Harvard snydeskandale: årsager og etik

One of the most recognized Universities in the world is going through a scandal. More than 100 students from Harvard University, from an undergraduate lecture class have been caught cheating. People less fortuned are enjoying the misery of the so-called “rich-kids” from Harvard, who cheated in their final take-home exam. Harvard made a public statement, promised the right amount of discipline towards the so-called cheaters. The authors of the article mean that the reason behind this big cheating scandal is that parents nowadays are laying too much pressure on their children. Children with parents who is high-educated, have great jobs and is well-known in their community or country, feels a big pressure of failing in tests, and getting a low grade, they feel they have to live up to their parents, that people have curtain expectations to what they are going to become. Students who feel that pressure, could feel compelled to resort to other ways of help, than the ones who is legal. As a student, I understand their situation and I am also feeling the press from my parents and my family, not I a way that these Harvard student does. Some people just feel compelled to seek for easy options, and I think these curtain people should make an effort to get used to not always seek the easy way out of their problem.The authors believe that, in a world filled with liars, then it’s difficult for the students to know the difference between right and wrong. Every day we see athletes getting caught taking drugs, abusing hormonal affecting substances and what else some of them are taking. We see business people bargaining with other business people to help each other, for example to gain publicity.The authors believes that there is two types of students who is very vulnerable to become, the first type is the type who feels the pressure from their community or family, the other type is the ones who is members of fraternities, clubs, athletic-teams or other social organizations, that includes getting a curtain average grade. The two types of cheaters are having the same problem, high expectations from either their social organization or their community. I would agree with the authors about in our modern way of living, we are lying very much, and it’s easy to get the habit from famous people and also inherit cheating the system or making horse trading from family, if that is what has occurred in the cheaters family and community.Cheating in a Danish high-school seems to become more popular. Since the internet was given to the average Joe, and almost everybody got it, it seems to have caused an easy way to gain easy information to the specific assignment given from the school. Students have even created pages at the internet just for uploading and downloading homework and assignments. Cheating occurs much these days, so of course it also exists in the Danish high-schools. Denmark is often compared to America, we imitate everything they do. All of our fast-food chains are from America, all of our programs in the television is inspired by American programs, so why not also do as they do in their schools. The types of people they authors describe, also exist in Denmark and in the Danish high-schools, but as far as I know, everybody have tried cheating, maybe not in an important test or exam, but in small assignments it often happens when a student is stressed, pressed or just lazy, anyhow everybody does it or have done it. I think it is healthy to seek for information if you are writing a big school related assignment, looking for help online is something many people use to enrich their assignment, not to copy, but to get ideas. Cheating is just made even more difficult than before, now the website Lectio has a program to detect cheating, that indicates that cheating occurs in the schools, as I said, and that it’s a nationwide problem. Cheating at an exam is not something I have heard from friends or acquaintances of mine, but the cheaters who cheat because they are lazy, they probably won’t cheat at final exam. The ones who would compel to methods like that is people under pressure of failing.