As crunch time approaches this semester, so, too, does the inevitable increase in the popularity of extralegal methods of coping, such as drug abuse. Studies at many universities nationwide have invariably found a substantial number of students using prescription drugs to help them study or do homework, though fortunately these students are still a minority in most places. However, given the increasing rate of drug use and the tendency for these behaviors to be underreported, there is still much cause for concern.
While there is a significant public-health issue involved — for most common prescription stimulants have harmful side effects, on a par with anabolic steroids, and the risk of addiction and other illnesses is a cost to society — there is also an ideological issue that should be more obvious than it is.
As the competitive pressures of the modern economy increase, the journey of a college student has become more often compared to a sport-like “game,” in which the student’s success is measured by obtaining the high grades and other resume-boosters that make him or her a more attractive
job-seeker.
In this analogy, which is surely not lost on the many students involved in the drug trade, the academic equivalent of “doping” is quite clear.
The game analogy has been applied to the ultra-competitive business world for decades, and implicitly suggests a set of rules under which the competitors play. Businesses are encouraged to compete with each other to sell the most products and create the highest profit statements, but any attempt to fudge numbers instead of working for them must be harshly penalized (at least, in theory).
In the same way, we expect our athletes to compete with only their own true abilities. That is why the news of steroid use by many recent athletes generated such a scandal, and why men such as Barry Bonds were willing to risk perjury charges rather than accept the shame of “cheating.”
But why then should it not be the same for students in the game of college life? In spirit, if not in practice, it is difficult to draw a plausible distinction between doping with drugs and bribing a referee. Either action gains an unfair advantage over law-abiding competitors and undermines the purpose of the game.
If it is a game, then chemically modifying your grade with illegally obtained Adderall or Ritalin is no better than plagiarizing a paper, or perhaps even worse; both are cheating, but plagiarism is not a felony offense under federal law.
Of course, if it is a game, then there is always the option of not playing. Only a small percentage of college athletes end up
playing their chosen sport professionally. For some of us, academic studying is simply the wrong game in which to make a career.
If there is no option — which there may not be, under modern economic conditions — then it is time to stop comparing college (or life in general) to a game. If getting that “A” is so crucial to our future ability to obtain food and shelter, then it is no longer a “sport” but rather a matter of life and death, where the needed solution is far more complex than just mental doping.
Kenneth can be reached at kenneth.lan@asu.edu.
