Three students were caught cheating on their Math 30 finals. Unsurprising, but I’m interested to see how this story develops. Three seems like a very small number compared to the amount of effort it takes to get a hold of a provincial final exam and then smuggle the answers into the examination room so one can reap the sour rewards of skulduggery.

They will be getting a small penalty, but nothing that will be particularly problematic for their overall academic careers.  I’m making the assumption they have plans for further academia as that level of math exam is suitable for gaining entrance to post-secondary education.

“Why cheat” is the real question though.  University level math is not going to get any easier, so why do yourself the disservice of prolonging your fated crash and burn in the cheating topic of your choice(only now its you who pay directly for the course)?

Pressure to achieve, increased competition, laziness all probably factored into the calculus these kids worked out regarding their decision to cheat.  What would be interesting would be if we could interview these students to determine their reasons for cheating because I believe that our educational system has failed them, to a certain extent, because they got their wrongheaded ideas from somewhere.   When do you toss away the moral path and descend into less auspicious choices?

I’ll keep an eye on the story.