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American universities are very upfront about their strict academic honesty policies, so it's not really analogous to jaywalking.

impish19 10y ago
That's what my point is - in your head, you might think you're doing something that's less of an offense. But it's not.
Balgair 10y ago
Maybe, maybe not. As with most very diverse things: it depends. Yes, googling for the honesty policies is easy, if you know they are typically referred to as the 'honor code.' I would imagine that a fair percentage of US and foreign students would be confused as to what 'honor' has to do with cheating though ("Like, chivalry is dead, bro"), but that is not an excuse. And to be fair, even though the honor codes are strict, does not mean that the cheating is not rampant. A friend's wife taught a lot of Chinese nationals as a grad student and she said that they cheated a lot. However, that was not due to maliciousness or ignorance. They knew it was 'not kosher' to cheat, but back in China it seems that these kids has the same 'don't cheat' policy but if you believed in that, you were totally screwed and the cheating was seen as a necessary evil by people at all levels of society. You had to hide it, but everyone knew everyone else did it. Now to these 17/18 year old kids newly in the US, they did not expect the system to really be any different (think back to yourself at that age). And typically it is not. You only get punished if you get caught. There really are no downsides for them. Yeah, sure, some scapegoat is made every once in a while, but how is that different than the way China works anyways? The only difference here is that you don't have to bribe as much. I mean, the average grade at Harvard is an A- [0], how could you NOT think that cheating is rampant at the very highest levels? Sure, they call it 'grade inflation', but a rose by any other name smells just as sweet. [0]https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2015/05/27/harvard-class-with-a-average-not-worried-about-grade-inflation https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2015/05/27/harvard-cl...
- argonaut 10y ago
  Students are told about the honor codes. It's not something you have to look up. Grade inflation has nothing to do with cheating - that's just more FUD. If a class curves to a B, and everyone cheats, the average grade is still a B.

impish19 10y ago

That's what my point is - in your head, you might think you're doing something that's less of an offense. But it's not.

Balgair 10y ago

Maybe, maybe not. As with most very diverse things: it depends. Yes, googling for the honesty policies is easy, if you know they are typically referred to as the 'honor code.' I would imagine that a fair percentage of US and foreign students would be confused as to what 'honor' has to do with cheating though ("Like, chivalry is dead, bro"), but that is not an excuse. And to be fair, even though the honor codes are strict, does not mean that the cheating is not rampant. A friend's wife taught a lot of Chinese nationals as a grad student and she said that they cheated a lot. However, that was not due to maliciousness or ignorance. They knew it was 'not kosher' to cheat, but back in China it seems that these kids has the same 'don't cheat' policy but if you believed in that, you were totally screwed and the cheating was seen as a necessary evil by people at all levels of society. You had to hide it, but everyone knew everyone else did it. Now to these 17/18 year old kids newly in the US, they did not expect the system to really be any different (think back to yourself at that age). And typically it is not. You only get punished if you get caught. There really are no downsides for them. Yeah, sure, some scapegoat is made every once in a while, but how is that different than the way China works anyways? The only difference here is that you don't have to bribe as much. I mean, the average grade at Harvard is an A- [0], how could you NOT think that cheating is rampant at the very highest levels? Sure, they call it 'grade inflation', but a rose by any other name smells just as sweet. [0]https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2015/05/27/harvard-class-with-a-average-not-worried-about-grade-inflation https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2015/05/27/harvard-cl...

argonaut 10y ago
Students are told about the honor codes. It's not something you have to look up. Grade inflation has nothing to do with cheating - that's just more FUD. If a class curves to a B, and everyone cheats, the average grade is still a B.