Hello all,
This is the first time I have cheated in college and am feeling super guilty about it. I was stressed keeping up with my clubs and classes and made the horrible mistake of “Oh maybe someone else posted something about this problem online,” which of course lead to my discovering the entire project and how to do it online. Probably a good time to mention that I cheated in a computer science class. From there I proceeded to copy bits of code which then turned into basically the whole project telling myself, “oh I’ll just change this up and write it differently once I see how it works.” Of course that then turned into rearranging some code, changing variable names, editing basic areas of the scripts skeleton, etc. Since I already knew how to do it from looking at this persons work and didn’t actually think through the solution like the project was suppose to make me do, I had the same general overall format. The project was worth 10% of my grade and I panicked after weighing if I should even submit it or not. The final piece I changed was the authors name to my own, a.k.a the definition of plagiarism.
We use a program checker (or so they tell us) at our school to test for plagiarism in code, but the TA’s have to go in by hand and check for our codes style and such. I was feeling super nervous about the whole situation immediately after I turned it in, but at that point it was too late. The submit button had been clicked and the deed was done. I scanned back through the code just to make sure that everything was ok and found I forgot to change a variable name in on of the scripts to what I had changed the others too. I started crying my eyes out. I knew I was in the wrong and at that point was terrified of what might happen and still am.
All those stories of expulsion and a mark on my transcript terrify me to no end, but what is worse was knowing they will email my advisor if I am caught. I don’t want to let him down nor do I want to let the instructor down. He told us at the beginning of the year that he hates dealing with cheating and to please not make him deal with it, but here I was being selfish and stupid. If I could take it back I would have just not submitted the stupid thing, but now I’m stuck. If I tell the professor I cheated now it’s automatically to the dean of students office, If not and he catches me of course I will admit to everything right away (I just hope I can do it with a straight face and not start crying) with the same result. If I get away with it I will NEVER do it again, but I will feel so guilty. Even as I write this I feel like I’m going to puke.
After deciding that I can’t tell the professor, I decided to try to ease my mind with “everyone cheats”, “You changed the code enough to stop from being red flagged,” “what if they do catch you? They won’t expel you!.” I went back to see the code again and recheck to see how I changed it and how I didn’t and looked through my revision history to find that on one of my files the revision said the previous persons name as the author. It was only one file in the project and only briefly on the history, but still there it lay looking at me. If one of the TA’s checks my revision history that name will pop up as the first save when I started this whole mess.
I have accepted my fate and will accept any punishment that my college sees fit even though I haven’t been technically caught yet. The grades get put in on Monday for us so I should be getting that email form my TA and Instructor about coming into office hours or such soon, but how do I go about saying sorry for letting him down? What would you want to hear? How do I talk to my advisor again if I don’t get expelled or suspended?
What do I do if they somehow don’t find it?
Please help me, I already spent the entire night crying with my roommate about it and at this point just want to put an end to my misery.
Best,
Regretful stupid Undergrad