Just curious. If someone who's on active military service is found guilty of cheating in school, will there be any consequences from their commander in the military?

11/18/2005 1:37:04 AM

Are you kidding? You could get kicked out for something like that.

11/18/2005 1:41:21 AM

I would personally give an "extra shot" to anyone in our military.

If he/she is enlisted to fight for all of our freedoms on a moment's notice, I could really care less if he/she cheated on a test that'll never matter about 1 year from now.

11/18/2005 1:42:57 AM

To answer your question, yes, there are VERY harsh consequences.

I know a couple guys who shared MAE lab reports. Their story was they worked together (which I don't think is allowed), but odds are they just used one of the 100 copies floating around as a template for their own lab reports. Regardless, this is one of those things that goes on in the MAE department with a LOT of people whether or not anyone acknowledges or admits to it.

Anyway, these guys got caught, and they had to face the upper eschelon of the chain of command. Not pretty. They almost lost their scholarship, and were put on serious probation.

11/18/2005 1:51:11 AM

first of all... that may have not been their reason for joining... you make it sound more noble than it might have been...

11/18/2005 1:56:08 AM

^^^It's not about a test, it's about honor, trust, and discipline.

11/18/2005 2:01:18 AM

if my tax dollars are paying for your schooling, you better fucking learn something. then again i work for the state, & i don't do shit.

11/18/2005 2:15:47 AM

Quote :

"I would personally give an "extra shot" to anyone in our military."

Why?
Seriously. I understand they're "defending our freedom" and all that...but cheating is just as dishonest if you're working for The Man as it is if you're the average student.


And this is coming from someone who's currently in the Air Force, active duty.

11/18/2005 2:21:48 AM

^ yea i def. agree.

11/18/2005 2:29:19 AM

Because he screwed up. So what? You don't?

People just blow cheating WAY outta proportion. I agree that it's wrong, but to nearly "lose a scholarship" and such is just too far fetched. That person did not gain that scholarship by cheating and then not being able to impress the panel he/she hadta impress to get it.

All I'm saying is you can't classify the integrity of a person by one or two acts of cheating. If it was a habitual thing, then sure, judge away.

I think that the chances of finding someone who hasn't cheated on something important (taxes, tests, licenses, etc.) at least a couple times in life is slim to none.

Flame away

11/18/2005 2:45:11 AM

back when I was in the USNR, some MIDNs were caught plaigarizing (sp?) their spring semester term papers


they were facing disenrollment from the program, but were given the chance to write letters of resolution (and a new term paper). they all did and they were all allowed to continue with the program at the expense of the rest of their stipend until CORTRAMID.

[Edited on November 18, 2005 at 2:47 AM. Reason : had they gotten disenrollment, they would have had to enlist.]

11/18/2005 2:46:31 AM

Yes, everyone screws up. Nobody's perfect.
What you said implied that you would let him slide simply because he was military. If you would let it go if someone cheated, then that's your belief. Letting someone slide only because of a career decision that they made is ridiculous.
If everyone who cheated was allowed to slide, then what would be the point of rules or laws?
The military is all about fairness in punishment, or at least that's been my experience. If they make a rule for it, and you get caught breaking it, then you need to be fully prepared to suffer the consequences. If the rules say cheating may cause you to lose your scholarship, then that's what they mean. Not only will you have to deal with whatever punishment the school doles out, you have to deal with the military, too.

Quote :

"That person did not gain that scholarship by cheating and then not being able to impress the panel he/she hadta impress to get it. "

How do you know? They could have cheated on a test and done well on an interview.

[Edited on November 18, 2005 at 3:07 AM. Reason : .]

11/18/2005 2:58:39 AM

To lose a scholarship is a bit extreme considering the MAE labs can be an annoying waste of time in the week. Especially when stupid strain gages don't want to solder but you have to do it anyway to say that it wasn't totally pointless.

Ok, I feel better.

11/18/2005 3:39:51 AM

I wasted four years in college just to join the Air Force.
That doesn't mean I would have given up my degree to someone to cheated to get theirs.

11/18/2005 5:33:03 AM

I totally think you should be punished if you cheat. I think out of my entire school career the only time I cheated was once in hs because someone asked me to... I turned my self in.
yea, it may sound stupid, but I have both integrity and honor. And the way that the military looks at it is that if they are going to cheat on one test, what else are they going to cheat on? If you think that it is ok to cheat once in awhile because something seems like a waste of time, then how are you going to follow simple commands? There are a lot of military rules that seem like a waste of time too, but they were created for a reason... doing something like taking the easy way out could get someone killed if they ever go out in the field.
Even for a mechanic, if they don't do it just right they can fuck things up and possibly cost someone's life.
That's the reason they make a big deal about cheating. and you should loose your scholarship for it. I have a lot of classes with work I would rather not do, but I procrastinate until i finally grudge through it, and at the end I can say "well it was a waste of time but at least I did it and I know to my full effort that everything should be correct."

11/18/2005 7:05:11 AM

I totally think you should be punished if you cheat. I think out of my entire school career the only time I cheated was once in hs because someone asked me to... I turned my self in.
yea, it may sound stupid, but I have both integrity and honor. And the way that the military looks at it is that if they are going to cheat on one test, what else are they going to cheat on? If you think that it is ok to cheat once in awhile because something seems like a waste of time, then how are you going to follow simple commands? There are a lot of military rules that seem like a waste of time too, but they were created for a reason... doing something like taking the easy way out could get someone killed if they ever go out in the field.
Even for a mechanic, if they don't do it just right they can fuck things up and possibly cost someone's life.
That's the reason they make a big deal about cheating. and you should loose your scholarship for it. I have a lot of classes with work I would rather not do, but I procrastinate until i finally grudge through it, and at the end I can say "well it was a waste of time but at least I did it and I know to my full effort that everything should be correct."

11/18/2005 7:06:07 AM

i'm pretty sure you'd get crushed if you got caught cheating in the Marines.

when i was in OCS (officer's boot camp), a guy got kicked out for scratching his face, then lying and saying he didn't when a drill instructor started chewing his ass.

11/18/2005 7:20:10 AM

Quote :

"which I don't think is allowed"

You are allowed to share data and results but you can't just copy someone's lab report and move a few things around.

11/18/2005 7:44:17 AM

Quote :

"That person did not gain that scholarship by cheating and then not being able to impress the panel he/she hadta impress to get it."

If they ever go to grad school then I think an argument could be made that they got there by cheating. I see no reason to believe they didn't get into college by cheating too.

And the couple of military guys I met when I was on campus were taking an assload of classes, but they were very diligent and seemed to have a lot of respect for what they were getting. I really couldn't see either of them cheating. Besides, it's a lot better than being in Iraq.

11/18/2005 7:51:28 AM

ok, i thought about this some more while i was in the shower...

basically, it's your class, and you know the situation better than i do, so i personally would have no quarrel with any action you would decide to take. that said, this is my guidance:

before i start, though, i want to address this...

Quote :

"I would personally give an "extra shot" to anyone in our military. If he/she is enlisted to fight for all of our freedoms on a moment's notice, I could really care less if he/she cheated on a test that'll never matter about 1 year from now."

i understand your logic, and appreciate the gesture, but that's not right. that's not fair to others in the class, and it's not in the best interest of anyone in the military except the party in question.


1. first of all, i'm assuming you have your own policy towards cheaters. automatically get a zero for that test, automatically fail the class, etc.

2. do you know what level this guy is at in the military? if it's an enlisted guy working on his degree on the side, i'd probably deal with it via step #1 and call it a day. that'll be enough, and i kinda doubt his CoC (chain of command) would really crush him that hard, anyway (if you'd already dealt with it).

3. if this guy is already an officer, show him NO mercy. No question.

4. if he's in ROTC or some other commissioning program, i'd say there's a judgement call. on one hand, i hate that you can get in trouble at your job for something you did on your own (speeding tickets, barfights, etc), and i initially leaned towards handling it in house. however, a lack of character is, for an officer, much more serious than stuff like that, in my opinion.

if the kid's a freshman, i don't know. i'd lean towards notifying his CoC. if i were in charge of a young potential officer, i'd want to know, and i'd crush him in addition to whatever you did to him, but i wouldn't let it cost him his future career unless he sucked and i needed a reason to get rid of him anyway. i'd wager that most ROTC commanders would exercise similar judgement (and some probably wouldn't deal with it harshly enough).

above a freshman? yeah, notify his chain of command. the Air Force and Navy are overstaffed with junior officers anyway. The Marine Corps recruits plenty of future officers, then weeds out at least half of them before they're commissioned, anyway. Integrity and character is pretty key for an officer. You have too much capacity for screwing too much shit up for too many people to not be able to be counted on to do the right thing.



now, all of that said, please be sure that you are 100% SURE that he cheated. I say that from the perspective of someone who got "caught cheating" one time in college when I DIDN'T do anything wrong. I worked with another student when doing the calculations for an MAE lab report (which was acceptable, not to mention pretty much standard practice). I think I lost the paper where i had all the numbers written down or something, so I just copied and pasted the Excel charts from my friend's report into mine. The only thing I skipped out on doing was typing the numbers into Excel on my own. I didn't even change anything around to make it look different or anything like that, because I wasn't trying to be sly. I wasn't doing anything wrong. unfortunately, i guess that's not how it appeared when the professor looked at the write-ups. he gave both of us a zero on that assignment.

[Edited on November 18, 2005 at 8:18 AM. Reason : asdfasd]

11/18/2005 8:14:43 AM

Anyone want to take bets on whether SouthPaW12 cheats or not?

11/18/2005 8:32:42 AM

i love milking (no homo) the "i'm a VET" thing for all it's worth.

11/18/2005 9:04:00 AM

As nobody here is perfect, and those pushing for punishment are neither affected by the outcome and serious consequences of reporting this nor do they care. Everyone screws up, and do not give me that bullshit about how "cheating is so serious" because there are many things people like you finger pointers do in your everyday life that equate to cheating just not on an academic level, but nobody is there to reprimand you.

I would just punish them by failing whatever test they had cheated on.

MathFreak, did someone cheat on your hand written calc 2 homework?

11/18/2005 9:06:15 AM

I'm not going to say he cheats. I just think he has a radically difference concept of academic honesty than everyone else.

11/18/2005 9:08:01 AM

^^ I'm not working for the State;
I'm not teaching Calculus now;
The question is truly hypothetical. I mean, it was inspired by something but at this time no action will be taken against anyone. So don't think that by saying something in this thread you automatically affect someone's life.

Plus, my attitude towards cheating is that if it is something that is truly egregious, I'll just notify whoever is in charge of teaching at the department and proceed according to their instructions. I will not take instructions off of a college board. Not that anything you say automatically has zero value, but I just prefer to be backed up more seriously.

11/18/2005 9:59:17 AM

I'm enlisted in the military (National Guard for now though) and I honestly don't cheat at schoolwork. I at least want my grades to be my own when I finish a calss - I wouldn't want to get a good grade in a class and have to look back and wonder if I could have gotten as good a grade without cheating.

By the way, I'm not sure about the other branches, but in the Army the slogan of the Commissioned Officers' Corps "I will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those who do". Like I said, I'm enlisted for now, but I'll be an officer somewhere down the road. Either way, I'll turn your ass in if I find out you're cheating in a class I'm in, because I work hard for the grades I get. Or I slack off for the worse grades I get. Either way, I'd call him on cheating, but punishment isn't for me to decide. If it was a lab report during crunch week ok, GI Joe got stupid for second and had a lapse of judgement. There should be some punishment, but I'd wouldn't kick him out of any programs or anything.

11/18/2005 10:44:20 AM

Quote :

"Anyone want to take bets on whether SouthPaW12 cheats or not?"

A person can disagree with a punishment without being guilty of the crime...

Like if I say I don't have an ethical problem with people smoking weed in their spare time, that doesn't mean I toke up.

11/18/2005 11:20:06 AM

Quote :

"when i was in OCS (officer's boot camp), a guy got kicked out for scratching his face, then lying and saying he didn't when a drill instructor started chewing his ass."

WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH SCRATCHING YOUR FACE???
a friend of mine who did OCS this summer said one of the guys in his crew got yelled to hell for scratching/wiping his face

wtf


and as far as SP cheating

Quote :

"So what? You don't?"

that makes me think he has cheated at something at some point

11/18/2005 11:23:58 AM

"So what? You don't?" followed saying "he screwed up," which is a very different thing from saying "everybody cheats."

11/18/2005 11:25:14 AM

I could really care less about people cheating in college. There are far worse things that go on unpunished everyday. Take for instance this hypothetical situation.

Joe is a guy who is pretty smart, but due to the fact that he didn't have enough money, lacked motivation, or for whatever reason didn't go to college, but instead enlisted in the Army. After spending 6 years in the Army, Joe decides to apply for a commissioning program and is accepted to become an officer. This is good for Joe, because Joe now has a wife and 2 kids, as well as a house payment, 2 car payments, and few other various bills, so he can really use the money.

Just for arguments sake and to drive home my point, let's say that Joe has to finish his degree in electrical engineering in 3 years vice the normal 4. In addition, he is required to take extra classes that teach him Army stuff, and he has to be an active member in the battalion, meaning if he's lucky he will have 3 nights off a week including weekends. Furthermore, since Joe has a family, he lives about 25 minutes from campus (that's the closest place he could afford a house,) so once he goes to school for the day, odds are he is not going home until all his classes, meetings, and other obligations are done.

For the first year, Joe is a go-getter. The classes are a breeze, but he puts lots of effort into everything and does really well. But as time wears on, things start getting to Joe. His wife has to work to help pay for things, so on the few rare evenings when he is off, she often works. Schoolwork has started to pile up too, and there are many more class projects assigned so he has to stay at school even longer to work with his groups. Joe never gets to see his kids anymore either, and he knows that as soon as he gets his commission, odds are he is going to Iraq right away for God knows how long.

So one night, Joe gets home from school after working on an engineering project for a few hours, and he is beat. Unfortunately he has a test the next day that he has to study for. His wife is home though, and the kids have miraculously went to bed, so he finally has some free time with her. Unfortunately, there is that test.... But wait, Joe opens his email to find that someone has sent him a copy of tomorrow's test. So what does Joe do? Delete the email? Notify the dean? Or does he open it and study that test for 15 minutes and go enjoy some time with his wife, who he rarely sees and will probably be leaving soon to go to Iraq?

Here are my thoughts. I could give a flying fuck what Joe does. Actually let me take that back. I think Joe should absolutely look at the test. I think it is his obligation to look at that test. Because a year from now, when he is buried in the sand with people shooting at him, is he going to remember how he got to spend a nice evening studying for a test in Circuitry, or how he got to spend a nice evening with his wife?

Now take Steve. Steve is a really smart kid who had some money for college, but not quite enough so he did the ROTC thing. He's your typical college guy.... loves to party, loves to drink (underage), and loves to be lazy. Steve is very morally casual to say the very least, however, he never cheats.

Now ask yourself, who do you want leading the troops out there? Your sons and daughters, neices and nephews, brothers and sisters? Joe, who is a really hard working guy but who also cares about his family, or Steve, the young kid who really knows nothing? Well, I'll tell you, there are a lot of Joe's and Steve's out there today. And that hypothetical situation is far from hypothetical.... in fact, I know numerous people who fit that profile to a tee.

The fact is, cheating happens a lot. So does underage drinking, drug use, and lots of other crazy stuff that I won't even mention. I personally will never be one to point fingers, and I don't think anyone should. But that's just me, and I'm sure there are many dissenting opinions.

11/18/2005 12:02:23 PM

You cheat, you get caught, there are consequences to be paid. I'm sure sometimes the punishment may not fit the crime....and the offender may be a hero otherwise, but there is always a price to pay.

11/18/2005 12:10:53 PM

a few years back one of our cadets got a "written counseling" for an integrity violation. he parked next to reynolds, put one of his many unpaid parking tickets on the windshield, and went inside. what he didnt see was our uniform custodian walking up behind him. she went and told the colonel, who wrote him up. i believe that was a datapoint that eventually got him disenrolled-- das boot.

nowadays, since we are so over-recruited, i think getting caught cheating will get you the boot. right now, any incident involving alcohol gets you the automatic boot, so i imagine cheating would to.

"A Cadet does not lie, steal, or cheat or tolerate any among him who does."

11/18/2005 2:31:25 PM

I don't tollerate any form of cheating and I would certainly not tollerate any form of cheating from someone in the military where one's honesty and charachter could mean the difference between life and death for those you serve with. Cheating's the easy way out. If I'm gonna put my life on the line with someone else, I'd hope that other person wasn't one to take the easy way out be it on a test or the battlefield. Hell, if they're willing to toss away their honor on a test, can you really expect them to hold true when the shit really hits the fan? Sure, you can say it's a whole different situation...and it is...a harder situation...and that person buckled under far less pressure over a test. Sorry, not gonna trust a cheater...if it were me, they'd be expelled.

11/18/2005 2:52:54 PM

jesus...

Quote :

" All I'm saying is you can't classify the integrity of a person by one or two acts of cheating. If it was a habitual thing, then sure, judge away."

first time someone gets caught cheating != first time they cheated

11/18/2005 3:30:50 PM

i hope this wasnt a serious thread

11/18/2005 4:16:59 PM

Quote :

"You are allowed to share data and results but you can't just copy someone's lab report and move a few things around."

You are allowed to discuss methods and expectations before you analyze the data. Once you sit down and start running the numbers, you're supposed to be on your own.

11/18/2005 4:29:04 PM

Quote :

" "A Cadet does not lie, steal, or cheat or tolerate any among him who does.""

thanks for reading my post

11/18/2005 10:04:13 PM

MathFreak, be a man and punish him as you wish, but you do the punishing and keep the punishing in the classroom. this way he would have gotten "fair" punishment, the same punishment the civilian students would recieve. there are ways to not let his commanding officer find out about it.

11/18/2005 10:09:44 PM

^fuck that, his CO needs to know he has a cheater serving under him. get him out now before he cheats on something important. you sign up for the military, you'd better be willing to live by their code

11/18/2005 11:42:16 PM

During my station in bumfuck 29 Palms at the Marine Corps Communication-Electronics school, we were trained on this stupid computer program called Lab-Volt. God that shit was stupid. For eight hours a day for three months, we had to sit in front of a computer and read subject material on boring ass electrical concepts. At the end of the lesson, we had to answer questions on what we read, and take at test at some point in the week. Imagine a class like PY 208, but without all the cool math and theory behind how an electrical component works. "This is an inductor. It has coils wrapped around it."

Anyway, this one dumbass got caught cheating by logging in under someone else's name to complete his questions at the end of a lesson. Don't know how many lessons he did this for; probably many. He got fried. He got knocked back to a class that was just beginning the Lab-Volt program instruction, knocked down from E-2 to E-1, and he got put on restriction, meaning he had to check in every hour on the hour to make sure he was still where he was supposed to be. Oh, and he had to pay a fine.

So, at least at the Marine Corps Communication-Electronics school, cheating is a serious matter.

11/19/2005 12:15:01 AM

^^maybe the man was doing what it took to accomplish the job. he's a soldier, not a banker. i'd rather have a man in the military who did what it took to get the job done than admit defeat.

[Edited on November 19, 2005 at 12:16 AM. Reason : -]

11/19/2005 12:16:21 AM

^I'm sure many would flame you for that, but I can't help but wonder if you bring up a good point.

Geneva Convention aside, war and combat isn't about who followed the rules the best or who had the best honor and dignity, it's about who utilized every possible advantage that they could find. The Brits might have had their honor and dignity when they wore bright red coats and marched in formation instead of hiding in bushes and sniping like cowards, but they sure as hell didn't win the war.

I'm not saying that I condone cheating, but maybe the guy who studied the answer key is the same guy who you can count on to complete the objective, no matter what. Now I will concede that academia and military are two completely different arenas, but everybody keeps saying stuff like "if he cheats on a stupid little test that doesn't actually matter, wait and see what happens when he's put in charge of something that can get people killed if it isn't done right." I suppose that's a distinct possibility, but it is not by any means the only outcome.

11/19/2005 12:56:35 AM

Quote :

"MathFreak, be a man and punish him as you wish, but you do the punishing and keep the punishing in the classroom. this way he would have gotten "fair" punishment, the same punishment the civilian students would recieve. there are ways to not let his commanding officer find out about it."

So if the guy gets arrested for, I don't know, stealing, should the police "be men about it" and just not tell anyone else he got arrested?
When you join the military you KNOW that you now operate under two sets of rules---civillian rules and military rules. It's sort of how when you were younger you would get into trouble at school, and then when you came home your parents would scream and yell at you for what you did, too.
Also, if the commanding officer somehow manages to find out, the teacher who did not report this could also get into trouble. I mean, if he's going to let one student cheat, who knows how many others he's let slide? That's how the military would see it.

Quote :

"he's a soldier, not a banker. i'd rather have a man in the military who did what it took to get the job done than admit defeat."

So you would rather have him cheat on his tests and get out and start doing a totally half-assed job repairing planes, vehicles, stitching up soldiers, etc., rather than studying and passing with integrity? When you join the military you do a job besides being a soldier/airman/seaman/cadet/whatever. You can put a whole mission in jeopardy by finding shortcuts, or by cheating. There were plenty of people I went through basic with who were going into finance. And while they weren't bankers, they had the power to royally screw with peoples' paychecks. Do I want those people cheating to get by?

11/19/2005 5:21:59 AM

I find the people on here who are being judgmental rather humorous. Trying to equate whether someone will take shortcuts on a test or lab report and how they will perform in a real life job scenario like the military is nothing but assinine.

Your argument is nearly equivalent to me saying, well I see that John is infamous for driving 5 mph over the speed limit and I have even seen him come to the occasional rolling stop. Thus, since John can't obey even the most inane rules concerning traffic laws, then I really don't feel John would be a reliable engineer to design equipment, etc because OBVIOUSLY he would take shortcuts there too.

The fact is (and this amazes me that I am saying it because it sounds like such a liberal statement) is that society now tells us to be worth something we at the very minimum need a bachelors degree. Pretty soon it's gonna be a masters degree, and probably in the future a doctorate. But I guarantee you there are many people out there without a degree of any type that could do a better job in the work force than the majority of "educated college people" with degrees. A degree is nothing more than a worthless piece of paper that society says we have to have to make a living in today's society.

I spent about 4 years enlisted in the Navy prior to going to college, and I promise you I learned so much more in the Navy then in college, it's not even funny. For the most part, college was a joke. Out of the probably 50-60 total classes I took, I would say that MAYBE 10 of them are worthwhile on any level, whether it be to my career or for personal development. So I see absolutely no reason why people should waste their time playing by the rules that do little more than waste 4 years of your life and put you in debt for 10 years. Furthermore, to judge people's merits on whether they will choose working their ass off on ridiculous papers and lab reports over their friends and families is borderline ludicrous.

11/19/2005 12:29:48 PM

Quote :

"^^maybe the man was doing what it took to accomplish the job. he's a soldier, not a banker. i'd rather have a man in the military who did what it took to get the job done than admit defeat."

winning isn't everything. do you even understand the concept of honor?

11/19/2005 1:47:20 PM

And as indicated from his username, FeebleMinded has missed the point

11/19/2005 2:44:07 PM

OMG you are so fucking clever? Did you come up with that all on your own?

11/19/2005 3:47:38 PM

^remember, they're still in college. they haven't the slightest clue about the real world.

11/19/2005 8:19:38 PM

I rather disagree with reporting a cheater in the classroom to the military. It's just unprofessional in my opinion; college is a singular part of someone's life, it is not some all-encompassing test of their morality.

The military does on the one hand require a higher standard of behavior and integrity than most jobs. But on the other, it's an autocratic institution that uses those catchphrases to institute control over every aspect of its servicemens' lives. So you have to ask serious questions as to which cause you're bolstering--the good-intentioned side, or the Machiavellian one. I'd place my bets on the latter.

Besides all that, on a direct note -- I think cutting corners to get ahead is discouraged in college because it undermines the institution. In the real world it's often just pragmatism not to submit yourself to the ivory tower. In this regard, I don't think the lessons from academia necessarily translate to the military.

11/19/2005 10:14:30 PM

Quote :

"When you join the military you do a job besides being a soldier/airman/seaman/cadet/whatever. You can put a whole mission in jeopardy by finding shortcuts, or by cheating."

Yes, but that's just grandstanding. You probably also don't want people who do everything strictly "by the book," either.

College has pretty narrow definitions of what cheating is, and usually they are based on the idea of "absolute fairness to everyone." No matter how redundant and riskless the military tries to be, in a war situation there is certainly no such thing as "absolute fairness to everyone."

You're probably right when it comes to people who go to extreme lengths to cheat, or who are just extremely stupid about it -- but considering that the military accepts convicts into its service ("join the military or go to jail"), you're going to have a hard time convincing me beyond that.

11/19/2005 10:23:03 PM