Cheating? Girl tells me to get a study girl so I can cheat

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A girl I worked with as a CNA got into nursing school and due to having severe panic attacks she dropped at about the third week. I'm giving you this back story because I start nursing school in about a month. Said coworker is nice enough to give me tips (although anything past the third week is just hearsay) and every time she talks to me she says get a study group early so you have enough people to cheat off of "cuz girl you will need to cheat"

Is this true? I've made it this far without cheating/having the easy profs and done just fine. I know she's trying to help but now I think her advice is no longer helping me. What are your experiences with students "sharing" info??

Specializes in pediatric neurology and neurosurgery.
That is exactly why I hated forced study groups in school. Not only was I the one doing all the work, I was suffering because of others lack of work.

When people told me that study groups were their savior in school it terrified me because I've always done better on my own. Is it true that you can't survive on your own??

I can count on one hand the amount of times I studied with other students, and those were because we were already together on campus. I'm a loner and I study best on my own. I used an online flashcard website, which was a tremendous help, when I needed to "quiz" myself. I graduated with a 3.7 from an accelerated nursing program, and 4.0 from my bachelor's program.

I think she's trying to freak you out. Stay true to yourself, study however you study best, and always do the right thing. Don't stress about nursing school. It's a lot of work, but totally doable. Good luck!

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Specializes in Hospice.

I don't even see how you could cheat in NS. Your desk has to be cleared totally, the test questions for all students come up in random order so the person next to you is not necessarily seeing the same question on their screen as you are, the instructors watch everything. We commiserate about the test questions afterwards but I don't associate with any cheaters in my class, nor do I know any who cheat on tests. Now, doing care plans and IPRs may be a different story because you can do those on your home computer so who knows who "borrows" someone else's work for "ideas" and cheats that way. I have seen someone doing someone else's care plan and that doesn't help anyone. Makes me a little ill, actually. Because it's not that they are unintelligent and can't do it, it's that they are lazy. Run far away from anyone you suspect of cheating in NS, don't even associate with them or be seen in their "group". Rise above. And never ever ever talk about your clinical patients outside of clinical. Not even in the cafeteria at lunch. That was the only big snafu I recall happening to another clinical group in my first year and the Director came down hard about it. As she should.

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Specializes in Telemetry, IMCU.
I don't even see how you could cheat in NS. Your desk has to be cleared totally, the test questions for all students come up in random order so the person next to you is not necessarily seeing the same question on their screen as you are, the instructors watch everything. We commiserate about the test questions afterwards but I don't associate with any cheaters in my class, nor do I know any who cheat on tests. Now, doing care plans and IPRs may be a different story because you can do those on your home computer so who knows who "borrows" someone else's work for "ideas" and cheats that way. I have seen someone doing someone else's care plan and that doesn't help anyone. Makes me a little ill, actually. Because it's not that they are unintelligent and can't do it, it's that they are lazy. Run far away from anyone you suspect of cheating in NS, don't even associate with them or be seen in their "group". Rise above. And never ever ever talk about your clinical patients outside of clinical. Not even in the cafeteria at lunch. That was the only big snafu I recall happening to another clinical group in my first year and the Director came down hard about it. As she should.

Not every program uses computers for testing. My campus is pencil and scantron, so unfortunately cheating is quite possible since we all have the same test questions.

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Specializes in critical care.
Everybody cheats and its not just in nursing. There are industries in Asia dedicated to cheating the USMLE, SATS and various other standardized tests. Ivy league students cheat more than people who attend state schools. This is not a good thing but should not really come as a shock. I know from personal experience that many of the people in my pre-nursing prerequisites cheated and rationalized it with the saying,''you don't really need to know all this stuff as a nurse.'' Is it ethical? Not really but it goes on and I am willing to bet lots of incidents like the one described occurs in nursing school and probably even under the direction of many instructors.

Either you mean "everybody" as an exaggeration, or I'm the only idiot to come by my degree honestly.

OP, what do you mean by it's not working for you anymore? I hope you mean the group work, and not the cheating. Love, you're going to have actual lives in YOUR hands when you're licensed. Don't you want to know you'll know what to do and more importantly, WHY you do what you need to do?

We didn't have too many group projects when I was in school but we did have one that really riled me up because I found out quite by accident that a huge chunk of it had been plagiarized by one of the group members. Had I not googled the exact right combinations of words looking for more information and resources, I would have put my name on a project that could have gotten all of us kicked out of nursing school. It was the day before the project was due, and rather than track that person down, call her out, and get her to redo her part (which would make me have to wait to do mine), I just redid hers myself and moved on with my life. When our grades came in, she had the nerve to ask me why I would give her a low rating on evaluations. Really?! ? Yet another lovely example of why I'm not good at relying on other people.

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ABSOLUTELY NOT.... I'm not a "nark" but I just recently turned someone in for cheating. It's been happening all throughout our class and I will NOT be associated with this nonsense. I do not want a nurse taking care of me or my family that cheated through school. And just a thought.... do you realize how much harder the NCLEX will be if you cheat your way through? Know the information, keep your morals, and know that integrity is sadly dying off; but you can still maintain it. And yes, I've been consistently in study groups since I started nursing school, and I graduate in 68 days (not that I'm counting).

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Hard for me to even imagine someone who finds it completely acceptable to cheat in nursing school. In my opinion, this is the kind of mind set that would think nothing of committing a medication error and covering it up. I would want nothing to do with this person as a classmate or as a nurse.

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