> A number of people resolved to restart from scratch; they decided to work in pairs to check each other’s work. Everywhere I've studied, that alone would have

> A number of people resolved to restart from scratch; they decided to work in pairs to check each other’s work. Everywhere I've studied, that alone would have counted as academic dishonesty. If it wasn't an explicit group project, there was clear language about working independently; you couldn't just decide to pair up. Almost everyone, even my graduating class's valedictorian, did it anyway. I was the honest chump and my GPA suffered in comparison. Discussion of the problem definition was condoned, but any talk about solutions was off-limits. Many professors would include homework sets with a final question asking you to confirm that you worked alone and received no help outside the professor or TA. Some allowed you to admit to receiving help, with no punishment beyond 0 points for the assignment. I shall assume this guy had an atypically lenient professor for his first engineering class.