It's my right to cheat!

We have a grad student in our lab that works as a teacher's assistant (TA). Basically in charge of running a couple of the biology labs, assists test grading, etc. She told me this AM she had to meet with a couple students because their lab reports were identical.

First rule of cheating - copy off a lab report from a different lab section. TA's don't have the time to compare each student's report.

Second rule of cheating - copy off someone who has the correct answers. If you manage to get away with cheating, you'll at least have the grade to show for it. The copied reports were both wrong!

Anyway, she met with the student who copied the report. There was a reference to the other lab report. (For the record, copying word for word is not a reference.) She told me the student was very defensive. First saying that she procrastinated doing the report. Then said that she thought that several sections weren't important and could be copied. She didn't have much to say about the fact that the report was wrong anyway. THEN she started a tirade about how the school is out to get her and kick her out.

Final piece of advice is to stick to one story.

My biggest problem with her last argument is with a student population over 30,000, they're not out to get anyone (they don't give a damn). Besides, the University WANTS your tuition money, and doesn't want to kick you out unless you did something terrible (copying a lab report will not probably not get you kicked out).

She meets with the student who's incorrect report was copied. Should be interesting what her story (stories) is/are.