Even though the school might call that cheating, I don’t really think it is.
All of my engineering and math classes were open book, open notes. I got lucky in that all of my professors (except one (fuck you Dr. Aung)) designed exams such that they tested understanding, not memorization.
And here I am, 10 years later, still able to solve most of these problems without looking at a textbook for reference other than tables and formulas, despite not having worked in the field for half that time.
I got a mechanical engineering degree. Two the most useful classes I took were microeconomics and circuits 1.
This is a part of what I was trying to say. What I did is considered cheating. Yet it is defined as such largely by those who place artificial, and sometimes extremely unfair, limitations in place. Many of which serve no real purpose. Yet often if it works in their favor such “cheating” becomes a convenience.
In academia cheating is rightly frowned upon and often definable by the cheaters removal much of the time. Yet as a general rule I feel it has its place, and plenty of us use some form of it in our daily lives. Many of us are not particularly dishonest or openly practice deception with others, though we withhold truths amongst other mostly acceptable social whims. I’d bet though most of us have gone to the bathroom for too long at work. Chatted with a colleague. “Forgot” to reply to that email. Faked being sick. All defined in some way under the larger moniker of “cheating”.
Not saying any of it is right or wrong specifically. Just laying justification for why I believe this.