Back in college, I prided myself on cutting corners (sorry, boss, but you didn’t hire me because I was on honor roll, now did ya?). I always lovingly said that I only learned one thing in college: the art of survival.
It’s one thing to be a mindless robot, studying and regurgitating pages of a textbook to hit a certain score — it’s another beast entirely to scratch, claw, and cheat your way to that exact same score. The latter option takes balls, it takes know-how. It takes creativity and the clutch gene. It takes life skills. Anyone can read a study guide over and over again until they commit it to memory, but not everyone can figure out a way to eyeball a cheat-sheet as he has a professor and three proctors hawking him like vultures. That, my friends, is skill. That’s survival. That’s what college taught me.
So shout out to these UK students for grabbing life by the balls and trying to complete college their way. I mean, god damn, it’s May and probably gorgeous in Kentucky. What kind of self-respecting human being wants to sit inside studying statistics all day, when they can DRINK all day, and then James Bond the f*ck out of their stat exam at night? My point exactly.
According to UK Police, UK statistics instructor John Cain had been working late in his third floor office in the Multidisciplinary Science Building on Rose Street on Tuesday night. About midnight, he left to get something to eat. When he returned about 1:30 a.m., he tried to unlock the door, but it was blocked by something.
Shortly after police arrived, one of the students returned and confessed. Henry Lynch II, a 21-year-old junior majoring in biosystems engineering, gave police an earful, including that he’d climbed through the building’s air ducts to the ceiling above Cain’s office and dropped down into the room, then unlocked the door and let in his friend, sophomore Troy Kiphuth, 21, who was not in Cain’s class.
Lynch also told them he had already tried to steal the exam earlier that evening around 6 p.m., but couldn’t find it. And, he said, it wasn’t the first time: Earlier in the semester, he’d successfully stolen another exam from Cain’s office, but he assured officers that he had not shared the answers with other students. Lynch apparently gained access to Cain’s office all three times by climbing through the building’s ducts, and dropping down through the ceiling. How he got into the core of the building remains under investigation.
University of Kanas police cited both students with third-degree burglary. Furthermore, like the typical elitist university rat that he is, Blanton said the matter has also been referred to UK’s Office of Student Conduct, which will now conduct a formal investigation and review.
Henry, Troy, just know that you have an ally here over at COED. Right now, I’m sure the university is doing everything they can to tell you that cheating is bad, dishonest, yada, yada, yada, but let me tell you that they’re wrong: if you cheat just right, you can end up with a respectable university degree and a full-time job just like your boy.
Like I said, college taught me survival, and sometimes to survive, you gotta cut a few corners. I just so happen to cut about 80% of corners in college.
