Critical Thinking On Ethical Dilemma

A situation happened in the previous year of my college when one of my friends got access to term end question paper of a very difficult subject. All of us were worried about the subject and were toiling hard for preparation.
My friend confided in me that he has access to the paper and that he was willing to share it with me if I did not tell anyone else. This put me in a fix as I had to choose between accepting his offer and benefitting myself or coming clean and informing the professor about it so that he could take appropriate action.
This ethical dilemma forced me to think for a couple of days. I could have got good grades in the subject by accepting my friend’s offer but that would have been unfair to the other classmates or I could have revealed the situation and risked action against myself and my friend.
Finally I decided that I would reveal the situation to the professor and then request him to forgive me and my friend. I did so and thankfully the professor agreed to not give us any harsh punishment.
The process of coming to the decision was a very hard one. There were a lot of factors that were to be considered. One of the foremost factor was that my friendship was on line. If he had got hurt by my decision, maybe I would have lost him as my friend.
Another very important consideration was that the subject was very difficult and I had not obtained good marks in midterm exams and quizzes. So the situation was very tempting when I could have got very good grade without sweating too much.
On the other hand, if I had gone through with my friend’s offer, it would be unfair to my other classmates who were preparing very hard for the final examination. I would have felt as if I had betrayed them. And though some of them were not my good friends, it would still have been wrong and unethical to cheat them.
I went through all the pros and cons of both the options. I was very confused even till the time I decided to go to the professor and reveal the whole situation. It even struck my mind that I write an anonymous letter to the professor stating the whole thing. That would have meant protection for me and my friend.
However, when I thought about that option, I realised that if the authorities do a thorough scrutiny and find out about the person who has leaked the paper, my friend would be in a greater trouble as compared to the situation when I confess everything.
I even thought about discussing the situation with my friend and to convince him to come forward with the whole situation. But when I thought about his personality and situation, I realised that doing so would not yield any solution.
He had not got good grades previously and would not agree to this. On top of it, it would jeopardise my friendship with him even when I am not using the question paper.
So I decided to leave out these options and decided that I would tell the professor everything. I also decided that I would do so well in advance of the examination so as to not give an impression to the professor that I was not prepared for the examination and was doing this in the end time so that the examination might get called off.
Finally I gathered the courage to go to the professor and told him everything. Initially he got very angry but after I confessed every thought about the thing, he calmed down a bit. Ultimately, he called my friend and made him confess the wrongdoing. But then he agreed to let us off the hook and appear in the examination, which he then modified.
I learnt from the situation that no matter what the circumstances, one should never indulge in an unethical activity and even when something has happened by mistake, it is better to confess it before it comes out through any other channel.