Academic Cuts
WORDS BY Johnny O’Hagan Brebner | He/Him
Frantic desperation is the only constant in student life. Most of us will get our first taste in halls, eyes dried out and back curled as we press ourselves into the laptop screen—the only light in the sealed cinderblock room.
Who actually wrote The Leviathan? Is APA actually different from Chicago? Did someone actually say “this is the end of history” or did I dream that? There’s no way of finding out in the three hours between now and your 8am deadline.
Maybe you remember promising Ruth Richardson your firstborn in exchange for a speedy CRC payout to cover the print cost of your 6-pt font, incomplete cheatsheet. Or perhaps you just had to read the tutorial question during the icebreaker after ten too many at Siglo.
I used to think it was a beautiful thing—to lick your fingers ‘clean’ of lime salt corn chip crumbs before slapping away at the keyboard again. It’s the mark of the true student, to suffer without thanks in the slog towards a $50k degree. We smoke and drink and punch cones and live in mouldy shoeboxes not just because we have to, but because that’s what students do.
Of course, we know this is bullshit. More boomer ideology. What is actually beautiful is the way we get around our desperation. Cutting corners, paragraphs, and courses is the ultimate skill of a student. Surviving the sea of shit that comes with being a student requires you to know what you can and can’t do, knowing what’s required to get the job done, and coming up with creative solutions. It’s a jug of Castle Point, it’s not great, but fuck it’ll get you through.
These academic sleights of hand sit on a spectrum. Sitting at the least extreme end of that spectrum is getting lecture notes off your ‘mate’ (the only thing you know about them is that they also take torts and grew up somewhere in Auckland). Further up is the cheeky request for an extension, the acronymization of any phrase over two words, and deleting the 200-word paragraph you couldn’t find a
source for.
But the desperation pressure in the temples really sets in at the upper end.
Sometimes when all you’ve got left is a 40 percenter, not doing it and settling with the C+ looks pretty tasty. I dropped a course and my whole BA last year. Some of these are just wilder versions of earlier workarounds. A friend once wrangled themself a two month extension for a paper. Apparently, “the key is to be a crying blonde girl”. But this end of the spectrum gets tricky quickly. Dropping out entirely is messy but might be the only thing that will stop your life falling apart. Medical certificates aren’t always a guaranteed pass. Disaster is a real and likely risk at this end. But there is one option, only ever whispered throughout these ancient, labyrinthine halls. It’s dodgier than your mate’s mate’s molly and will do less for you than an Ivy G&T—the essay writer for pay.
One of them popped up on my twitter recently after a night of hollering into the electronic void, a reply and a DM request: “Hi, I provide high quality essays at affordable prices. Rest assured you will get your essay on time and with zero plagiarisms. For more details please dm.”
At this point, I had completed the essay 700 words below wordcount and 40 minutes late (I look forward to the D). Burnt out and definitely sober, I made the mistake of mentioning it to my own study-hammered Salient editor. She pencilled it in for a feature.
With a friendly but firm reminder that this article was due in two days, I contemplated the obvious. Dare I? Could I? Did I have the money? Could I even pull it off? Who’s to say. I was definitely short of time, with other content due, had a roadie to get hammered on, and just really really wanted a decent sleep. The website I checked out confirmed that the writing would legally become your own work and had a plagiarism-free guarantee. It wasn’t obscenely priced, course related costs could easily cover it.
So, what’s the issue? It sits wrong down in the gut. It’s dishonest and may even feel like a betrayal; the shame I felt even asking for a mere aegrotat once brought me to tears. There are practical problems as well. An assessment not only does what the name says, assesses your knowledge, but is also important for developing how you write, research, think, and argue.
Talking up your issues with a doctor to get a medical certificate you probably don’t qualify for is one thing. Claiming someone else’s essay as your own seems like the biggest corner you could cut.
Is the essay writer for pay really that different though? Every corner we cut is the same: we sacrifice something to get over another arbitrary hurdle that the uni puts up for us. An extension gives you more time than everyone else. A medical certificate might get you a K grade even though you definitely could have gone to more classes. Occasionally not citing that one report you can’t find seems okay, even though it’s plagiarism.
If you’re desperate enough, the essay writer could be the way out. When you’re being crushed from all sides by anxiety and depression and late bills and possibly getting fired and horrible flatmates and a dysfunctional family and everything else, it might be the only way to stay in uni, let alone survive.
We’re at a uni that keeps putting up barriers that make life shit, sometimes unbearable. Desperate students in desperate circumstances need to make these choices. The more desperate you are, the more extreme the choices have to be.
Cutting that corner is a big step. It feels dirty, fraudulent. But, fuck, life can be absolute shit. It feels different, and probably is different, from all the other corners we admirably cut. But hard days, weeks, months, years, and lives are a reality. When you’re drowning, is it so bad to want a gasp of air?
For those who need support:
VUWSA Advocate, Erica Shouten: 04 463 6984
advocate@vuwsa.org.nz
Mental Health Support:
depression.org.nz
Lifeline is available 24/7 on 0800 543 354
In an emergency, call 111