<p>I wasn't freaking out about my engineering final or anything, but I thought "maybe I should write down some stuff on a piece of paper just in case" and stuck it in my calculator cover. Test started and I dropped my cover, "no big deal, I'm not gonna use it anyways" Proff. walks by, sees white sticking out, asks whose it is and tells me to give him the paper. I say "it's just basic stuff, I didn't use it, you can see all my work right here" he reaches for my paper and I thought he was gonna take it, but he just checked the name I guess(I won't be surprised if docks points). I just kept my cool, just kept working the problems...took the whole duration to finish, and after there were like 5 of us just hanging around asking stuff about our grades and I myself asked him a question and he just responded normally(kinda feel like he forgot maybe). Do you think he really even cared? We were gonna go to his office hours tomorrow to show him that we figured out how to solve a problem everyone had trouble with, basically just so if we were failing and he sees that we actually understand it, he'd pass us(it's a foundations class). Should I bring it up and apologize or just not bring it up at all?</p>
<p>I don’t think we can tell you if he cared or not if you couldn’t even tell if he cared or not.</p>
<p>This is one of those cruddy situations that a lot of us have probably gotten ourselves in. I never got caught cheating in junior high or high school (I rarely did cheat), but I did get caught on a spelling test in elementary school (which is kind of funny now).</p>
<p>Anyways, you could expect him to dock you some points, but in most cases, professors would usually take the test and discard it as soon as they catch someone cheating. Your professor didn’t do that, so I don’t know what will happen. I feel as if he wouldn’t make you take it and then give you a zero, but anything is possible.</p>
<p>I realize that you didn’t use the sheet on the test, but it still looks really bad.</p>
<p>This could go either way. Based on what you wrote, it sound like you were prepared to cheat if needed. The professor probably has the same thoughts. Best guess he will look at how well you did without the paper and then make a decision.</p>
<p>The more important question is why did you put yourself in this situation? I know many feel cheating is as natural as breathing but professors and honor codes take it very seriously as do future employers.</p>
<p>^That. </p>
<p>And really, if you weren’t freaking out, why on earth did you even think of cheating??? What was the point? It doesn’t matter that you didn’t use the paper. What matters is that you had it. You had access to resources other students didn’t have, which is cheating. </p>
<p>I hate to give a lecture, and I’m sure you’re worried about this, but you need to shape up. Hopefully the professor will not reprimand you severely and you’ll learn your lesson. Cheating can RUIN your career and get you kicked out of college. </p>
<p>As far as what to do, the professor will contact you in some way most likely if he plans to reprimand you. Unless you absolutely need to talk to him about it again, I’d let it go and hope for the best.</p>
<p>Ok, lecture over. Go get some yummy popcorn and cookies or something. :)</p>