I have recently been charged with an academic integrity violation during my sophomore year. When classes went online due to COVID-19, my physics course elected to give 48 hour online exams. I completed my exam within the first 3 hours of the period no problems. However, I decided not to turn it in so I could look over it the next day. The next day I started becoming neurotic over the exam and found that my classmates had posted the entire exam on Chegg. I decided to look at the answers and compare them with my own; then, I turned in the exam without making any changes as most of my exam reached the same answer with a different method.
Eventually, my professors found out the entire exam was posted online and they eventually found that 50% of the class had accessed the questions, including myself. I admitted to accessing the site and was given a zero on the exam and a finding within my record. I still passed the class with no damage to my GPA (3.9+) as the class was changed to pass/fail as a result of COVID.
I am a little lost on how to move on from the incident. I feel like I failed in two categories. One, in regards to academic integrity and two in my ability to maintain my integrity in such a strange situation such as a global pandemic. Both qualities I know a physician should uphold. Next semester, I will be a junior. I plan on taking a gap year as I currently have 0 shadowing hours and it is unlikely I will get any in the next months. When I do apply, I intend to completely own this and address how it has led me to take steps to address my neuroticism and control my stress as I know med school will be 100x stressful. Do you have any other tips? I have begun working on a possible plan B as I know how this is a huge red flag. In addition, I was able to secure two recommendations from faculty about my incident (They really appreciated my honesty and vowed to help me when I do apply)
