With a seal that proclaims “Veritas” ““ Latin for “truth” ““ and a reputation as the foremost academic institution in the world, Harvard University embodies the spirit of intellectual pursuit in America.
That is why it was shocking two weeks ago when the university charged nearly half the students in a spring semester government course with cheating on a take-home final exam, calling into question the assumption that students at elite universities are more disciplined than those elsewhere.
Yet focusing on the dishonesty of the students’ action ignores the more disturbing fact: that few in the upper-division course seemed to take the class seriously.
This specific instance certainly deserves scrutiny, but we should be careful not to overshadow the possibility that cheating is symptomatic of a lack of intellectual investment on the part of students and universities.
In past editions of the Q guide, Harvard’s student review website, comments on the class include statements such as, “an awesome class which is not very time-consuming,” and, “If you’re looking to do absolutely nothing and at worse get an easy A-, this is the class for you.”
The resounding message: Students enjoyed the “lax” professor because they could get the best grades while putting in the least amount of effort.
This may seem unfitting of a prestigious campus such as Harvard, but in fact, the same attitude pervades our own campus.
One has to go no further than Bruinwalk.com, which filters professors by the “easiest” category to see student evaluators alternately bemoan professors who “are smart (but) ruin the transcript” or commend those who are “OK but an easy A.”
Unsurprisingly, an annual nationwide survey by the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute shows that since the outbreak of the latest recession, being able “to get a better job” has eclipsed a desire “to learn more” as the most widely cited reason for students going to college.
Last winter quarter, I took classes with two professors, A and B, the first of which received higher rankings on Bruinwalk by students for factors such as quality and effectiveness but had a reputation as a harder grader.
The easier class, as expected, had a noticeably higher enrollment.
Although professor A’s class was more demanding, it was also more memorable, as the professor challenged traditional misconceptions about the Hindu-Muslim conflict and Indian religiosity.
With students wishing to complete a degree in the most inexpensive and efficient manner possible, many understandably will seek the classes that bring the highest grades with the least amount of effort.
Such priorities are ultimately shortsighted.
As students, we should invest in academia not because it may seem like a ticket to a shiny career, but because it helps develop our worldview, pushes us to ask questions and to seek answers.
Yes, it seems unfair that students bear all of the burden of their education, but the difficulty of achieving systemic reform has created the need to take matters into our own hands.
A college education has an undisputed material benefit, with studies showing on average that those with bachelor’s degrees alone earn twice as much as those with a high school diploma.
But while universities might provide the resources necessary for a good education, if not utilized actively by students, they become worthless.
Email Lu at rlu@media.ucla.edu . Send general comments to opinion@media.ucla.edu or tweet us @DBOpinion .