34 Graduate students punished for cheating. In 2005, an amazing 56 percent of MBA graduate students admitted to cheating.
I believe that everyone in this world cheats. It becomes a big deal when you get caught. Amazing that business schools will punish 34 graduate students for ethical reasons, but so many executives with MBA’s go on to cheat every day and ignore any honor code or ethics code.
I wonder if any of the punished students had the guts to say to their professors, “It’s not personal, It’s just business.” This seems to be the mantra chanted by executives who believe that all is fair in love and war (and apparently business.) I wonder if a gutsy business student could make that claim boldly enough to earn at least partial credit or walk away with a severance package that mirrors what CEOs get when they lie.
Why do more than fifty percent of MBA graduate students cheat? Is it the pressure? Is it out of boredom? I have a theory. Education is broken. Even in the highest levels of academia like the Fuqua Business School at Duke. The way we measure how well someone has learned material is ridiculous. Finals are a joke. If you cram for a final and pass the class with a high mark, but you can’t remember the material a week later… have you really learned anything?
In the case of the 34 Fuqua students who cheated by having similar answers written down on their tests, I have a few questions.
why can’t some of the smartest MBA students orchestrate a legitimate attempt at cheating?
Does the Fuqua school create an atmosphere where 34 people believed that by giving one answer it would earn them a better grade than answering something uniquely and learning as a result?
What is worse in terms of cheating? 34 people copying off one another or 34 people only caring about getting a good grade and not really learning or retaining the lessons taught to them?
I don’t like cheating. I don’t like when you break a rule to have an advantage over other people who are following rules. However, I don’t like the double standard of the education system turning out carbon copies of future executives who are chasing a degree that gives them social proof, but not social awareness.
I can’t excuse cheating, but the root cause of this problem isn’t unique to the 34 Duke students caught. The root cause is the broken education system that was put in place a long time ago that breeds this behavior
I guess even after writing this blog I am still confused about one thing. If 56 % of MBA Graduate students are cheating is it fair to say that maybe American business ethics have changed? Maybe it really is only a big deal if you get caught. If more than half don’t have a problem with cheating than maybe the rest of us shouldn’t either. Or… is it possible that collaborative learning and working together facilitates a better result and maybe cheating just invokes an ugly image in our heads?
One thing I do know is that you haven’t learned anything if you can’t teach it. For 34 people who took the time to coordinate their answers with the intent of having the best possible answer presented, it is possible that after all the hard work they put into making sure they had the right answer that they had incidentally learned and retained the information along the way?
I may never know the answer to that, but my guess is that the bigger problem and at least blatantly obvious and comical piece out of this is that they put in the hard work to cheat, but couldn’t execute on making sure their answers were different enough to not raise teacher suspicions.
Translation….
I am not worried about America’s future business leaders being stupid or lazy because they decide to cheat. I am worried that America’s future business leaders are too stupid and lazy to not get caught.
What is this world coming to?
