Who is a Scholar, Really?

The experiences that Ed Dante explained in his story "The Shadow Scholar," published by The Chronicle, made me extremely worried, as I have several contradicting opinions about his work. Dante retells several correspondences he has had while working for his individually owned custom-writing company. Although he makes a living by writing an extensive amount of papers, Dante's name cannot be found on any published work. Commissioned by hundreds of students a year, he formulates essays for high school students and college graduates alike, who would rather pay Dante to write their graduate thesis or college application essays a ludicrous amount of money rather than take the time and energy to create a report in their own words. Needless to say, the name 'Ed Dante' is simply a pseudonym this writer has used to share his stories about his aboriginal career without bringing his identity to public knowledge.

Dante's business goes against everything I had learned growing up about honesty and success. In high school, I was familiar with the idea that some of my classmates had tutors who practically worked on their homework or wrote essays for them, but the business explained in this story takes this enterprise to an entirely new level. I knew that companies similar to Dante's had to have existed, the amount of students unwilling to dedicate their time to writing with their own words being fairly large, but I had no idea that this type of company could be so engrained into the education system.

Dante takes a significant portion of his retelling to explain how he had written an entire graduate thesis essay, totaling over 130 pages in length, by simply using capricious sources found online, even mentioning how he often relies on Amazon previews and corresponding reviews for information. Several aspects of this worries me. Firstly, the fact that a graduate student had chosen to rely on the efforts of an uncredible stranger to gain a degree is terrifying to me. What does this say about our education system? How can a person with so little motivation so as to not even be willing to attempt to write their own thesis statement have been able to earn the title of 'graduate student', and potentially 'graduate'? Also, how does this falsification impact me as a current student? Does this make my efforts matter more or less valuable in the future job world, if some of my future coworkers had been this student? The idea that a company like Dante's and many more exist, and have a reliable number of customers, makes me question the legitimacy of today's education.