Editor’s Note: The following column is satirical. It is meant for humorous purposes. All interviews and individuals are fictitious.

Academic honesty is the pillar of our educational system. I, as an academic weapon, would never condone any behaviour contrary to it. As students of this prestigious and highly reputed institution of higher learning known to the world as “ZooMass,” we must hold ourselves to incredibly high standards of conduct as befits the weighty name of our school.

But sometimes, you just have to ape what the guy in front of you is writing down for Part A of Question 3 because you don’t even understand what the words in the question mean. Of course, the guy in front of you doesn’t necessarily know what they’re talking about either, but isn’t that where the fun is? You’re given a choice between writing something stupid of your creation, or possibly sharing in the stupidity of the poor soul who had the misfortune of sitting in front of you for the exam.

Now, say, you were the sort who had friends.

Hilarious, I know! No, but seriously, assume you had friends, and both of you were in the same class. When a pair of geniuses like you guys find themselves in the same course, a few ideas naturally come to mind, and they seem perfectly sensible. “We should study for the exam together!” “We should do homework together!” “We should sit together in class and talk to each other about what we did over the weekend instead of listening to the professor!” And, of course, “We should sit next to each other during the exam!”

Sit together in class and talk about who kissed whom at Alpha Sig last night, and make sure to be as loud as possible, just in case the professor was under the misapprehension that you were discussing something related to the question he’s solving on the board. And once you manage to understand absolutely nothing of the concepts being taught in class, work with your buddy to do the homework. Between the two of you, you’ll definitely have the ability to do it (fiending Chegg.com off of someone else you know).

When exam time approaches, definitely link up for a study session exactly 14 hours before the exam, consisting of copious amounts of iced lattes, Berkshire Dining Hall late night, lecture recordings with mic issues, a completely mangled conceptual understanding of the material and the previous semester’s midterm that you somehow managed to hustle up and which you now hope and pray is identical to the one you’re going to attempt the next day. Oh, and during your study session you should absolutely take out time to construct a coded language to signal answers to each other. Don’t make it too obvious, though, otherwise the proctors might catch on! Pick something utterly inconspicuous, like holding up fingers to signal the question numbers and thumbs up or thumbs down for true or false. No one could ever catch on to such a cunning ruse! (No, what do you mean am I speaking from personal experience? “It sounds very real”?? Dear reader, that is simply my masterful writing on display.)

Finally, the idea to sit next to each other during the exam is a particularly brilliant one. Copying off of somebody else is a good start, but true academic weapon status can only be achieved if you copy off of your friend who is much of a moron as you. The best part about this is that you can no longer tell if what you’ve done is correct by checking to see if you both have the same answers; seeing as you studied together, whatever nonsensical understanding of the content one of you has, the other one has too. If your answers are identical before copying, then you’re either absolutely correct, or absolutely wrong. Doesn’t that just spice up your academic life in such an interesting way?

In conclusion, academic dishonesty is very bad, and you should never ever do it.