Why you are taking this course

You are most likely taking this course as it is a prerequisite for your planned career. That means this course is considered important by your chosen career programs and is something you should learn for the long-term. You are expected to take your knowledge, understanding, application, and synthesis of this course material with you to that program. They will not reteach you this information. They expect you know it just as well as when you actually took this course.

Your goal for this course is more than just passing tests / assignments. You should be learning the material in this course for the long-term. If all you do is learn it to pass a test and then forget it, you have not achieved the purpose of making you take this course relative to your chosen career path. If you did get a place in your chosen career path, your lack of knowledge, understanding, application, and synthesis of this material could cause you to be kicked out of that program. It’s hard enough to get into those programs in the beginning, and likely even harder to get in if you got kicked out for not knowing material you are expected to know. Why should they give you a second chance when there are so many people who never got a first chance?

If you decide to cheat, then you are harming your own learning and potentially killing patients that you work with in the future. What if you kill someone because you did not have the knowledge you were supposed to because you cheated?

A hypothetical example: A pre-nursing student cheats in an Anatomy and Physiology course by looking up answers on tests and not actually learning the material. This student passes the A&P course and gets a place in the nursing program.

• Is that fair to other students who actually studied?
• Will this student succeed in the program?
• Would you want this person as your nurse?
• What if the student causes the death of your sick mother or sick child?
• Every person is someone’s daughter or son, and possibly someone’s mother, father, sibling, partner, or relative.
• What if that student is you? And by cheating in this course you end up killing someone in the future that was due to your lack of knowledge of material you cheated on.
• Who would you blame? The student for cheating or the college / university for not catching them cheating?
• If the student is you, who do you blame? The internet for having answers posted on it? Or yourself for not doing the work that you are expected to do?

The point is that you are taking this course for a reason. Whether you see it now or not, more than just myself are expecting to you to learn, understand, and apply this material in the future. If you cannot pass this course without cheating, then you are cheating more than yourself. You are harming everyone you work with in the future and potentially causing the death of someone’s family member or loved one. That is the real cost of cheating.