<p>I agree with tastybeef on this. Apparently some people don’t realize that in many situations your success is dependent on how well your peers do, and getting rid of the cheaters evens up everyone’s chances.</p>
<p>Look at it this way. You have two friends. Both are trying to get the same sports scholarship to the same exact school, which is top for its swim team. One is taking steroids, while the other is not and does not know that the other is taking steroids. Now the one taking the 'roids has the advantage, suddenly he’s shaving seconds off his 200 meter Freestyle and his 200 meter IM.</p>
<p>Now, let’s say the school will only take 2 people. One of them is already reserved for the next Michael Phelps from another school. Leaves one spot for one of your two friends. Can you really claim moral innocence if you knowingly ignore the fact that the one working his ass off is going to lose that spot due to a cheater?</p>
<p>Fiesta of Fire, do all students have to take their vitamins in private so you won’t take advantage of the situation in the belief it will boost your own grade? Turning them in seems like cheating and hypocrisy to me.</p>
<p>I’ve read “1984,” where everyone was ratting out everyone else and nobody knew who to trust. Berkeley doesn’t need college students who think that hurting other students will help them. Most students didn’t apply to Berkeley because they wanted to be part of a police state. </p>
<p>Did you rat out your high school students as well? If your parents committed thoughtcrime, would you rat them out?</p>
<p>I find it difficult to relate to those who think they can elevate themselves by hurting others.</p>
<p>What about the Americans with Disability Act? Some individuals have to take medication without worrying that some overly ambitious student will try to get them thrown out of school because of a medical problem.</p>
<p>Did I say anything about vitamins? No, I was talking about students taking Ritalin to get ahead. </p>
<p>So don’t pull some bull about the Americans with Disability Act. Your cheap and desperate attempt to skim away from the current argument in order to try and demonize me won’t work. Luckily, nobody on this forums has such a bad attention span that they’ll gobble up your word and accidentally infer that I’m somehow against people with disabilities.</p>
<p>Also, what you’re arguing in 1984 is a situation of blatant fear similar to Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. We’re talking about reporting cheaters. Cheaters who commit things that are against the rules, not people who disagree with you or people with disabilities. </p>
<p>So either stay on point, or have fun trying to derail the current argument in favor of name-calling and statement-warping.</p>
<p>How do you know it is Ritalin? If it is, it is none of your business either because it is prescribed by a doctor. A doctor trumps this raise your grade scheme.</p>
<p>Minors are often given no choice about Ritalin. There are over a million kids who have been order to take Ritalin. </p>
<p>It’s not like you are talking about cocaine or something that is not prescribed.</p>
<p>If you were interested in learning at college, you would be more worried about how to understand the material than how to cheat by getting others thrown out.</p>
<p>You clearly are now just throwing straws. You have no arguments other than this one specific “what if…” situation. If you’d like to know a little bit about reality, Ritalin is commonly used in high-end colleges as a study aid. Otherwise, keep staying in fantasy land, where everyone who disagrees with you is the scheming villain who’s out to get everybody for no other purpose than for the laughs.</p>
<p>And we’re not talking about minors are we? We’re talking about college students who take it to get ahead, which is MUCH more often the case than there actually being any need for it.</p>
<p>Continue demonizing me, it only weakens your standing and argument. Sure, go ahead and call my turning in cheaters “cheating” if you’d like. But college is supposed to teach you how to live your life as an adult, and if you’d like to think your success isn’t relative to others, so be it. You’ll have to make hard decisions in life, and if you don’t have the spine to turn in others who are hurting the honest folks, then have fun living your life that way.</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is that it is a prescription drug and the vast majority of those taking it are doing so because their doctors prescribed it. </p>
<p>ADHD and other conditions for which it is prescribed are considered disabilities and this thread would victimize disabled Americans.</p>
<p>So you have individuals victimized twice. Once, when their teachers send them to doctors who force the stuff down their throats, and second, when individuals that have been prescribed the medication go to college and you report them for cheating. </p>
<p>If you can’t get an A, without chopping down another student, you don’t deserve an A.</p>
<p>Why don’t you look at the U.S. Code and see what it means to violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.</p>
<p>Pathetic. Anyone with a sense of reality will either know or quickly understand that when anything comes out that could give someone an advantage, there are people who will take it. Whether it be asking a friend from an earlier class session what the answers are to the test, to the use of steroids, to the use of Ritalin, there will be people who’ll abuse it.</p>
<p>So stop trying to imply that I’m going to blindly kill anyone who uses Ritalin for the sake of a grade. How about this? Why don’t you try to argue why we should stay on the sidelines when someone cheats, rather than try to demonize me with farce situations that I have not touched upon at all?</p>
<p>Now how hard was that? Did you really have to go through all the bs about disabilities and forced use of Ritalin and demonizing those who didn’t agree with you?</p>
<p>I’m thinking that funfun is just ■■■■■■■■ at this point. If not, then he/she is operating under a seriously skewed sense of ethics. Stating that people who expose cheaters are cheating themselves… hmmm. Pretty shady.</p>
<p>I’m thinking that funfun is the person the OP is talking about… ;)</p>
<p>But, seriously, I just have to say that some of the posts on this thread absolutely appall me. Some of you are implying that people who catch others cheating should not report them, because that somehow reflects badly on the person that caught the other cheating. Have you ever heard of “blaming the victim?” If someone is CHEATING, that means that are knowingly breaking the rules. Don’t even try to tell me that someone at Berkeley does not realize what is cheating and what is not cheating. That’s just offensive. So if someone reports a person who is CHEATING, meaning they are KNOWINGLY BREAKING THE RULES, then the person who is cheating DESERVES it. If it “ruins their life,” that was a choice that that person made, not the person who caught them or turned them in. </p>
<p>It truly is sickening to read posts claiming that those who turn cheaters in are somehow at fault themselves. If you see someone stealing from a store, or mugging a person, or committing a hit-and-run, would you ever think of just letting it go, and not reporting it? I sure hope not. This is much the same thing. Don’t pretend that Berkeley students who cheat are innocent…they have chosen to cheat, and they should deal with the consequences.</p>
<p>slicmlic2001 I saw that copypasta post on anoncon too, but I didn’t post it…</p>
<p>you’re speculating way too much about the connection between my posts, they are in fact unrelated. </p>
<p>Also determining whether or not someone taking medication as prescribed or not, is not point I was trying to make, I’m saying if somehow you knew for sure that they were in fact taking these drugs without prescription to cheat what would you do?</p>
<p>Hey guys, what is Ritalin and that other pill? Is it supposed to make you smarter and focus more? Does it really help people get higher grades? How come I have never heard of it? Is it popular in Cal? </p>
<p>By the way, this debate is pretty heated up. I am scared to come to Cal now… All you hard headed smarty pants…</p>
<p>Ritalin is a drug that reduces symptoms of ADHD. When non-ADHD people take Ritalin, it supposedly increases alertness, focus, etc. I know people who have tried it and it definitely did not help them, but I guess it depends on the person. It has also been portrayed on tv - an episode of Desperate Housewives showed moms taking Ritalin to help them do all their chores and such. Apparently research has also shown that many scientists use Ritalin or Adderall as well.</p>