In a World of Shortcuts, Take the Scenic Route - Encouraging Ethical AI Use Among Students

By Dheebhan Jeganathan

Dheebhan Jeganathan is a Computer Science major at the University of Maryland, College Park, minoring in Statistics and Quantum Engineering. Aspiring to become a Machine Learning Engineer, he is deeply invested in exploring how artificial intelligence and quantum technologies will redefine the future of computation, science, and society.

The Age of Shortcuts

Don’t listen to college influencers and orientation advisors when they tell you that the hardest part of college is some fleeting, overused cliché like “stepping out of your comfort zone,” “networking with your professors,” or “managing your time.” None of those supposed challenges compares to the truly Herculean task of finding a table in the dining hall during peak lunch hours, the truest test of one’s survival instincts.

 Such was the peril I found myself in last week, with only thirty minutes until my next class, scrambling to get a seat. Luckily, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a booth with a single empty seat. As I walked up, I noticed the table was occupied by three people from one of my CS classes last semester. Relieved, I put my bag down and went to get my plate.

Normally, if I sit at a table with other people, I put my earbuds in and listen to a podcast. As luck would have it, I had forgotten to charge them the day before. And so I became a passive listener to the fascinating conversation unfolding at the table.

Funny enough, they were talking about the class I had taken with them last semester. I shuddered at the mere thought of it. The projects alone demanded hours upon hours of focus, frustration, and trial and error. I poured everything I had into those coding assignments. Weekends disappeared. Sleep was optional. And after all that, I managed to earn a B+.

Then I heard it.

“Bro, if you asked me to code a single line in OCaml, I couldn’t do it. I didn’t write a single line of code in that class, I swear to God. Every single assignment, straight to Chat. Projects were a free 100, and I clutched the exams. Easiest A of my life.” 

I froze. I give the poor chicken and rice on my plate the most intense death stare, trying to process the horrors which had just entered my ears.

Everyone else at the table is dying. They’re slapping their knees, snot coming out of their noses. They’re beside themselves. This is the funniest thing in the world to them.

I couldn’t stand it. Every joke and laugh was a dagger in my heart. I’ve never eaten so fast in my life. It’s a miracle I didn’t choke. However fast I could get out of there, I was going to. 

I had sacrificed so much for that class. If I had spent the amount of time I did staring blankly at OCaml documentation on writing, I’d have published five novels by now. Every project was a warzone, every exam a bloodbath. And here these guys are, snickering and laughing about waltzing their way through it all, without a care in the world. 

And worst, by far the worst of all, they won. Their transcripts remain untarnished. Their GPAs, immaculate. They didn’t get caught. They lost nothing.

Many times since that moment I’ve laid on my bed thinking back to it, one question dominating my thinking: 

“What do I get out of not cheating? What reward is there for my integrity?”

Consider this blog post my formal answer to these questions.

Autopilot Doesn’t Make You a Driver

Clearly, the consequences for cheaters are not strong enough to deter the behavior. As a matter of fact, I’ve actually heard of more cases of students getting falsely accused of AI usage on projects. Just last semester, one of my friends was flagged on a Computer Systems project for using an outdated version of a base pointer that she found on one of the teacher’s slides, which apparently ChatGPT was fond of using in its own code. I know for a fact she didn’t cheat. I know for a fact she spent hours on that assignment, skipping group dinners to get it done within the deadline. But for the same exact project, I heard of people that prompted the entire thing and got away scot free.

AI detection systems will improve. The penalties may become harsher. Teachers and professors will adapt their instruction and grading methods to account for this new reality.

But, in my opinion, the problem here is not in the detection of the cheating. It is in the cheating itself. It is the fact that a large portion of students find it beneficial to cheat on these assignments; the fact that they get away with it more often than not is a separate matter. If we can target the root cause of cheating, we won’t need to worry about detecting it as much because, hopefully, we may not need to focus so heavily on catching them in the first place.

Perhaps the most unsettling cause of this trend is that students have realized they can achieve their short-term goals through deception, convincing professors and even employers of abilities they have not truly developed. Browse the average software engineering internship listing on LinkedIn and you will almost certainly find polished phrases like “strong interpersonal and communication skills” or “comprehensive technical knowledge.” When students manage to secure interviews, internships, or even prestigious job offers, despite knowing they have not genuinely built those skills, they begin to devalue those requirements. The hiring process feels optimized. The job begins to feel like a game. And they start to wonder: do these skills actually matter?

The harsh reality is that these students will realize the error in their ways only when they least expect it; when they are going for a promotion, applying for a better position at a different company, or simply working on their first assignment in a position. Fortune 500 companies are not paying six-figure salaries for work that can be generated in a few minutes with a prompt. Employers expect competence and depth, and those qualities do not appear overnight. Answering your assignments through ChatGPT does not build the technical foundation required for entry level positions, even if it's able to sneak you past the initial hiring phase. The professional world will eat you alive any moment it gets, and your tool to combat that cannot be an AI, simple as that.

The truly devoted students, the ones who, five years from now, will be able to move up the corporate ladder, will have glowing letters of recommendation from their professors and employers, will be able to communicate their ideas and have the technical foundation required to become assimilated into the cutthroat world of the future, will not be prompting their assignments in high school and college. They won’t be prompting their assignments because they are fully aware that the insidious nature of AI usage can only harm their chances of achieving their goals. They won’t be prompting because they would be disrespecting not only the employers that gave them a chance, the professors that put their faith in them, their parents who gave them the opportunities to succeed, but most importantly, themselves. They would be cheating themselves out of the opportunity to develop the necessary technical and soft skills to become a respected member of a workforce. They would be setting themselves up for humiliation every time a senior employee asks them to take over a task, the likes of which they are grossly underqualified to handle.

The consequences of AI misuse do not end with a zero on an assignment. They do not end with academic probation or suspension.

They can follow you for the rest of your life.

The Beauty of the Scenic Route

"I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Yes, we know. Using AI is bad. The consequences are severe. Blah, blah blah.

But this answer never fully satisfied me. This was not the conclusion I desired for my initial query. “Why choose to learn? Why not take the easy way out?”

As pretentiously intellectual as it may sound, the only answer that fulfilled my hunger was an introspective look at life itself.

I firmly believe that the gift of life is meant to be received and cherished on one’s own terms. To follow some ready-made blueprint handed to you by others is a corruption of the very essence of living. To walk a path that has been traveled a thousand times before, without any uncertainty, without any risk, without the notion of failure even crossing your mind because of the ease of your journey, may be a safe and efficient way to watch time progress, but is not truly life.

To live is to venture. To live is to step beyond the imprisonment of your comfort zone into the uncharted terrain of possibility and potential. It is to accept the uncertainty of every action you take as an invitation to leave your mark on this world. A life confined to familiarity may appear orderly and secure. It may even be respected and praised by your peers, your family, your loved ones. You may achieve success with this route. But what you will not achieve, what you will never achieve following such a path, is fulfillment. You choose caution over curiosity, maintenance over meaning, security over substance. 

To live is to impart meaning on the world around us. To live is to transform what our five senses can take in, into something poignantly meaningful and substantial. It is only through the eyes of someone that is truly alive may the world, in its raw form, become a collection of moments, of memories, of dreams, of passions, of art, of stories, of life. In imparting the responsibilities of your academic future to ChatGPT, you are unwittingly turning over your right to give meaning to a model whose only value system rests in statistical patterns. You homogenize your thoughts, you lose your sense of identity. You forfeit responsibility over your own actions, you restrict yourself from the freedom of choosing what to find meaning in.

The great Friedrich Nietzsche argued that true fulfillment is found not in the quiet achievement of safe ambitions, but in the striving toward goals so ambitious and lofty that the threat of failure looms over them like a waiting abyss. Though the philosophers of the past disagreed on many things, I would like to believe that they would unite in criticizing our generation’s modern aversion to struggle. They would tell us that perseverance is not an inconvenience to bypass but a crucible that shapes the constructs of our very character. 

Let’s not be scared of failing. Let the threat of falling behind our peers not encourage us to go down a dark, inevitably unfulfilling path. Let us take initiative of the lives we have been gifted. Let us take a moment to remind ourselves of the why of what we do.

Let us prioritize the learning experience. Let us become active members of our academic careers. Let us leverage the technical marvel of the tools at our disposal, not for nefarious means, but to better optimize the pursuits of our ambitions without cheating ourselves of the valuable experience of failure, the very mechanism that inspires our growth.

The Road is Yours

I sincerely apologize if I have come off as preachy. My quoting of Nietzsche or any other philosopher who has piqued my interest in no way grants me any authority or wisdom over the average student. I am navigating this system just like everyone else. I wrestle with the same uncertainties, the same long nights, the same persistent anxiety about what the future might hold.

At the end of the day, it is your life to lead. It’s your learning, your career, and as such, your choice on what you will choose to do with that responsibility. I do not wish to impart any moral superiority on AI usage in the context of this matter. Maybe these two-thousand words are merely an unhealthy coping mechanism for the fact that there is a B+ stain on my transcript.

My only wish is that everyone recognizes the brevity of that freedom, and takes a moment to sit down and reflect on this choice. Consider whether the shortcuts we embrace today might silently be shaping the confidence in our skills that we rely on tomorrow. In this moment, we have the chance to choose not merely what is convenient, but the path that, years from now, will let us look back and know we truly lived. 

Maybe I’ve been looking at it all wrong. Maybe that B+ isn’t a stain. Maybe it’s a battle scar, a testament to the tribulations I’ve accumulated on this journey of life. 

It’s all a matter of perspective.