I paid my way through college coursework and now I am going to graduate with a degree that I did not earn

TLDR: I cheated during college

for the past two years, i’ve turned in every assignment, every paper, every project. all of them got good grades. professors think i’m one of the best students in my class. my parents brag about me. my cv looks great. but i never did any of it.

i was drowning in deadlines, forcing myself through a major i never cared about. the only thing that ever made sense was design. but school felt like a full-time job for something i didn’t even want. meanwhile, i was actually working—internships, freelance projects, real experience. school was just in the way. so i made a choice. and now i don’t know if it was the right one.

now i’m graduating in May. i have a job doing what i love. I am exactly the kind of person people resent when talking of academic dishonesty. i tell myself it doesn’t matter, that i did what i had to do. but sometimes i feel that i should’ve just tried harder. i should’ve cared. nobody knows. but maybe they should.

Edit: I do graphic design. Edit 2: I am 23F Edit 3: No, my major is not graphic design. I am doing Law studies with business. Edit 4: I didn’t cheat through the whole thing. Just research papers and assignments which makes up 50% of my grade. My exams were mostly offline and obviously I had to go through notes if not the whole module to write them.