Values or Immediate success?

A girl, who is currently doing her MBA from one of the top institutes in the country, recently messaged me the below text on Whatsapp:

Hi CJ,

How are you? I need your suggestion regarding something. Here in class, during our exams, an exam had MCQ questions. I scored low in the class, later I came to know that there exist very strong groups in class. All cheated like crazy. I am not a part of any such group, its really demotivating. Some say, this is how real world works, you need to have strong groups to get things done. MBA prepares for outside world. Is this okay ? I know you being a teacher will always guide me towards the ethical direction. I wrote to my professor as well to reconsider the exam format and am waiting for his reply. But please tell me frankly, should I mould myself to survive in the business world outside. It feels like a humongous task to go against the values ingrained in me. Here, I can still talk to the professors and raise my concerns. But what about world outside?

Here's my reply:

I see that there is a conflict in two of your desires: desire to succeed and desire to follow your values. You want to fulfill both the desires, and in an ideal world, this should be easily possible. However, in the world we live in, while this is certainly possible, this is not very 'easy'. While people around you take shortcuts and have immediate success, you are asked to put in an incredible amount of hard work to get anywhere near them (With much more effort, you can score almost as high as them. Right?). If that's how it is, what would you choose? Leave the question of what is right or what 'should' be done aside. Just think: what would you choose to do in such a situation? Of course, you can give up on your values and also have immediate success. Or, you can be motivated by such incidences to work harder (and if you don't want to work even harder than you currently do, you can continue to work as hard as you're currently doing. You're in a top institute in the country. Less than 1% of the population ever reach such a level. Even if you don't succeed more than your classmates, you'll still have succeeded a lot by many measures).

Life throws many such choices. choices that we don't want to make because we want both the options - immediate success and values. However, each such choice builds us, builds our character, builds who we are. These choices, in the moment of choice, seem to take away something dear to us. However, in the long run, they probably give us much more than they take from us - they make us who we truly are and who we truly want to be.

I understand that it's easier said than done. Therefore, I'll recommend associating with books/people who have the mindset that you'll decide to follow. Our association makes or mars the quality of our lives by impacting the choices we make.