Academic Parasites

Parasitic relationships are when one organism benefits from another organism, which receives nothing in return. Student relationships can consist of one student doing all of the work and another student taking the credit for that work, stealing the answers for themselves. Sounds familiar, huh? Normally, you are either the one that is doing the work, or you are the one that is copying the work. If you are the one that copies, you generally know that it is you, and that’s ok—as long as you finish the work before the teacher sees. Cool. Have you ever kept up a conversation with this person that you are taking advantage of without any alternate intentions? Not even a “hey, how are you?” No? Oh, and you’re upset that they don’t feel like giving up his/her work? How dare they?

                It’s probably very obvious that I am concerned about the equality of the hard-working students and the…not-so-hard-working students. How is it fair that some people do all the work without ever getting credit or maybe even a sincere “thank you” for helping? A new friend isn’t even brought up in the deal. All that these people receive are the title of being the “smart person.” This isn’t really a blessing, more of a curse. Once a person shows how “smart” he/she is, that person is forever branded as the one to go to because they actually did the work. So, doing all of one’s work is not beneficial to one’s self if another person is going to be a leech anyways. It’s not fair!

                Why do I do all of my work? Is it just because I’m smart? Is it because I have no life? False. I have two jobs (and I work hard at both), I have friends, I am involved in so many extracurricular activities that I can’t even get my days straight. I do my work because it’s my responsibility. Maybe you’ve heard of it? It’s that thing where you do what you know is right simply because you know you should. It really irks me whenever a person would walk up to me, give me a dry compliment and steal my work. I spend a lot of time making sure that I will pass each class—and even learn something about it, too. If you don’t want to learn, whatever—just don’t drag me down with you. It’s hard enough that I have to do my own work, but now I have to do yours, too?

                There are a few circumstances in which I know that people will need help. Believe me, my point isn’t that I don’t understand, or that I’m intolerant, it’s that I know that some people aren’t applying themselves. My brother suffers from ADD, and he honestly has trouble understanding some things. If he asks someone for help, it’s because he needs help. One would know if it was an issue of him not understanding or just not doing his work. On the contrary, if he left a section blank in his homework, this could either be that he didn’t finish (as every kid is guilty of), or that he seriously didn’t understand and was too afraid to ask for help. Even though he could figure some stuff out and he knew who to ask, it was tough for him to get the ball-rolling. He was even in trouble of failing, and sometimes he needed to ask a peer for some help just so that he wouldn’t fail his class. This wasn’t just because he was “lazy” or “stupid.” This was because he didn’t know what to do, but he wanted to figure it out on his own. He would work hard to get his grade up and eventually he graduated in a higher note. This is great and all, but that doesn’t mean that everyone who consistently expects you to grant his/her wishes like a genie has some other story.

                Not everyone is in danger of failing. Not everyone has to ask just “one” question because he/she was working too late to finish the assigned work. Not everyone has a low I.Q. because of some mental defect. So, that being said, why does everyone think that it’s ok to leech? Just because you said one nice thing about a “smart” person doesn’t entail that you are allowed to put someone else’s grade in danger because you just couldn’t turn off the T.V. or tell your friends you had to go do homework. In fact, why didn’t you just ask a friend to help you? If they couldn’t help you, why not make friends with your information source? I’m sure that if you got to know them, other than spewing out a few friendly phrases, you might actually grow to like them. And here’s a crazy thought: they might be ok with giving you some answers every once in a while. But God forbid that a popular person or someone that “doesn’t associate with the smart kids” will actually hold up a nice conversation with that person! What if that smart person desperately wants someone to talk to, so they have no choice but to give away their work? What if they actually have a lot of friends and you are keeping that person from those friends? What if this person was doing his/her assignments while they were at work, and you didn’t finish yours because you were too busy partying with your friends? What if this person is struggling to do what they can with what they have, and they are craving knowledge? Wouldn’t you feel guilty for slacking off and taking advantage of that person? No? Well, good luck making your academic achievements without your “friend.”