Listen up! UWI’s Assessment Regulations consider cheating to be one of the most egregious acts that a student can commit.  Cheating is considered to be any attempt to benefit oneself or another by deceit or fraud.  It threatens to devalue the status of one’s degree, and by extension, the status of the University.  There can be no trust that a degree means what it is supposed to be, when a student has obtained it by fraudulent means.

So, if you have any ideas about bringing unauthorized materials in the examination; copying from your notes during an examination even when the instructions warn against this; assisting other students to copy from you or use your papers; accepting assistance from any other students or using any other student’s papers; paying persons to do an exam for you; taking writings or drawings or other work to your examination, these are all considered as attempts of cheating, and the UWI has robust systems to detect such acts.

Here are some of the consequences of cheating: 

When you cheat, you only cheat yourself of a learning opportunity. When you cheat, you risk failing the course and having a FEI (Failed Examination Irregularity) notation on your transcript, being fined heavily, or even being suspended for a period, or expelled.

Cheating affects your conscience, and your guilt causes more stress. The more you worry about getting caught for cheating, the more this anxiety affects your performance. Cheating results in you not respecting your money and your time. You only throw away your investment when you cheat.

Cheating results in you ruining your integrity, who you are as a person, and this taints your image and any other accomplishments you might have had before cheating.  Imagine a potential employer seeing FEI on your transcript, or a possible scholarship being missed because you are deemed to be dishonest and untrustworthy! 

Cheating does not allow you to see your true potential, it only destroys your self-esteem. Even though technology might make it easier for you to cheat, it makes it just as easy for us to discover when you cheat. Cheating does not pay!

Make it your daily intention to pursue academic integrity. If something does not feel right, trust your instincts. Don’t let anyone lead you down any path of destruction of your reputation.

In the FSS, our focus is on honesty and excellence! Not only in attaining your grades, but also in the type of Social Scientist that you become and how you represent yourself and us in the classroom and beyond.