“Character is higher than intellect.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Cheating is so widespread these days, it’s hard to determine when someone is truly being honest. Did Brad cheat on Jennifer with Angelina? Was Sammy Sosa’s corked bat a one-time accident, or had he used it before? In cases like these, we don’t know, because the inclination in humans to cheat just comes so naturally. At many universities, including ours, students are held to an honor code — a higher standard we agree to uphold by not cheating on our work. The code we agree to goes something like this: “Being a student of higher standard, I pledge to embody the principles of academic integrity.” I think it’s foolish to cheat in college — the work we do here is supposed to prepare us for the careers we’ll undertake in the real world. So if we can’t do it here, it will be a lot harder to do it there. Think about it — we don’t want those doing their jobs for our benefit to be dishonest people. It’s quite scary to think that if I ever need an operation of some sort in the future, one of the doctors who works on me might have cheated his way through medical school. Learning our work in college rather than cheating on it helps prepare us for the career world in other ways besides knowledge. If you get caught being dishonest on the job, the phrase “You’re fired” isn’t going to be something you only hear on the show “The Apprentice.” As it relates to me presently, it kind of ticks me off when I study for hours for a test and hear someone later bragging about cheating on the same test - and getting away with it. I doubt I’m the only one a little bothered by this. According to the Center for Academic Integrity, over 75 percent of students on most college campuses admit to cheating. Professors at our school aren’t unaware of the problem either. In one of my classes, the professor doesn’t allow students to wear baseball caps during tests and admits to being overly watchful while we take our exams. Several teachers require their students to submit term papers to http://www.turnitin.com, which is a Web site that searches papers for plagiarism, and compares turned-in papers to those available on the Internet. The Center for Academic Integrity also reports that academic honor codes effectively reduce cheating. Perhaps this is because the fear of getting caught is often what prevents dishonesty, and schools that employ an honor code show that cheating is not something swept under the rug. Really, cheating is not the best solution to getting good grades. Take some time to study — it can’t hurt in the least. If the material is just too difficult to understand alone, get some help from someone in the class who gets it. For term papers, get some help from an English major. Don’t get the person to write the paper, but ask her to edit it and give suggestions. Once again, there’s no harm in that. There are so many alternatives to cheating, and while they do require some work, at least you’re being honest and building the important quality professors and employers look for — character. Sarah Broach is a sophomore journalism major from Luling and serves as a news editor for The Tech Talk. E-mail comments to slb045@latech.edu.