Unfiltered Story #299026

The statistic courses I did at university were open book exams. Knowing how to apply the different statistic tests was the aim, learning formulas by heart was not the point. (And without the book, the department would have to provide every student with a lot of reference tables for the exam.) So there was this clear rule you couldn’t write any notes in your book. But you were allowed to have a single sheet of paper with your own handwritten notes, so there wasn’t a real need to write in your book. These rules were mentioned several times during the course and were in the syllabus.

Due to some health issues I failed my course the first time and would have to retake it later. In the mean time someone asked my if she could borrow my book for her course. I knew her from several courses and she had helped me at some point when I was struggling due to my health, so I was happy to lend her my book.

When I retook my course, one of the first lectures I discovered she had written in several places in my book. It was in pencil, so I was able to erase it relatively well. But I was angry of course. The idea you write in someone else’s book is just wrong. But in this case it mend she had been cheating (even though I doubt these notes would have made much difference) and I could have been in major trouble if my book would have been check during the exam. (Which didn’t happen and I passed the exam with one of my best marks.)
She was really not the person I would have expected to do something so clearly against the rules. As I didn’t see her often at that time, there was never a good moment to say anything about it and it felt pointless after some time to bring it up, so I never got an apology or such.