What’s in a Grade?

                So now
that Mod 2 is done… it’s time for grades. Who cares… this is grad school,
right? I thought that grades weren’t supposed to matter. (somewhere in New
Hampshire my parents are crying) Yet every time grades are issued, the same questions
pop up, the same issues are raised, and the same complaints are aired.

                I have
had professors comment on the fixation that our class (2010) has on our grades.
Not so much that we “Grade Grub”, but that we generally worry about our scores
too much, as though we were undergrads. Some have asked “Why do we care?” … “Most
of the companies do not use it as a measure of employability.”

                This question has been posed by most
of my professors… and of course when this conversation starts, someone always
chimes in “If grades don’t matter, then I’ll take an SP, thank you.” (I try to
be first, just in case they say yes… SP is the Owen version of a 4.0 / A ) It IS
true that most disciplines don’t ask to see a GPA. (Finance is the exception.)

                So here
is the answer that I have come up with. “Owen, It’s all your fault.” Owen
wanted students in our class that were dedicated to self improvement. Owen
wanted students that strive to be the best, without the pit-fighting that
occurs at some other schools. Owen wanted students that have initiative. Most
of us seem to use grades as a benchmark to evaluate how well we have met our
own goals of learning the material. Pay your own tuition bill… then tell me
that grades don’t matter.

                 “Why do I care?” – because if I didn’t care I
wouldn’t be the kind of person that Owen was looking for. I would be shiftless
and lazy… like say a Harvard or Duke student. Go Dores!