Save the Congrats... Failure. So graduation came and went, and I thought all was well- my grades certainly weren't anything to be proud of, but I thought I'd passed and that was all I cared- I was ready to move on with my life... I thought. So the weekend of graduation, I got an email from a professor accusing me of "unethical practices" on an assignment, had referred the case to student judicial services, and as a result I would likely fail his class. Not just the assignment, the whole COURSE. I opened the email the morning of graduation... yea, to say the least, it kinda soured the mood of the whole day for me. Like, "Hey SURPRISE, you DON'T graduate!"
I was accused of a number of infractions, and in my own defense, most of them were false... Well, "most" doesn't amount to a hill of beans. So the assignment was a powerpoint presentation, and to save myself some time, I used a team member's presentation as a template for my own so I'd know what all needed to be in it. (This course was structured so teams had access to every member's work, so we'd know what each other was doing.) So I took a team member's and started copy/pasting my own graphs and figures over his, using his table formatting, then did a save as to make it my own file... apparently you're technically not allowed to do that. Those were several of the counts against me. However, I apparently missed two graphs that I failed to copy/paste over. I talked with student judicial services, and that alone was the only "evidence" they needed for this thing to be case closed.
Funny... student judicial services. Bah. Basically, once a case is referred to them, it's game over. Even if the professor wants to take it back, they can't anymore. And maybe I was just angry and distraught when I went in to talk to them, but in all honesty, at NO point did it ever seem like they were trying to help me out of my situation. Just like how I feel about lots of the councils, committees, and organizations around campus- this whole thing is just for show. It's a charade of making it seem like some kind of democratic thing where you get a fair hearing, when in all actuality, the gavel has already been struck. The burden of proof lies with the defense. They have a "zero tolerance" policy against scholastic dishonesty, which means anything even just remotely questionable can get you failed. (They said, "otherwise you get into the debate of: how much cheating is alright?" And "cheating" is kind of a loaded word to begin with, isn't it?) So cuz of this blind bureaucracy, your case, big or small, regardless of the repercussions, results in the same penalty- you fail the course.
So a small part of a small assignment, which I believe was a completion grade, causes me to fail. Ugggghhh, trying to save myself 20 minutes could end up costing me an entire semester. =( HOPEFULLY I can negotiate a special situation where I can make something up in the summer. But in the worst case scenario, this mistake could end up costing me a LOT of money. My scholarships ended, and I didn't apply again for financial aid. Add to that like half a year's worth of lost wages due to postponed job start date, and this could end up costing like 40K... yea, sheisty. But HOPEFULLY it won't come to that.
Yea, I guess my overlooking those 2 graphs was a boneheaded move, but it won't change the fact that I'll always use templates to save time when I can. This situation really teaches me nothing. Am I sorry for what I did? Yea, I guess- seeing as how I got screwed over. Will I change my ways becasue of this? No. I didn't do what I did as a conscious attempt to get away with anything sneaky, it was an honest mistake and now I'm paying for it, hard. It was an accident, but I guess sometimes people even get killed cuz of accidents. =/
*Ok, so I've worked out a deal where I complete a summer project, and we call it even, and they let me graduate. Not great, but better than the alternatives, I suppose.
I was accused of a number of infractions, and in my own defense, most of them were false... Well, "most" doesn't amount to a hill of beans. So the assignment was a powerpoint presentation, and to save myself some time, I used a team member's presentation as a template for my own so I'd know what all needed to be in it. (This course was structured so teams had access to every member's work, so we'd know what each other was doing.) So I took a team member's and started copy/pasting my own graphs and figures over his, using his table formatting, then did a save as to make it my own file... apparently you're technically not allowed to do that. Those were several of the counts against me. However, I apparently missed two graphs that I failed to copy/paste over. I talked with student judicial services, and that alone was the only "evidence" they needed for this thing to be case closed.
Funny... student judicial services. Bah. Basically, once a case is referred to them, it's game over. Even if the professor wants to take it back, they can't anymore. And maybe I was just angry and distraught when I went in to talk to them, but in all honesty, at NO point did it ever seem like they were trying to help me out of my situation. Just like how I feel about lots of the councils, committees, and organizations around campus- this whole thing is just for show. It's a charade of making it seem like some kind of democratic thing where you get a fair hearing, when in all actuality, the gavel has already been struck. The burden of proof lies with the defense. They have a "zero tolerance" policy against scholastic dishonesty, which means anything even just remotely questionable can get you failed. (They said, "otherwise you get into the debate of: how much cheating is alright?" And "cheating" is kind of a loaded word to begin with, isn't it?) So cuz of this blind bureaucracy, your case, big or small, regardless of the repercussions, results in the same penalty- you fail the course.
So a small part of a small assignment, which I believe was a completion grade, causes me to fail. Ugggghhh, trying to save myself 20 minutes could end up costing me an entire semester. =( HOPEFULLY I can negotiate a special situation where I can make something up in the summer. But in the worst case scenario, this mistake could end up costing me a LOT of money. My scholarships ended, and I didn't apply again for financial aid. Add to that like half a year's worth of lost wages due to postponed job start date, and this could end up costing like 40K... yea, sheisty. But HOPEFULLY it won't come to that.
Yea, I guess my overlooking those 2 graphs was a boneheaded move, but it won't change the fact that I'll always use templates to save time when I can. This situation really teaches me nothing. Am I sorry for what I did? Yea, I guess- seeing as how I got screwed over. Will I change my ways becasue of this? No. I didn't do what I did as a conscious attempt to get away with anything sneaky, it was an honest mistake and now I'm paying for it, hard. It was an accident, but I guess sometimes people even get killed cuz of accidents. =/
*Ok, so I've worked out a deal where I complete a summer project, and we call it even, and they let me graduate. Not great, but better than the alternatives, I suppose.
posted by Dear Daniel at 9:15 PM
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