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Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

The Big Q Blog

women sitting in a classroom

women sitting in a classroom

I Can't Get a C

Melissa thinks it doesn't matter if she copies homework in a course outside her major.

Melissa is a pre-med student at a large university. She prefers taking classes that relate directly to her emphasis. However, Melissa knows that she has to take general education requirements to graduate. She decides to take "An Introduction to Art History," an easy class, to balance out the hard science classes she must take this quarter.

It turns out that Art History has weekly homework assignments--nothing difficult, but Melissa never seems to have time to do them. She reasons that she shouldn't waste her energy on class content that she will never use. Still, the teacher does grade the homework and Melissa cannot afford do poorly in the class because medical schools will care about her GPA. She ends up copying a classmate's homework on a weekly basis. Does Melissa really need to spend time on this gen-ed when she has more important classes to worry about?

Here are some resources that may help:

Cheating in Academic Institutions: A Decade of Research

Fundamental Values Project--Center for Academic Integrity

A Framework for Ethical Decision Making

 

 

Photo by Dany Sakugawa available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial License.

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