Replying to Cheating (sorta)

Last semester I made a huge mistake. My friend and I were taking a class together, a class that I was retaking because I did shitty the first time. The thing about this class was that projects didn't change from semester to semester and I already had the projects done from the first time I took the class. The teacher said it was fine to turn in the same projects.

No problems so far. This being my second time in the class I already knew how to do a lot of the stuff and was obviously going to help my friend out. Unfortunately we crossed the line between helping and cheating. He pretty much turned in the exact same projects as I did and we got emails from the teacher saying that we had to go in front of the honor council and they would decide our punishment.

This started 3 months of one of the shittiest experiences I've ever had. After getting the email on December 2nd, I was kinda flipping out because I thought I could get expelled. I called the honor council about what I was supposed to do next and they said they would contact me in january. That wasn't until after the semester was over. I still had a final in that class and I could barely get myself to study when I figured I was going to fail anyway. Not only that, I had this thing hanging over my head all of christmas break.

About 2 weeks after getting back from break I got an email and met with some people from the honor council. They told me how the process worked and that I would have a hearing with the honor council in a week. After telling my story to the honor council they sent me what they thought my punishment should be and you would think it was done. Nope.

After that first meeting I had another one with a faculty council that took the honor councils punishment into account and they gave the final decision. So its finally over right? Wrong. I was told the faculty council would give me their punishment the next day. About 2 weeks later I get an email from them. My grade was going to be reduced by 1/3 of a letter grade (first offenses are pretty minor and I had actually done all the work).

In the meantime my Incomplete grade had turned into a failing grade because of how long it took for the honor council process and I thought that with my grade decrement I wasn't going to pass anyway (I needed at least a C to pass). I hoped this problem would be fixed once the honor council decision made it to the professor of my class.

Finally, today after almost 3 months of worrying and feeling like an idiot for doing something so stupid I got my grade and it was a C and I don't need to retake it. I don't know if I've ever been so happy in my entire life.

Long story short, work hard, don't cheat. It isn't worth it.