Have you ever seen viral posts about people bragging about passing an exam because they were cheating? Did you come across a graduation picture with someone taking credit for their “skills” in cheating without ever getting caught? Have you ever reacted to a post about people being too proud for cheating and eventually justifying their actions on social media?
For most of us, we’ve been tempted to cheat in desperate cases. We may have done so but we’re ashamed to admit it. Knowing that taking credit for someone else’s work gives you a certain punch of guilt that may linger on after graduation. When we start recalling our college days, we don’t want to remember the times when we had to copy our friend’s work just because we were too lazy to answer it ourselves. The worst feeling may be realizing that we never really learned anything in school just because we had to depend on someone else’s answers.
Cheating may be the easiest solution to our academic problems, but it has consequences that will affect you later on even if you don’t get caught.
If you get away with cheating in school, don’t think it won’t catch up on you. Later on, when you become an engineer, you’d probably encounter the same concepts at work and it will slow you down. When you cheat, not only will it affect your discipline to work hard to achieve something, it will also change the way you approach problems.
When you think it’s okay to cheat, you cultivate a culture at work and home that tolerate dishonesty and dishonor. You think this only affects you but it also influences the people you live with, your children and the people you work with. Cheating eventually creates more problems for you and everybody else.
Cheating is selfish. As engineering students, cheating not only promotes being irresponsible with your work but it also makes you forget that you have a responsibility to the people who will be using your services and products in the future. Imagine not studying hard enough, not knowing the right concepts to apply at the projects you’re working on. Whether you’re building a bridge or a robot, it will affect your projects.
If you’re lucky enough to get away with cheating school, don’t ever think that it won’t catch up on you later on.
If you see someone being proud of cheating in exams and projects, call them out.
If you’re part of an environment that promotes cheating, get out of it immediately.
Cheating is never okay. It never will be!
