In my humble opinion, I don't see cheating as something that is completely black and white. Mind you, it does fall under the "dishonest" category, but it doesn't mean that you are cheating yourself EVERY time, and it certainly doesn't mean that it is bad all the time. There is a reason to this, and I'll explain:
I too have been a university student, and it actually has been a few years since I graduated with my Masters degree in Computer and Communications Engineering. I'm not one who likes to cheat in their exams either, but I do admit that there were times that I did cheat (not entire exams, but like a couple of questions here and there). The reason I did do this is because I'm NOT an exam person. The idea that students had to always be tested and graded in order to graduate, especially after spending a very large sum on courses, always ticked me off, but at the same time, I wanted to exceed in these exams. Did I study? You bet I did!! I studied hard, spent LITERALLY sleepless nights only to go to university directly after that without so much of a minute of rest in my cozy bed. Even then, I always had trouble during my exams. I had trouble focusing as I should, and when I did, I always ended by messing something up in my answer that cost me the entire question worth of points! I hated it!! It was the same during school, and it was the same during university. I knew the content, but always managed to mess up DURING the exam! What did help me however, were what most other students failed at: Engineering projects. I really was good at them, writing the reports, PowerPoint presentations, etc. and my instructors often looked forward to them. It was proof that I had a good grasp of the concept. I was also good at them because I actually bent my sleep cycle to my own will. When others slept, I kept on working on my projects, revising them, troubleshooting them, etc. There was no concept of time here, no fear of being late or anything like that. THAT'S why I liked it so much, just like I actually did like university and studying overall. I just hated that forced memorizing of all the formulas, which formulas to use exactly when, etc. I knew where to look had I the notes, but at first, all of my exams were closed book. Regardless, through thick and thin, I still managed to graduate, and enter my masters degree. The very first course I took there (in Artificial Neural Networking) is that each brain works differently, and some may exceed in exams whilst others don't. It was also the same year in which they started to include exams that were open book (your own notes are available to you). I still studied as I always had, but I also gave an extra 20% to literally everything, even studied things that I shouldn't be studying, and combined them to my notes. So, exams came, month after month, semester after semester, and I DECIMATED them. My grades were "A" after "A" after "A", and that sudden shift from somewhere around C and B grades to almost straight A's shocked even my own classmates, to the point where they were the ones who actually started to cheat off of me! (LOL!). I did have Bs too, mind you, so my GPA wasn't really perfect.
In BOTH cases (BS and MS) however, the way I was studying remained more or less the same. It didn't matter if I had memorized every equation or not, because I still knew the idea behind them and when to use them. That is pretty much the goal of the exams prepared by the instructors after all. They just want to see if you had studied and know how to solve the questions asked. They certainly aren't expecting you to reinvent the Black powder.
With all of the aforementioned, you have to realize the INTENT behind your cheating. Why are you doing it? Is it because you really are trying, spent a lot of time working on your course, only to forget everything due to exam fear? Or is it because you really didn't study and you just want an easy way out by paying for all your courses and finally get a piece of paper telling you "Good job, Engineer/Doctor/Scientist", etc., and get a job for which another individual had actually worked hard for? Now you see why it's not so black and white as others may think.
