Why cheating at university needs to stop - Debut honestly

Why cheating at university needs to stop - Debut honestly This post was written by an external contributor. Anca Coman argues why you should never consider cheating at university.   Listen, we know university is hard. Essays can be a slog, and its not always the case that youll breeze through to a 2:1. So sometimes to avoid struggling, people choose to not do the work themselves, and pay someone else to write their essays for them. This sort of behavior is becoming more and more common. Research shows that cheating at UK’s top universities has risen by 40%. In addition, the number of students that have been caught cheating at Russell Group Universities has increased by a third in only three years. Cheating can lead to unsolvable consequences in the long run, even if youre not caught. Your future career aspirations could be compromised as a result. So heres why you should think twice before hiring someone to do your work for you. The consequences are severe Were stating the obvious here, but if you get caught cheating, then the procedure is rightly harsh. Ranging from suspension, all the way to permanent expulsion from your university with no award, or the chance to return and study another degree. It would mean a waste of your time and money, and would also be hard to explain to future employers when they ask why youvre never completed your education. Do you really want to go down that road? All that debt will be for nothing Lets be honest, £9,250 per year is not an unnoticeable sum of money. Most courses are divided into three years, which leads us to roughly £27,750 for the whole academic journey. If you cheat in your assignments, the money that you compensated will have no role in your education. Youre paying for valuable knowledge. But if you cheat, youll only be obtaining a degree thats stained with someone else’s work. Stepping on your integrity Cheating is a softer form of stealing â€" if you’d steal, how would people treat you? Wed wager not with a not a lot of trust or respect. Paying someone to do your work is dishonest, period. You can say goodbye to your loyal image, as people won’t forget what you’ve done. Even after you finish studying, your actions may come back to haunt you later in life, perhaps even in your workplace. As Rachel’s mom from Friends would say: ‘Once a cheater, always a cheater!’. Say goodbye to future jobs Careers require the necessary skills to succeed, skills that you learn at university through completing assignments. If someone else does the work for you, you wont ever develop, and therefore you wont succeed in the working world. For example, how would you demonstrate your capability of becoming a copywriter, if youve never actually written an essay yourself? Its not worth missing out on learning these vital skills for the sake of a few credits. Cheating is unfair to YOU! Its clear that theres a correlation between doing good deeds and your mental health. When you do something right, you raise your self-esteem and feel proud of your achievements. If you work fairly on your assignments, you can be proud of what youve managed to accomplish. Cheating will not give you this satisfaction, as youll have played no role in creating the work. You’re putting yourself in an unfair position if you cheat. If however you work hard and honestly, youll not only improve intellectual skills, but also your psychological wellbeing. Work hard and honestly for your degree, youll get there in the end! Download Debut  and  connect with us on  Facebook,  Twitter  and  LinkedIn  for more careers insights.