Jamie Douglas

Should an institution, regardless of location, population or creed reward laziness? Forgive it? Permit it? What about excellence? After all, who really cares if they’re rewarded for their own efforts? The grading system of any school shouldn’t be engineered to fit the needs of its students who just want to squeeze by — those who are just biding their time, walking a tightrope of mediocrity while they ride out the remainder of their education in a daze. The hard fact is that the majority of students don’t care, or at least don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other when it comes to grading systems. They’re content just as long as their GPA stays in a safe place and doesn’t tempt expulsion.

When confronted, the average student will always tell you that they wished they had more free time, that they didn’t need to work as hard, or their work was easier. Tolerance of this attitude is all that the current system has to offer. I know I may be making some enemies here, but this just seems off, or at the core, dishonest. I understand as well as anyone how easily work can start to pile up, and I get how tempting it is to do it half-heartedly and accept a lower grade just as long as it gets done. That’s okay. I can live with that. What I can’t live with is a broad grading system that takes near-A work or barely-above-C work and gives them the same label. I would vomit with rage if I got the same grade as someone who clearly worked harder than me. That would mean that either I got lucky, or they had some bad karma. Either way, it wouldn’t be by my own merit, and that doesn’t sit well with me.

This was never an issue for me prior to RIT because every school I attended simply used a straight-up, no-nonsense numbers grading system. Why, back in my day, a man was only as good as the grade he received, and everyone knew exactly where they stood. There was none of this ambiguity crap which both penetrates and defines the letter-only system. Plusses and minuses aren’t the solution to this problem; they’re just a step in the right direction.

Apathetic students aren’t the only ones who the current grading system goes easy on; it’s easier on professors too. It would be so simple to just glance over an assignment and say that it feels like a C or a B. This treatment only cheats students by not reflecting the effort poured into the final product. Thankfully, most of the professors I’ve had the pleasure of being taught by spend more time subdividing your grade on any given assignment, which helps explain how you can improve. In this case, my grade comes to me in number form, not in windows of ten.

I’m not suggesting that adding plusses and minuses to grades is the best, or even the most effective way to solve this issue. No one enjoys being indignant. Instead of complaining until we stop caring and forget, how about we appreciate the steps that are being taken to keep us more honest? Let’s put aside the apathy we’ve all become accustomed to and just work to earn a grade. I know it hurts, but grit your teeth and bear it, dear college student. Things don’t always work out the way you want. It’s called life.