Even as a student, I sympathize with this professor. I've seen how pervasive cheating can be in an academic environment. It's frustrating to know that while one

Even as a student, I sympathize with this professor. I've seen how pervasive cheating can be in an academic environment. It's frustrating to know that while one classmate (or myself) is spending hours perfecting an assignment, another is copying/plagiarizing their assignment. It makes the learning experience very stressful. And it's self-perpetuating, as this frustration become the factor that leads more students to cheat. By graduation, you end up with a bunch of students who have just copy and pasted their way through school, who have forgotten how to learn, and who are not prepared. This article really shines light on why cheating is still so pervasive despite how it damages the learning process. For students, the risk tends to be low while the reward is high. For teachers, the process of eliminating cheating is draining and is often met with negative feedback. This only leads me to think that cheating will continue to infect our education, until there is a fundamental change in the rewards/feedback system (for students and teachers) in our academic system.