Honor system

Business students are generally ambitious and willing to do anything to get what they want. The question is their likelihood of suffering the consequences. Coming from a Baruch College student's point of view, I see students getting away with cheating everyday.

Just to name a few acts of cheating I have seen students commit during exams:

• Having a whole textbook on the floor in front of them
  
• Sitting on their textbooks and/or notes
• Asking for help when the instructor steps out of the room
• Asking for help from students in the previous classes that just took the exam
  
• Having notes written on the labels of their water bottles
• Sticking notes inside pens with the clear tubes
• Storing information in their graphing calculators
• Whispering between test-takers
  

Baruch requires students pursuing a B.B.A. degree to take a lot of humanity courses as part of the core curriculum. A lot of these introductory courses have at least a chapter on ethics. Attempting to get students involved, Baruch also hosts a lot of ethics discussions. The original purpose of Baruch mandating students to take these humanity classes is so that students do not enter the society as heartless and money-hungry cheaters. Not very effective.

Most instructors that believe in the honor system are just too lazy to take action. The most they do is say "keep your eyes on your own paper" when they catch someone taking a peek. As business students in the 21st century and possessing the luxuries of electronic devices, ethics is out of the question when the low-risk opportunities arise. If they're not going to take measures in preventing cheaters, I don't see how anyone could possibly fail their class.

I'm not saying I'm not guilty of these acts. As are most other students, I'm careful about it. What still baffles me is the amount of trust instructors put on their students by implementing the "honor system".