Couple of the guys I studied with "failed" finite element analysis. This is a 400-level mechanical engineering elective, offered once a year, that certain companies in the Puget Sound area (Genie, Boeing) pretty much require you to have in order to get a job. It was weird - they were doing okay, we were all studying together, and then one day they had "failed" the class. When asked about it, they bitched about how unfair the professor was, how a certain test had been tilted unfairly toward them (we all took the same test, etc).

Next quarter I took a 500 level acoustics class. My study partner was the grad student that had TA'd Finite Element Analysis. Turns out they hadn't "failed" - they'd bought the answer manual to the textbook. In order to get a deal, they bought the manual from the previous year. Which, of course, had subtle changes to every 8th problem or whatever.

So when the professor started to see a pattern - exquisite work, wrong answers - he started assigning the problems that were different from one year to the next to see who else was cheating. Then, to really seal the deal he assigned a take-home test with problems from the book.

flush

And that was that.

Here's the dumb thing:

1) If they'd read closer, they wouldn't have gotten caught.

2) If they'd actually studied with the rest of us instead of fucking around, they wouldn't have gotten caught.

3) If they'd fuckin' shared the wealth they wouldn't have gotten caught - 'cuz we could say "this problem is, like, not the one in the book, Joe."

4) If they'd ponied up for this year's answer manual, they wouldn't have gotten caught.

That's why I have such a dim view of plagiarism: before the internet it was so easy to do in a non-shitty manner that if you actually managed to get caught, your ass was hangin' out so far... in the days of the Internet, of course, all you need to is slam a paragraph of text into Google or a term paper site and you're busted. So you're basically banking on your TA being lazy.

And, okay, if your TA is lazy, you can get away with it. But if your TA is lazy, you aren't learning as much anyway so you oughtta double down on the studying since you're learning less. And you're paying the same anyway.

Dunno. Grinds my gears.