<p>I need some advice. About a day two days ago I was taking an exam which was being proctored by a TA. In my pocket I had a piece of paper with notes on it and I nervously took it out and placed it on the exam (stupid I know). Anyway, I asked the proctor to come over and she found the paper and said that she would have to report to the teacher of the class. </p>
<p>The notes on the paper had little to do with the exam material that was being tested. But now I am in a situation because no matter what I say I looks like I cheated. Looking back at the situation I wish I was because maybe I would have been more careful. </p>
<p>Does anyone have any advice on what I should do. I already e-mailed the teacher telling her that I didn't cheat and that I will take responsibility for my actions. </p>
<p>It looks like you cheated because you did cheat. You weren’t allowed to have notes out during the exam – or the TA wouldn’t be reporting anything to anybody – and you did have notes out during the exam. I have no idea what you are pretending to think “cheating” means (or, worse, what you actually think it means), but in the real world having notes out during an exam when you are not allowed to have notes out is cheating. Not cheating skillfully is not the same thing as not cheating. So now you’ve lied to the professor and made it very clear that you have no intention of taking responsibility for your actions.</p>
<p>And that’s even if we accept your account of this at face value. I tend not to do that because because when you say something like “In my pocket I had a piece of paper with notes on it and I nervously took it out and placed it on the exam” it’s a clear attempt to disown responsibility for even the actions you admit to. Everyone I’ve ever known who got caught cheating had a story like that, in which things just sort of happened for no particular reason and completely without the active involvement of the person who did them.</p>
<p>My advice would be to be honest, to admit that you cheated, to take responsibility for your actions, to accept the consequences of cheating, and to learn from your mistake. But I doubt that you are going to take that advice, because you can’t even be honest to a bunch of strangers on the internet who don’t know who you are.</p>
<p>If I had posted something like that – and wasn’t ■■■■■■■■ – I would not be able to respect myself. If I had been caught cheating in an exam I would know that the proctor didn’t respect me. If I had sent an email to my professor saying that although I cheated, I didn’t cheat, but that I would take responsibility for my actions, I would know that she didn’t respect me either. And if I somehow managed to get away with such a blatant act of cheating, I would know that the only reason I had was that the school didn’t even think I was worth the effort to try to educate. (There are schools these days, including schools that a number of people on this site think are very good schools, that have programs whose administrators don’t really think very many of their students are educable. And maybe you’ll find out that you are “lucky” enough to attend one of them.) The only way that I could regain my self-respect, let alone convince myself that I had begun to earn other people’s respect, would be to face up to what I had done and accept the consequences with as much dignity and grace as I could. And so that’s what I’d do.</p>
<p>I hope, for your sake – even though I know you won’t understand why it would be better for you – that you are held accountable for what you did.</p>
<p>ahh academic integrity: the most stressful thing that college students go through. Now why would you take out the notes in the first place? makes no sense if since you claim you werent trying to cheat (idk if you were/did or not). but nonetheless, it looks like you cheated so thats what its going to be evaluated on. there’s no good defense for it. What you should do is take whatever sanction the professor decides to give you and avoid a trial as much as possible. If you go through a trial, then you are more likely to get a harder sentence which could be anywhere from failing that test to failing that course. and above all else, keep your composure and keep your story straight. trust me, having to go through 3 of these over stupid things (which i wont mention) it can be really stressful and cause you to say something that can academically incriminate you even further</p>
<p>Really, listen to yourself. “I had a piece of paper in my pocket, and while I was taking an exam I just decided to take it out for no reason. To my surprise it was notes from the course (because everyone keeps their class notes folded up in their pocket) and even realizing that, I didn’t put them back in my pocket, but instead put them right on the desk”. This is either a bad joke or you are very thoughtless. I am thinking bad joke. Ha Ha.</p>