I proctored a final yesterday for about 60 students in a big lecture hall.

First, I love how most cheaters just give themselves away. They like to look around the room to see where I am. Their screen brightness is turned down as low as it can go. Some will sit next to a wall and turn their computer away from the rest of the class. Some are just straight bad at it and I can be standing a few rows behind them looking at the Quizlet they have open. The more I interact with underclassman, the more disappointed I am in the rampant (mostly bad) cheating.

My husband says this reads like I don’t hate cheating, just bad cheating. This isn’t quite true. I hate all cheating, but the lazy cheating I despise more. Give me water bottles with notes for nutrition facts or something interesting and I might just confiscate it and frame it.

Second, the university gave me a two hour block to conduct the exam in. I sent out an announcement telling everyone that the exam starts at 10:00. There was a 60 minute time limit because it wasn’t two hours of content. I waited until every person who showed up completed the exam before leaving about 35 minutes after 10:00.

A student emailed me at 11:15 saying they showed up 20 minutes before to an empty classroom and weren’t able to take the now locked exam. I replied with a very polite “that sucks” and referred them to the appropriate office for grade appeals if they felt this was unfair.

I know I read it a lot on here, but gosh, students these days.