<p>Look, I don’t mean to come across as the guy who condones letting cheaters skate by without repercussion. I’m just saying that there is a time and a place for everything, and that we are all jumping to conclusions without having all of the facts.</p>
<p>It would be one thing if the suspected cheater had notes written on their arm or had a bluebook pre-filled with his essay. What I AM saying though, is that without first confronting the person in question, it would be unfair to levy accusations of cheating. Remember, if the person suspected of using ADHD medications was wrongfully punished, it would be a much bigger tragedy than any one person’s grade getting lowered a tiny bit (if that’s the case at all). Cheating entails failure of the course and possible expulsion from the university. Don’t you think it would be prudent to first talk to that person and ask what they were doing, BEFORE you go and tarnish their reputation?</p>
<p>Cheating is never acceptable, but neither is leveling unfounded accusations. If you are really serious about this, at least pay that person the courtesy of going to them first.</p>
<p>^ There’s a whole long process to punishing a cheater. At any time the person could simply provide a note from their doctor explaining what medical condition they have, and that they must take this medicine, and that should clear up the problem.</p>
<p>Psychokid, I am not yet at Berkeley. Nice try at a joke putdown. I noticed the smiley and figured you weren’t serious.</p>
<p>Fiesta of Fire, Blackwater could use you. They are always looking for people just like you.</p>
<p>The act of reporting an ADHD student for taking Ritalin is a violation of the Americans with Disability Act. Dragging the student’s name through the mud and humiliating him by making him discuss his medical problems is a kind of cruelty that no decent person would want to inflict on another human being. Would those of you who want to report your fellow students be willing to put a copy of your medical history up for all of us to see and laugh at? Perhaps, in some Karmic world, the reporters will get unjustly reported and have to humiliate themselves in front of the faculty.</p>
<p>Do any of your would-be policemen or would-be jailers demand medical proof from individuals bringing dogs labeled "service dog"s into test rooms. Many blind and deaf individuals study more instead of boozing it up during study time, and knocking them out could mean fewer A students competing against the would-be policemen or would-be jailers. If knocking out A students is the only way some can boost their grades, why don’t they get all the A students thrown out or humiliated? Wouldn’t that elevate all the F students who were so busy boozing it up during study time that they had to report fellow students just to hope to get a decent grade?</p>
<p>This is about social conscience and about whether you can be good neighbors or whether everyone else has to worry about you snooping in our windows. People who believe they can boost themselves by humiliating, controlling and hurting others are the parasites of society.</p>
<p>There are those who study and who deserve to get an unweighted 4.0, and there are those who goof off or drug up during study time and then count on rising on the backs of those who walked the walk and put in the study time. I’d rather risk getting a lower grade due to some illusory curve than humiliate another student.</p>
<p>I bet those who are reporting students for taking Ritalin were the drug dealers who supplied the Ritalin. Otherwise they would have no idea if the pill was a vitamin or something prescribed by a doctor and would not want to make a potentially false accusation.</p>
<p>Oh god, this again funfun? I thought I smashed your pathetic attempts at demonizing people enough times to get it through your thick head.</p>
<p>Here, let me try putting this as simply as possible, hopefully my using basic words will get to you. I’ll also bold and italicize key words just in case.</p>
<p>Kay, here we go.</p>
<p>I and some posters = said would report a cheater if we knew there was a cheater
Other posters = said would not report a cheater if they knew there was a cheater
You = talking about people with disabilities being hounded by people who said they would report cheaters and then demonizing that group.</p>
<p>Do you see why so many posters here are collectively facepalming themselves at your not only futile, but completely unrelated, crusade in protecting the imaginary disabled people from the nonexistant threat of villainous grade-whores? Do you see how nobody even talked about people using Ritalin because they needed it, but rather to get ahead, except for you?</p>
<p>Fiesta of Fire, your postings showed that you classified taking a pill as a form of cheating you would report. Reporting someone without proof and subjecting that person to humiliation is unconscionable and cruel. You repeatedly wrote about your concerns about your grade as a reason for reporting others. You demonized yourself. </p>
<p>I am not the busy body type who believes I have to control the lives of others and report their activities in the hopes of raising my status. I believe the only way to help oneself is to treat others with respect and to give them the benefit of the doubt.</p>
<p>The truth of the matter is that you are willing to humiliate students to support your ego or your grades. I would choose to trust my fellow students and to assume that whatever they are doing is OK, not illegal.</p>
<p>Though this did not address actual cheating, like getting copies of the exam ahead of time, I would probably report (without names) a breach of security and encourage the staff to close it up. </p>
<p>What others students do, unless it involves a clear and direct harm to others (rather than speculated harm) is none of my business. For instance, if I saw a student trying to assault another student, I would probably go to the assistance of the one being assaulted. </p>
<p>Drugs are stupid and doctors over-prescribe. Nobody has to get illegal Ritalin as there are always doctors eager to prescribe it. Someone else’s drug use is absolutely none of my business or yours, if you are not that person. I don’t drive down the highway looking for drivers to report. I don’t spy on my friends and report their activities. I believe in letting others live their own lives.</p>
<p>What about the person you report? Could the report stop that person from going on to be a scientist who discovers the cure for cancer? Could your report stop a peacemaker who would go on to stop a war but for your damage to his career and self-esteem? </p>
<p>Don’t presume that you are better than the person you are attempting to screw.</p>
<p>lol what? are you high when you come up with these syllogisms?</p>
<p>Pretty much your logic:</p>
<p>1) Fiesta said that taking Ritalin to get ahead is cheating.</p>
<p>2) Fiesta said that cheating could potentially hurt ones own standing in the class because some professors give only a certain amount of the top scores A’s, while the rest are lowered respectively, whether that person’s score was a worthy of a high school equivalent of an A.</p>
<p>3) Ergo, Fiesta only wants to get rid of people who take pills in some very convoluted master plan to humiliate those people and get an A in some class he may not even be sharing with those cheaters. He also likes eating babies and kicking puppies.</p>
<p>Don’t presume that you are better than the person you are attempting to demonize. </p>
<p>I mean, c’mon, how many posters so far have had the same insight as you and correctly inferred that I do indeed want to humiliate people with disabilities for the sake of a grade (not to mention the fact that I also eat babies and like kicking puppies)?</p>
<p>Not only that, apparently now professional doctors prescribing drugs that kids con their way into getting, is their fault, not the kids! And drugs are stupid! Let’s go use herbal medicine again! How about blood-letting whenever our four humors are out of balance!</p>
<p>And apparently, that cheater may be the person who discovers the cure for cancer! Or a peacemaker who saves the world from WWIII! Yes, all these far fetched hypothetical situations could all be yours if you decide not to report that cheater!</p>
<p>Not reporting someone breaching the rules is “facilitating” their academic dishonesty, making you an accessory to the crime, and therefore just as guilty.</p>
<p>ok, can we all stop criticizing people’s opinions here? Obviously everyone has different opinions on whether to report a cheater or not. After reading all the posts here, I can see that there are both rights and wrongs with both ways (reporting and not-reporting). If you see a cheater, just use your own judgment, not other people’s. If you want to report the cheater, then go do so. If you don’t want to, then don’t! It is simple as that.</p>
<p>^ Why should we not debate? Debate is the method for obtaining the truth, and there is only one truth. Either it is correct to report a cheater or it isn’t. There are no “rights and wrongs both ways,” just the truth which one side has yet to accept.</p>
<p>I’m so sad Terminator Salvation did so badly. I was so so happy they were making another movie in the terminator world, but I heard it was McG directing it. I’ll still watch it, but I heard it’s crap.</p>
<p>Where’s funfun by the way? He’d have a field day with the bait that I eat babies and kick puppies and now I’m the new future savior of the world from SkyNet.</p>