Was I the only one bothered and dismayed by receiving the campus-wide \pick a prof"" e-mail in my inbox?
With enrollment underway, what better way to pick a class than by peering into the future and seeing what grade might transpire? Yet, doesn't this just put more emphasis on grades in our already grade-obsessed society?
Education has always been about learning and if this is emphasized, grades should fall into place depending on the effort that students put in and the genuine knowledge they get out. We are not paying our professors thousands of dollars per semester to use their red pens on monotonous Scantrons and little blue books-we are paying them to teach, and we are here to learn.
The new ""pick a prof"" program just lets students pick classes based on grades alone. As students, there is already plenty of talk between friends about which professors are easier and so much pressure on the grades-isn't this enough?
Over the course of my time at UW I have always felt that my most challenging classes have been the most worthwhile. Looking back, these have always been the ones that I have gained the most from. These classes are not necessarily the ones I have done the best in. Why should I feel so bad about myself, or be looked down upon by future employers or schools because I challenged myself despite the less-than-perfect outcome?
As college becomes more of a social norm, a degree accumulates to the worth of what a high school diploma was 50 years ago. With more and more students attending college, there needs to be a way to evaluate the student body. Letter grades are still only one way to do so, though it is hard to see a viable alternative.
However, we have lingered too far beyond the original standard of grading when a C was the average, a B was excellent and an A was reserved for truly brilliant work. Why is it that in so many classes a B feels more like a failure than an accomplishment? If a student gets an A in an ""easy-A"" class, does this mean they worked harder or are smarter than someone who ventured or had to take a different professors? Of course not.
Therefore, if grades are so important, then shouldn't we all just take the easy-A classes? Again, this does not fulfill what education is truly about. Maybe the one good thing emerging from ""pick a prof"" is that it might wake some professors up to the state of our education today and the erroneous emphasis that we place upon grades. Maybe if more students enroll in easy-A classes, professors will wise up to this fact and start to grade harder to challenge their students to attend class.
Maybe, then, an A will not be easy, and instead a B will go back to being pretty damn good. That way, there will actually be something to strive for and challenge yourself to accomplish. An A will be more of a reward than a necessity.
In the end, perhaps ""pick a prof"" will turn into a nationwide trend. Yet, upon reading my e-mail, this is not the sentiment that I felt. It made me feel ashamed and frustrated. For a moment I almost felt belittled, as if my education was worth nothing more than the grades on my final transcript after four years of hard work.
This is not to say we should not care about our grades, but that our society puts so much pressure on us that we have to. If anything, our university should aspire to institute programs that work towards positive change, not toward a massive surplus of As.
opinion@dailycardinal.com.
