Culturally different honor codes

Most of my French friends still do not believe me when I tell them about Princeton's Honor Code. I myself felt very awkward when I sat next to my classmates without any professor present for my first midterm here. In France, I would have been sitting two seats apart from everybody. My bag would have been lying with all the other bags in the front of the classroom, and several supervisors would have been walking down the aisle. French students do not consider cheating a question of honor; it is viewed more as a challenge to the system that's difficult to carry out. For example, I remember hearing about a girl who wrote notes on the inside of the label of her water bottle, but even her plot was discovered.

Because of their different view on cheating, many French students don't have that bad of an image of cheaters, because a cheater must be clever and imaginative enough to trick the system. A common view is that finding a way to cheat is comparable to finding the best way to escape taxes later in life.

Plagiarism is also not as big of an issue. Indeed, many of my acquaintances would argue that all our thoughts are borrowed from others. A very famous French writer of the 19th century, Jules Renard, wrote: "A thought seems personal the moment we forget from whom we borrowed it." At the minimum, we cannot say anything without the use of a dictionary's words. Though my university, Sciences Po Paris, has now instituted minor levels of punishment for plagiarism — for example, taking off several points from the exam or paper — this regulation is enforced by administrators, rather than students, as it is here.

The most culturally shocking part of the Princeton Honor Code is the student's obligation to report violations by others. In France, a common view is that it is just as bad to denounce someone as it is to commit the offense. The first duty among students and citizens is solidarity. The nation itself has been defined by a famous philosopher, Ernest Renan, as a "large-scale solidarity" in 1882. I remember my primary school teachers would react very violently against any type of denunciation by students. A system that requires denunciation reminds us of the Inquisition or the Nazis.

All through my schooling, the best students have always "helped" others with their assignments. Maybe this help stemmed from a concern for social welfare. This division of labor probably reduced inequalities between students' grades. This might explain the results of a little experiment I have performed. When I Googled "honor code," the first pages that came up were, of course, about U.S. universities' policies. But when I Googled the French translation — "code de l'honneur" or "code d'honneur" — the first websites to come up were a French rapper's website criticizing society, a satirical political website, a website on Roman history and a judo organization's website.

I view the examination system here as somewhat illogical. Indeed, the Honor Code makes sure a student's written work has been created independently. But does it ensure that the grading of each student's work is done independently, free of the graders' biases? I was very surprised that despite all of Princeton's desire for a fair examination, the tests were not graded anonymously, meaning that the preceptors knew whose tests they were grading. In my class WWS 312: Psychology of Decision Making and Judgement, we learned that the number of women hired by philharmonic orchestras skyrocketed when blind auditions were established. Despite all of this evidence relating exposure to bias, my preceptor, who knows me fairly well, when I arrive late, and if I post on time on Blackboard, corrected my midterm.

For me, having a social honor code would be more culturally acceptable. For instance, this code could require students to fight for respect and against discrimination. Some U.S. universities' honor codes are actually more socially focused. Both the College of William and Mary and the United States Military Academy's honor codes forbid lying and stealing.

Last year, the Universite de Paris Pantheon-Sorbonne was thinking about cutting some exams to avoid budget deficits. An honor code could be a solution to make exams less expensive, but I strongly doubt the success of its implementation. I respect and admire the Princeton's Honor Code's goal for a self-governed society, but we should recognize that the values underlying it are not universal. Soleine Leprince, a visiting student, is a history and international and public affairs major from Paris, France. She may be reached at leprince@princeton.