Cheating has always been a major problem in both high schools and colleges.

One senior I talked to admitted that they have participated in some form of cheating with their friends.

The student said, “Me and my friends would divide up the homework and share the answers so we didn’t have to do all the work.”

Of course, there are many forms of cheating; a person can cheat off of someone’s test by glancing at the answers, they can copy somebody else’s homework, or they can take another person’s paper and call it their own, which is plagiarism.

Cheating is a serious crime to both others and oneself.

By not doing their work, students are cheating themselves out of the opportunity to learn the subject. This creates a domino effect. Since they never learned the subject, they will feel the need to cheat on tests because they do not want to fail.

According to plagiarism.org, Professor Donald McCabe, Rutgers University, conducted a survey in 70 different high schools.

The survey showed that 64 percent of students admitted to cheating on a test,  58 percent admitted to plagiarism, and 95 percent admitted to either copying someone’s homework, cheating on a test, plagiarizing, doing some combination of the three.

I think that so many students are resorting to cheat in school because of all of the pressure others put on them. Their parents want them to do well, like get all A’s and be the valedictorian.

It has become more important in our society to get good grades than it is to actually learn something in school.

However, in both high school and college, there are serious consequences for cheating.

In high school, if students are caught cheating they will automatically receive a zero on the assignment in question. In addition, they will also have a conference with the teacher and their parents. If it happens again, they will be suspended from school for a specific number of days, according to the step system.

In college, cheating is taken much more seriously. By cheating on one assignment students could fail the entire class. They could also be suspended or even expelled from that college.

In both cases, a student’s reputation will be permanently damaged. Teachers and professors would never trust the student in question again.

I think it would be much easier to just do the homework, sacrificing some television time or social life, and actually learn the material.

I think the problem is that some students do not take high school seriously.

But what they need to realize is that high school is preparing them for college, which will then prepare them for their career.

If students actually do the work in high school, they might find that college is not so scary and maybe fewer people would drop out of college.

The bottom line is people need to have integrity and actually try in school if they ever want to be successful in life.