Venturing into the Academic Black Market

When I first started Chiropractic school, I was rather naïve. In my previous scholastic experience, if the professors expected us to know something, they would tell us so. If we were to look up information on our own, they would tell us this as well. The exams, quite logically, consisted of the aforementioned material; that which we had learned in class or researched per instruction. I assumed the same would be true in graduate school, but boy was I wrong. 

Turns out, there is an ENORMOUS Black Market for information at my school (and many others, as I'm now discovering). 

It began already in my first term. I was innocently studying for a midterm in the library when a classmate slouched up to my table. Politely, I removed my headphones and looked up with a smile, for I didn't know this particular fellow very well and wanted to appear friendly. My cheery expression faded into one of confusion as he glanced around, as sly, suspicious look on his face.

"Hey, do you know the answer to question #47?" the boy asked, leaning in to speak softly.

"What do you mean? What question #47?" I whispered, reflexively leaning away in response to the invasion of my personal space. I glanced at the papers in his hand, and he immediately shoved them into a folder. 

"Oh, never mind. It's not important." he said with a nervous chuckle, his voice now a little too loud. "Good luck studying!" I blinked, and he was gone. 

Later, I would learn that this fellow had already become a dealer in the Black Market of Information, and had mistaken me for a comrade. Not only did it explain his erratic, fidgeting behavior, but also the compulsion I'd felt to take a shower right after our interaction. This guy was in deep. Living the life. Wheelin' and dealin' his stacks of old test questions and photocopied review sheets, not to mention Bill's Notes (Oh, Bill, where would we be without you?!?). For all I knew, he was selling body parts from the cadaver lab, on the side. 

As I grew more experienced (read: jaded) in the ways of Chiropractic school, I learned to take advantage of this Black Market. Of course, I was never the firsthand recipient of said wares, but every once in awhile a few previously-used test questions would float into my hands, or my inbox, compliments of someone a bit closer to one of the dealers. To maintain some shred of honor, I still studied all of my notes prior to an exam, glancing over the "practice problems" as a self-test of my knowledge. 

It wasn't until recently that I myself delved into the Black Market of Information...

(to be continued)