Headline Oct 21, 2015/ ''' THE CHEATING EPIDEMIC '''

''' THE CHEATING EPIDEMIC '''

THE STORY of how I got into this job may be instructive. It is mostly about the tremendous disappointment that awaited me in college.

My distaste for the early hours and regimented nature of high school was tempered by the promise of the educational community ahead, with the free exchange of ideas and access to great minds.

How dispiriting to find out that college was just another place where grades were grubbed, competition overshadowed personal growth, and the threat of failure was used to encourage learning.

I was raised an upper-middle class family, but I went to college in a poor neighbourhood. I fit in really well; 

After paying tuition, I didn't have a cent to my name. I had nothing but a meal plan and my roommate's computer. But I was determined to write for a living and, moreover, to spend these extremely expensive years learning how to do so.

When I completed my first novel, I contacted the English department about creating an independent study around editing and publishing it. I was received like a mental patient. I was told:

 ''There's nothing like that here.'' I was told that I could go back to my classes and fill out Scantron tests until graduated.

I didn't much care for my classes, though. I slept late and spent the afternoon working on my own material. Then a funny thing happened. My classmates saw my abilities and my abundance of free time. They saw a value that the university did not.

It turned out that my lazy Xanax-snorting, Miller-swilling classmates were thrilled to pay me to write their papers. And I was thrilled to take their money. Word of my service spread quickly, especially through the fraternities.  Soon I was receiving calls strangers who wanted to commission my work. I was a writer!

Nearly a decade later, students, not publishers, still come from everywhere to find me.

*I understand that in simple terms, I'm the bad guy. But point the finger at me is too easy. Say what you want about me, but I am not the reason students cheat*.

You know what's never happened? I've never had a client complaint that the originality of his work had been questioned, that some disciplinary action had been taken. As far as I know, not one of my customers has ever been caught.

With two days to go, I was finally ready to throw myself into the business assignment. I caged myself in my office and went through the purgatory of cramming the summation of a student alleged education into a weekend.

My client was thrilled with my work. She told me that she would present the chapter to her mentor and get back to me with the next steps.

Two weeks passed, by which time the assignment was but a distant memory, obscured by the several hundred pages I had written since. On Wednesday evening, I received the following e-mail:

''Thanx u so much for the chapter is going very good and the professor likes it but wants the following suggestions please what do you thing?;

''The hypothesis is interesting, but I'd like to see it a bit more focused. Choose a specific connection and try to prove it,'

''What should we say?''

This happens a lot. I get paid per assignment. But with longer papers, the student starts to think of me as a personal educational counsellor. She paid me to write a one-page response to her professor, and then she paid me to revise her paper. I completed each of these assignments, sustaining the voice that the student had established and maintaining the front of competence.

The 75-page paper on business ethics ultimately expanded into a 160-page graduate thesis, every world written by me. I can't remember the name of my client, but it's her name on my work. We collaborated for months.

As with so many other topics I tackle, the connection between unethical business practices and trade liberalisation became a subtext to my everyday life.

So, of course, you can imagine my excitement when I received the good news:

''thanx so much for uhelp ican going to graduate now.''

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all on !WOW!   -the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

''' Peaceful Protest '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless