hour or two hours out of your day to do the things you have to do like study. Your priorities are mixed; school is not the number one thing in a cheater’s mind. If you do not do your work, and show up to a test and have to cheat, then your priorities need to be rearranged real fast. If you remember each day, that what you do in school now will have the biggest impact on your future, then I really doubt your priorities will still be mixed up. All you would have to do after that is start to put in the work. Get in the mindset and put in the work and go out and get it, don’t wait. They’re many ways to stop cheating, but there really is only one way to truly stop it. PUT IN THE WORK. If you put in the work, get off your ass, and study, you will never have to cheat again. The satisfaction that you will receive from studying your ass off and making a good grade on a test is so much better than having to cheat for a grade. I hated studying until I started to do better in class, and then I just wanted to continue to do better, and still continue to, to this day. I enjoy working for the achievement of success, and if you want to enjoy success as bad as I do, you better start putting action in your life, and doing the work necessary to succeed. That’s all it comes down to; the only to way to stop cheating really is to just simply put in the work. Study over and over, stay up all night like I am right now and do what you have to do like I am right now. Cheating is not an action, it is a choice. A choice to pretty much do nothing. Studying is an action that is done by a choice. If you choose to get off your ass and PUT ACTION IN YOUR LIFE, life will be a hell of a lot easier. In conclusion, cheating will exist in our world and will continue to appear as long as I’m living. The truth of it is, everyone is different. But if you really want success in life, cheating will get you nowhere. If you dedicate your whole self to school, and any other positive thing in your life, then you will succeed. But you can’t half ass it; you can’t just want success in life. You’ve got to be hungry for success; it’s got to be the thing in your life that will push you to everyone of your limits. Cheating can sometimes give you successful opportunities, but that doesn’t matter at all because the ones who worked their ass off for that opportunity are to going to be the ones who run with it and make the most out of it. While you sit there and try to figure out what you can and can’t do with that opportunity. Cheating will never be accepted in my book, but if you want to do it, go for it. You’re just not going to do much with your life if you continue it. Cheating ends in a brick wall, while working for what you want to achieve ends in a gate to a life you dreamed of when you were a kid. Cheating will never go away because there will always be people who don’t want to study, but I hope that one day cheating will be overcome by people who realize that studying and putting in the work is worth it in the end. Create good things in your life if you develop a strong work ethic, but create bad things in your life if you develop a lazy, average work ethic. It’s all up to you to decide on what kind of person you are and want to become. You make the choice to not study and cheat while myself and a lot of other people will make the choice to put in the work to achieve what we want. It’s all bout what kind of person you are and the kinds of choices you make. You can either do the right thing and do everything the right way or you can do things the wrong and easy way. Cheaters are only cheating themselves out of many opportunities they could possibly create for themselves.