intertribal | used up all of my friends, but who needs them?

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used up all of my friends, but who needs them?

Me and Piper? Same person. Believe me, I often imagine myself wielding an ax and wearing way too much leather. And we all know me and motorcycles. I told my mother I wanted to ride a motorcycle before I die and she was like, "Grrr." I think that's actually the sound she made. I'm pretty sure that she has been on one, but my mother's one of those "do as I say, not as I do" type of parents - that's what you get for having been a hippie, mom.

Piper: Leave it to me to fall for a dead guy.
Phoebe: At least he wasn't a warlock.

Of course she does end up marrying a whitelighter.

Also, thank God for an A in Topics in Economic History. I don't want to never be able to think about Malthusian pressure again, since I use it to argue everything these days. And thank God for my disaster shows, because I can't watch SportsCenter fawn over Texas.

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congrats on Econ. told you you had nothing to worry about.

...i wish i could get A's. only ones i know i got so far were in Psych and the latter semester of Modern Hum (because of my AWESOME views on Nietzsche, lol--seriously wish i understood better, seriously must be done in context of the rest of philosophy, will now shut up about it until context is acheived), which was averaged w/ the C of first semester anyway and came out to a B.

thanks, although I think it was one of those A-for-effort type grades.

My school overinflates like whoa, so my standards need to be weighed against that.

i wouldn't know, i guess. still, it suggests you did good enough at something...

hm. sometimes i wish my grades were inflated just a bit, so i wasn't as intimidated by them. :P probably not good in the long run, but sigh.

yeah, i think the intimidation factor would be a big one, for me. I'm not sure what negative impact grade inflation really has... unless no one is really being motivated to learn, which I suppose could be true at some schools.

well, grade inflation makes it so that those who are really working at an A level are indistinguishable from those who are putting forth average effort. Grades themselves aren't really relevant to anyone but you and those who care about your transcript. I don't think the motivation to learn comes from grades, or at least it shouldn't, and that's part of why Reed doesn't reveal grades unless you ask for them.

I'm not sure if it's that severe at Columbia. It's more like... not enough people score within the 93-100 range to make a perfect bell curve, so they shift it up. They also don't like to score below a C, and even that is rare, I think. B's are average; after that there's a lot of A-'s. But if they didn't curve the grades some then way too few people would get A's to make a curve, and Columbia's obsessed with curves.

i think the motivation to learn does come from grades a lot of times here... only marginally for me, and I tend to feel better in classes where I'm not trying just because I have to take the class for a requirement and I want to do well in it. Wow, that's crazy (about revealing grades only if you ask for them). But maybe I just can't imagine not wanting to know a grade, ha ha.

weird. i don't even think we get scores in a lot of classes. (like, ones based on papers) I think B's are kinda average here too. I mean, Reed does say that 6 Reedies in the past 20 years have graduated with a 4.0, but the average GPA is around 3.0. But it is hard to get D's and F's. I only managed that by not turning things in. C's...well, only if you put in zero effort, something I have also done.

Not revealing grades is meant to lower the motivation for competition and not 'learning for the sake of learning.' It actually seems to work to some degree (e.g. people not realizing that they were graded on their thesis). In lieu of grades, I find that you get copious comments from profs. I think i was probably better off before I started worrying about my grades, excepting other problems I had...

No, papers don't get scores here either, generally. Generally, because I have received scored papers. But I'm pretty sure those are curved too. But we still have a fair share of multiple-choice midterms, and of course econ and anything scientific or mathematical get scored.

See, I didn't do well in school really until I started receiving grades. In elementary school I was pretty mediocre at everything except writing, and i think part of the problem was that then you were graded basically on speed and you were rewarded with being able to play with your friends - so it was like a social reward for being confident in your work, and that did not work for me. Once I started getting grades it was like I could become confident in something.

Haha, in elementary school I was so obsessed with getting things just right that I did them slowly and meticulously and always had to stay inside during recess to finish them with the creepy/dorky kid whose mother controlled his life and didn't know how to express his budding sexuality in a socially appropriate way.

Sometimes I still base my confidence too much on my achievement in terms of grades (oh, authority), and I need to remind myself that my intellectual worth is not actually representable by a GPA. Like, as soon as I am confident that I am smart no matter if I fuck up sometimes or don't always try my hardest or (gasp!) am wrong, then I can take pride in my work and (ironically) get good grades. But if I'm not confident in my own competence, I become convinced of the impossibility of good grades and drown in my own neurotic and endless self-correction, procrastinating judgment as long as possible, then fail to produce work, and consequently receive poor grades. Which is why my grades span the entire range from A to F, instead of reflecting a consistent output as a C student or a B student, or whatever. Which probably gives anyone viewing my transcript more questions as to my commitment to academics than my potential.

However, sometimes I really do 'get somewhere' by constantly striving to correct my ideas. I just fail to recognize this, or to be okay with putting them prematurely down on paper (or sometimes I get neurotic about the wrong things). It's how I grew to understand semiotics, for instance, and now my understanding is probably the best of any of steve's current students who aren't thesising on it (not to be arrogant or anything :P). Which is saying a lot. But I kept it a secret from Steve that whole time, lol. Which also says something about the relation of academics and learning...

like i told steve:
"You have to realize, though (ahaha, I just stole that phrase from you), that part of the reason I've thought as much as I have about this (I'm not sure how much that is, I do not time my thoughts, um...) is really that I have a drive to get it right, and that I am not okay with saying "Oh, well, it's okay that I don't understand, because it's really complex and it takes people a long time and even established scholars make mistakes about this stuff." Maybe that's good reason not to be embarrassed about getting it wrong, and I think I've still got a long way to go with regard to that, but I need to have this down, solid, much more so than I do now. I need it to come to me as easily as walking, because in the end, I need to go places with it. Y'know? i refuse to still be struggling with this stuff in ten years. i thought i would have more down by now than i do. i'm behind, but then, I never obey my own deadlines..."

*actually that was only first grade. and i think we had grades, though maybe not for individual assignments, or all of 1-5 grades. i don't really think i changed throughout that, though.

Just so you know I read this, but I'm not sure what to give as a response other than "different strokes for different folks."

lol. i was really braindead when i wrote it. you ever get that feeling where everything is so unreal, even your own thoughts can't find any relevance? like that.

anyway, i think it's important.

that's like me throughout winter break, so don't worry.

well, I think it's important too, insofar as learning is important and it says something about the way we drive ourselves to do things.

so...how do you drive yourself to do things?

What kind of things? It depends like whoa.

haha, i'm glad you understand. i had an unfinished comment saying "i'm glad you understand." and then i came back to this page to reply again and write the comment below....aaa, disorganization.

and by below, i mean above. and...i'm just gonna stop now.

actually...i could probably boost my grades all-around by just participating more in class, since it's 'impossible to get an A without participation' and all. haha. i hate that requirement.

Oh, gross. Did I ever tell you about how my advisor told me that to get an A I would have to talk 6 times in each seminar class for the rest of the semester, to make up for my lack of participation? Yikes. I did it though.

Ironically, I picked her as my advisor after this happened. I think she's just really anal.

that is really bizarre. because participation is quantifiable? yeesh.

lol, yeah, she sounds anal. your regular advisor, or thesis advisor?

major adviser. AC is my thesis adviser.

aw, that icon is adorable.

thanks!

"At first it's ooh and ahh, then it's running and screaming."
- The Lost World

we don't get a lot of curves. they curve science classes and stuff, though, mostly because there are tests like one of the intro bio tests where the average score was about 40%, and it's not cool to fail all your students.

How do you measure the difference btwn. schools in terms of grade inflation? How hard is it to get an A? And I know profs sometimes don't give any A's in a class. Like, if they think the whole class is average, then it is so. It seems especially difficult when no grade can possibly mean quite the same thing at one school as at another. And I say I have to put in zero effort to get C's, but I see other people busting their asses for C's and B's (although I do have to put some effort in for B's), so 'effort' is relative too. I'm just rambling, but it seems like a hard thing to quantify.

There's a couple profs here too that don't give As except for like, legendary work (in other words, never).

That's why I think people don't necessarily care too much about transcripts? I don't really know. But yeah, the Ivies like to keep grades in the As and Bs, and that's obviously different from public universities... that and grading is so subjective within each school, so yeah, I agree.

I actually don't like grading based on effort unless there are results, even if those results are sort of "different" or whatev. I mean, if the person does average work, then they should be graded averagely, I think. But at Columbia, average = B. So it's more like what they should just do is eliminate Ds and Fs, since they don't use them and have to curve to keep grades out of their range.

Yeah, I think my work ethic is way too shitty to pull off 'legendary work' the vast majority of the time. There are a few harsher graders here than others, too. It seems like this is truer of people who have been here 10+ years or went to Reed for undergrad...dunno what that says.

Reed I guess likes to clarify, since it's at the top-end of non-Ivy small liberal arts schools. Like, so people won't think it's the same as like Wesleyan in NE or Lewis & Clark here, I dunno. Esp. since they refuse to give data to college ranking places, or used to. I think it's pretty easy to get As and Bs at most public universities, but there's also a lot more people with jobs and other issues, who don't necessarily come to class...etc.

I just mentioned effort as part of trying to think about like how an A at Reed takes more effort than an A at PSU, or whatever. I agree that there should be some way of telling the person that their work was average, but I'm not entirely opposed to a grading method like Cognard's, either, where effort/improvement counts a lot toward your final grade. Because if someone took the class and did better than their peers but hardly improved at all, I don't really think that person deserves an A either. Reed definitely uses Ds and Fs. It's more like...

-Missing a lot of assignments/class = F.
-Missing some assignments, not talking, missing too many classes = D.
-Meeting bare requirements of work/participation = C
-Participating some in class, producing papers with some serious thought/effort behind them = B
-Making productive contributions to conference, doing stellar work, demonstrating involvement throughout the course = A

Obviously those change a bit depending on the prof, and some are fond of giving C-'s to 'warn' students without destroying their academic career, etc., but basically, that's my impression of how grading works here.

Lol, though, if Columbia did that, then B really would be a C, and C an F, and A an A, sorta. Except C's wouldn't fail you.

Yeah, I think improvement is really important too. I just mean that I don't like it when people who just "try really hard" (or at least, that's what they cry to the professor) but clearly reach no deeper fortress of the mind (or whatever) or attempt to actually listen to what the professor wants... get good grades.

Well, yeah exactly (a B would be a C, etc.). But you're right, I guess the point is that students need to feel like they did better than a bunch of other people, even when those other people don't exist.

I can't believe anyone would actually cry to their prof about grades. Steve would so bitchslap me if i did that. But yeah, I'm quite sure that you, at any college, deserve the A's you've gotten. I actually think I deserved most of the grades I got too.

Wait, is that what I was saying?

hm, i think it kind of was, yes.

Ha ha, people here cry to their professors about grades in DROVES. DROVES, I TELL YOU.

Thanks though, and I'm sure you do as well.

ugh.

Haha, thanks. I deserve that F!

You know that's not what I meant.

I just found it amusing.

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used up all of my friends, but who needs them?

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