As students face difficult classes and feel the pressure to get good grades, academic stress can begin to build. For some students, that stress can make cheating seem like an easier option.
A student talked about his own experience with cheating. In the week before spring finals, he snuck a sticky note into a test, got caught, and later got a JUG for it.
“I wasn’t prepared enough; if I got a pretty bad score on it, it probably would bring my grade down a lot,” said the student who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“I think it was just a lot of academic pressure, and that felt like the one thing I could put off, not study for. I just felt unimportant. I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, I’ll just get a sticky note or something,’ because I had all those other big things coming up that I had to study a lot more for,” said the student.
When students are stressed about classes, it starts to push them over the edge, and the pressure to succeed can lead students to take shortcuts.
Dean of Student Support Services Mr. Austin Pidgeon deals with the emotional well-being of students. Mr. Pidgeon finds that college admissions can force this pressure as well as their families.
“I do think many of our families expect their sons to do well academically and invest in the opportunity to be students at Brophy, and that can add to the pressure that a student might feel,” said Mr. Pidgeon.
Mr. Pidgeon agreed with the idea of more cheating occurring during finals or other important times throughout the year.
“Academic integrity violations and class procedure violations tend to—we see an uptick in academic integrity violations and class procedure violations around formal grading periods,” said Mr. Pidgeon.
While discussing why students might cheat, Tyler Thomas ’28 described how procrastination can create a situation where cheating might seem like an easier option.
“Sometimes it’s hard to get yourself to do it, especially when it’s not due for like a few days,” said Thomas.
Thomas said that when students procrastinate and eventually feel overwhelmed, they may see cheating as an easier alternative.
Hypothetically speaking, Thomas mentioned that a student can say, “Oh, instead of, you know, cramming a bunch of work, because I manage my time bad, I can just cheat on it.”
Kilian Walker ’28 finds that a main reason people cheat is when they don’t understand the material.
“If people cheat… It’s because it’s a hard class and they don’t understand it, and they don’t want to do bad,” said Walker.
Walker said he feels at a disadvantage when he chooses to do his work without AI assistance.
Academic pressure can come from grades, difficult classes, procrastination, and the expectations of others. For the student caught cheating, it began as a way to avoid a bad grade resulting in a JUG, showing how a decision made under pressure can create consequences.
