So what /were/ your grades? What did the teachers say?
Also, while a little disappointed, I'm hardly surprised that the college's standards for essays aren't quite so stringent as yours. I mean, if they held everyone to the same standards of lucidity and phrasing and style that we put to just your psychology essay when we were editing it, they'd have to fail a good 50-70% of the classes...
Whether or not their standards are actually a good thing is, as _Quinn is so fond of saying, an exercise left to the reader...
I think the secret is that Andy, and you, and a lot of the people we know, are better writers than most of the world. :P These grading standards are made for people who are learning about philosophy or mythology, not for people who are learning about beautiful essayship. Surely those in a writing class would be higher, and deservedly so.
What I meant by my above post is that, when you know you're a good writer, you can trust in that and not fret for days about being a perfect writer. If you don't learn how to do that, you can survive, but you'll be stressed out most of the time.
The Philosophy paper, which I handed in late, came back with a 26/30, and the Canadian Politics paper, also late, and which I got back yesterday (almost immediately before writing this entry, natch), received a 19/25. Since I had decided upon handing that in that I'd be happy if I got more than a ten, that pushed me over from 'happy' into 'baffled'.
(From somewhere else in the computer lab, there is a really cute sneeze.)
I trust, to address Rachel's post slightly, that I'm not a bad writer; that is to say, I tend to be pretty confident in my prose (aside for my occasional conviction that it's uniformly impenetrable, which, judging from my family's reaction to the Philosophy paper, is at least partially unfounded). Where I expected these essays, the Canadian Politics particularly, to fall short was in their content... Which may be an indication that the average political science student in that class is not so far advanced over me in their political savvy as I've supposed. In fact, the lesson of this whole thing in general may be that my perception of the rigors of college academia as this daunting, arcane and particularly foreign monolith of a discipline was pretty exaggerated.
Which doesn't sound like a bad thing, does it? But I worry that, if I accept this, I will begin to allow myself to be lazy. One of the fellows in a couple of my classes told me that he tends to write his essays in the middle of the night before they're due, finishing so sleepy as to hardly be coherent. He also told me that his last such essay received an 18/25.
It's so weird, too, this whole thing of grades, the different ways I have to hold them in my head. I don't want to mix up the symbol with the referent - a grade on a paper, or whatever, is mostly interesting and valuable because it's informative. The marker has looked it over, and tried to quantify what they thought of it; though a simplistic and awkward one, the number is an expression of their reaction. At the same time, though, there's an expectation in the air that I should value grades for their own sake - that their acquisition should be one of my primary interests - not least because, if I don't collect enough of these little numerical tokens, I sha'n't be able to advance to the next level. These two perceptions are difficult to reconcile; and this treatment of education as a sort of struggle, or contest of skill, where what's important is the size of your high score, is not intuitive to me at all, and leaves an unpleasant oily taste in my mouth.
Which isn't to say, of course, that Langara as a whole isn't a positive experience; my classes have been awesome enough to couneract this. But it bothers me.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
no subject
-Garran
no subject
Also, while a little disappointed, I'm hardly surprised that the college's standards for essays aren't quite so stringent as yours. I mean, if they held everyone to the same standards of lucidity and phrasing and style that we put to just your psychology essay when we were editing it, they'd have to fail a good 50-70% of the classes...
Whether or not their standards are actually a good thing is, as _Quinn is so fond of saying, an exercise left to the reader...
no subject
What I meant by my above post is that, when you know you're a good writer, you can trust in that and not fret for days about being a perfect writer. If you don't learn how to do that, you can survive, but you'll be stressed out most of the time.
no subject
The Philosophy paper, which I handed in late, came back with a 26/30, and the Canadian Politics paper, also late, and which I got back yesterday (almost immediately before writing this entry, natch), received a 19/25. Since I had decided upon handing that in that I'd be happy if I got more than a ten, that pushed me over from 'happy' into 'baffled'.
(From somewhere else in the computer lab, there is a really cute sneeze.)
I trust, to address Rachel's post slightly, that I'm not a bad writer; that is to say, I tend to be pretty confident in my prose (aside for my occasional conviction that it's uniformly impenetrable, which, judging from my family's reaction to the Philosophy paper, is at least partially unfounded). Where I expected these essays, the Canadian Politics particularly, to fall short was in their content... Which may be an indication that the average political science student in that class is not so far advanced over me in their political savvy as I've supposed. In fact, the lesson of this whole thing in general may be that my perception of the rigors of college academia as this daunting, arcane and particularly foreign monolith of a discipline was pretty exaggerated.
Which doesn't sound like a bad thing, does it? But I worry that, if I accept this, I will begin to allow myself to be lazy. One of the fellows in a couple of my classes told me that he tends to write his essays in the middle of the night before they're due, finishing so sleepy as to hardly be coherent. He also told me that his last such essay received an 18/25.
It's so weird, too, this whole thing of grades, the different ways I have to hold them in my head. I don't want to mix up the symbol with the referent - a grade on a paper, or whatever, is mostly interesting and valuable because it's informative. The marker has looked it over, and tried to quantify what they thought of it; though a simplistic and awkward one, the number is an expression of their reaction. At the same time, though, there's an expectation in the air that I should value grades for their own sake - that their acquisition should be one of my primary interests - not least because, if I don't collect enough of these little numerical tokens, I sha'n't be able to advance to the next level. These two perceptions are difficult to reconcile; and this treatment of education as a sort of struggle, or contest of skill, where what's important is the size of your high score, is not intuitive to me at all, and leaves an unpleasant oily taste in my mouth.
Which isn't to say, of course, that Langara as a whole isn't a positive experience; my classes have been awesome enough to couneract this. But it bothers me.
-Garran