Just Follow Law?

Taken off a comment on a blog somewhere...

The one thing that the sucky NUS engineering education really drove into my head is that anything is legit to achieve your target. Following the rules is just NOT emphasized or properly rewarded. Mostly, honest folks who follow arbitary rules are made to feel like idiots.

'Re-engineering' term papers, rehashing lab reports etc, these are common practices in a mad schedule. You think the deans list people and 2nd uppers aren't doing it?

It is a sad revelation rather than a heartening englightenment. Yet it is something most wonderfully relevant in the dog eat dog world. There is no black and white, only greys.

Real people in the real world will 'cheat the system' as much as they can get away with. On one end of the scale, there are jaywalkers. On the other, there are lawyers, accountants and politicians.

Well said! I couldn't agree more.

To quote Fann Wong's character (as in the 'rehashed' one) in the movie Just Follow Law, 'it's not about whether we can do or cannot do... it's about whether we DARE to do or not'

But that was a pointed jibe against the red tape in the civil service which I experienced for 2 1/2 years.

How about in NUS?

Copying lab reports (a.k.a. borrowing senior's/friends' lab reports 'for reference')? It's obvious that most lab reports are just a rehash of some great(^n) grand senior's lab report done in 1996... even the errors are still there and best of all the TA failed to spot it...

Other stuff like cheating in those 'held-in-the-LT-tests?' and the one which takes the cake which is 'increasing the size of the real estate on the helpsheets via post-it notes'.

Seems to me that it's the other facs like FASS or Law which are anal about plagiarism. As for Engin, there's nothing much to plagiarise (though it bemused me that one of the examples in the 'plagiarism video' from the 'authorities' was that of copying a lab report. But the student in the 'example' was really asking for it by copying the VALUES, my goodness... everyone knows that different specimens have different parameters...)

Sounds pretty much like SAF Rule No.8: "Do what you want... Just Don't Get Caught"