[Anonymous]

I hope this is in the right place.

I have this friend, I met her at the very beginning of university and we were very close, I'd call her a best friend. Basically, I didn't really notice at the time but she copied a lot of my uni assignments, every time we had an assignment for a class we were both in, she'd ask to see my answers, I don't even know if she read the questions or not before asking for mine. I'm pretty much weak and spineless in the sense that if someone asks to copy me I'll just say yes, I can't help it.

So we had a group project to do with a third person, and my friend didn't do any work for it... which like I say, weak and spineless, I just did all the work and let her away with it. But our third person wasn't having that... It ended up getting reported to a lecturer and I kind of took the side of our other group member, because if I didn't then I'd be lying. I actively said that she did nothing which was the truth (I feel really awful about "telling on her" but had to agree with the other person)

Long story short it's now apparently all my fault she got lower marks than the rest of the group, and I should have lied and said she did the same amount of work as me and the other person. She's totally blamed me and said nothing to the other group member.

Was I in the wrong? Should I have just let her continue copying and such the way she was? I'm starting to feel like it's about time I just stood up for myself and told her to get lost but I still can't shake that horrible feeling of "telling on" one of my friends. The lecturer dealing with it said she was just using me... But I dunno, maybe she didn't realise what she was doing?

[miss_p]

No, you're not in the wrong. She wasn't pulling her weight and doing the same amount of work as the other group members; how would it be fair if she got the same marks as the rest of you?

She's blaming you and saying it's all your fault (not the other members) because you've let her get away with copying work all the other times that now she feels like you owe it to her, so this time when you didn't let her get away with it, she's mad at you.

Your lecturer is right- the girl was just using you. There's no way she just 'didn't realise what she was doing'. I don't mean this in a harsh way but you sound rather naive. It's definitely time you start standing up for yourself, else people will just walk all over you.

Ditch the girl, she's not a real friend.

[liv89]

You are not in the wrong, it is always best to tell the truth even if it means hurting your friend. You really need to stop allowing her to copy your work. If this girl was found to be copying any kind of assessed work ie. essays, reports etc, then you would end up in serious trouble as well as her, dont jeopardise your uni degree over something so silly. Consider this incident a wake up call, things need to change between you and this girl. She is not your friend if she is willing to take advantage of you like this, she's just lookin out for herself.

[Mousickle]

Using someone else's work at degree level really isn't the same as copying answers in school. A degree is a serious qualification and letting her copy could have awful consequences for you. You can get in a lot of trouble for knowingly letting people use your work i.e. disqualification from that module etc. And even worse for her. You will be helping everyone involved by just sticking up for yourself and saying no

[geeksandtherest]

Hi

I just wanted to say that look on the positive side, in that at least your work has not been downgraded due to this incidence. But I will say as someone mentioned above make sure you learn a lesson from this experience. In the future never ever let another person take credit for your hard work and efforts when working on a project. As this will be particularly important when you enter the workplace environment which is full of lazy people but still want salaries to pay off personal expenditures but are nonetheless unwilling to put in the hard work. Therefore target and take advantage of those who are unable to stand up for themselves and say enough is enough.

Lastly, you are not weak as a person otherwise you will not be where you are now in life. But I will suggest that you should learn how to be assertive when dealing with people in future.

[Anonymous]

thank you for the replies and opinions everyone!

[~ Purple Rose ~]

If she was a real friend, she wouldn't have copied from you in the first place.