Last week was the end of the semester for Polish university students and I was lucky enough to take my first-ever exam in the Polish language (which is, by the way, one of the hardest languages in the world, seventh-hardest to be specific). While the details of the exam are not at all important or interesting for you, the phenomenon of cheating, so raging and rampant in Poland, stunned me.
Presented by Magdalena Jensen.
Now, I graduated from a respectable, quality university in the United States. I took many, many exams. Not once did I experience what I experienced last Tuesday at my university here. I also attend a respectable university in Poland – one of the best, in fact, yet it seems that that does not make much of a difference to Polish students. Allow me please, to give you a detailed run-down of my experience last week.
I waited outside of the classroom in a mass of students fervently glancing over notes, checking facts with each other and nervously biting their nails or twirling their hair. I was, however, probably more nervous than all of them, about to enter the hall and take an exam in Polish for the first time ever – and I had no idea what to expect. Yet, that is besides the point. When the professor arrived, we all filed into the classroom. Mass chaos ensued.
Immediately, people began locating what must have been considered ‘prime’ seats – which meant that everyone was piling into seats in the back of the classroom, near the windowsills, and generally as far from the front where it was assumed that the professor would sit, his head buried in a newspaper while his students took the exam.
I located a girl I vaguely knew, who helped me study a bit for the exam, and sat next to her. We exchanged the usual pre-exam small-talk – the basic point of which was that we both felt under-prepared and extremely nervous. Now, I know this girl from an economics class as well, and I know her to be somewhat of a nerd – very studious, hard-working and honest – or so I thought. What came next from her really stunned me.
She glanced around and shared the fact that she was extremely happy that there were so many of us sitting in the room to take the exam because that meant that she could pull out her little cheat-sheet with notes on it. Immediately, I was shocked. I too looked around and began to notice many people settling in, pulling out pens, pencils and ID cards… but also little tiny pieces of paper that they were securing in their sleeve cuff or between their legs.
I had always heard of sneaky ways to cheat – like writing answers all over ones thigh and wearing a very short skirt which my friend once explained to me was very popular in Korean high schools… but that was high school and this is university. I was, needless to say, shocked at the extent to which people prepared to cheat in Poland – and the extent to which it is just considered normal.
In the United States, people cheat a bit – you know, a quick glance over a colleague’s shoulder – but you can also be booted right out of university if caught, so no one ever thinks to make note cards. Yet, upon further discussion with my friends here, it seems that everyone just takes it as a normal part of exam time – cheating is embraced by students and professors tend to turn a blind eye.
It is very difficult for me to judge the students for cheating in this situation, especially because I have since learned that it is so absolutely normal for students to cheat in Poland. While I still find it an abhorrent practice, I also believe it is somehow a fault of the system. In this country, it is not required to attend the majority of lectures – so no one goes! Especially because they are mainly scheduled for the un-Godly hours of 8 or 9 am – really – I assure you that this is an unholy hour for any student. Not only that, but the lectures include books that are veritable tomes – so large and unwieldy that it is difficult to retain an information from them. So, I can understand the drive to cheat from that perspective.
But, what’s worse, is the so-called ‘blind-eye’ tendency that Polish professors and universities have adopted towards the phenomenon of cheating. Most professors do not even administer their own exams – they have graduate-level students or random proctors do it – and what do those people care if students have little note cards. Not to mention, if a student is stupid enough to get caught checking their cheat-sheet, the punishment is really not harsh. As I mentioned, in the US, students get immediately expelled. But, in Poland, students get a light slap on the wrist – a zero in the class – but obviously you can just take the class again the next year and take the exam over again.
I recognize that exams in Poland are unusually difficult – extremely so, in fact. But, I still have a hard time accepting this seemingly normal tendency of Polish students to cheat.