Opportunism

Being a college student provides many chances to act in an unethically opportunistic manner. Classes are difficult and professors assign countless assignment, seemingly unaware of other classes their students are inevitably taking. This leads to working together, sharing documents, finding past assignments/exams online, etc.- all of which fall under the umbrella of cheating. To address the prompt in depth, I’ll explain one specific example of such a scenario.

During my sophomore year of college, I enrolled in an upper level political science course. The professor had glowing reviews on RateMyProfessor- students mostly mentioned how lenient, kind, and sweet she was. Although I'm usually skeptical of the reviews on that website (I think scorned students and “teacher’s pet” student heavily populate those that write the reviews) they were enough to push me to sign up for her class. 

The structure of her class was similar to others I’d taken: PowerPoint lectures, supplemental work/readings online, and 3 total exams. An interesting change to my previous classes, however, was that the exams were completely in essay form. There was no distribution of the essay questions by the professor, but she did provide a “study guide” with about 30 topics that covered everything from what we’d discussed in class to textbook concepts. 

By the time the first exam rolled around, the class dynamic had been established. Our class was a weirdly tight-knit group- there was a GroupMe chat in which a lot of students were active, as well as a Google Doc for note-taking that we would all contribute to. Although I suspect this may have pushed the boundaries of what our professor would consider acceptable, I deemed it morally alright. 

The moral dilemma occurred when one of the students sent a message in the GroupMe claiming that he had a copy of the upcoming exam, with both the questions and the specific bullet points of info the professor would be looking for in the responses. I was both shocked (how did he acquire this? I was sure that a document like this would only be available via the professor’s own computer, which I assume was password protected.) and conflicted. The student encouraged users in the group chat to send him their emails, promising to send them the file ASAP. Although the convenience of the whole matter was appealing- the idea of being able to relax in place of studying for 4-5 hours was the most difficult to resist- I chose not to partake in the exchange. 

I can admit that there were multiple layers of various motivations that effected my final decision. I would argue that I did it mostly from an ethical standpoint: I felt that the professor tried her best to make the class fair in regard to grading and curriculum, and I also believed that the exam was made manageable by the study guide provided for us. I’ve had many exams with absolutely no review material, so being given a list of concepts was a big win for me. Her class also didn’t feel structured to be excessively difficult or to punish kids for not dedicating an unreasonable amount of time to the course. All in all, it felt wrong to take advantage of a class that was not taking advantage of me. This particular reasoning is by far the one that impacted my turning down of the opportunity the most, and I find that troublesome at times. If I had felt that this class WAS an unfair course, would I have taken the chance to cheat on the exam? If the teacher wasn’t lenient and kind, there is some possibility in my mind that I may have felt overwhelmed about the course and viewed the answer sheet my only chance to succeed on the exam.  

Another reason I didn’t act opportunistically, on a less rational and more emotional level, is that I had a genuine affinity for the professor. Her passion for the material was refreshing, and I had attended a couple of office hour sessions in which we had pleasant conversations that I found truly interesting. I knew specifically that she had children, and even that her beautiful 9-year-old husky was sick. These things combined painted a picture of someone that I both admired and liked, and thus it was almost impossible to disrespect her by cheating.  

The last reason for my decision is one that paints me in a less than favorable light- I was scared of getting caught. As someone who is naturally anxious, the idea of receiving a traceable email with the forbidden file was nothing short of terrifying. My mind ran through scenarios of the professor contacting me with an infraction for cheating, being dropped from the class, and even being kicked out of the university. The riskiness of the whole affair did not seem worth it, personally. 

I would say that all of these reasonings are different. I'm a little ashamed that one part of my reasoning was simply that I didn’t want the consequences of cheating, as that is fueled purely from my own selfishness. I think the other reasons are more representative of how I want my moral compass to function. Unethical behavior comes with many risks, namely a guilty conscience and loss of respect for yourself. Although I can’t tell what I would have done in a situation with a mean professor in an impossibly difficult class, I’m pleased with my decision to not act opportunistically in this scenario.