[akarpenko]

1. How can they have very high standards if they cheat? Stress is no excuse for cheating, spend less time getting drunk. 2. It's always mentioned that cheating is not acceptable at the beginning of every term in every class. And isn't it obvious anyway? 3. Yes it's unfortunately too easy.

[rayiner]

I don't get the downvotes with your post. This is absolutely correct. I went through a very rigorous engineering program and I was never unclear about what constituted cheating. You did problem sets yourself, and you did exams without copying anyone else's answers. It it's not a damned difficult concept for someone at a University where everyone has 98th %-ile SAT scores.

[danielweber]

I thought about downvoting him for his first part where he says "just don't get drunk." There is a lot of stress even for the students not getting hammered.

I didn't cheat because it repelled my moral code, and my suspicion that others were cheating added to my stress. A morally-grey friend said there wasn't any moral problem with cheating, but I don't think he did because there wasn't a point (in his view). He would later TA a class and caught some cheaters, whom he reported.

[gms7777]

I'm not justifying those excuses. But those are the reasons students give (at least to themselves), and it would be naive for the university to overlook this and tell themselves that students just shouldn't cheat based on principle as opposed to fascillitating an environment that promotes cheating.

Perhaps "high standards" wasn't the correct choice of words on my part. I meant they all except themselves to get good grades. In particular where I went, where the school is largely populated with pre-meds where GPA is everything! If they're in a situation where the reward for cheating is high and the likelyhood for getting caught is low and they don't see any other option (not that there isn't but often they don't see it) they are likely to succumb.