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[garran]

You know, I'm starting to think that this institution's standards for my essays are much laxer than my own. I hope I don't take that to heart.

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[garran.livejournal.com]

So what /were/ your grades?

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