<-The Third Thing to Love About Madison: Smart Studios |Main|You Are Not Having the Best Night->

Is This Good or Bad?

January 11, 2007 2:51 AM

aving read in the comments at Legal Badger that someone had gotten a grade back, I decided to take a chance and check mine. Not having gone through the extensive mental preparation I usually go through before checking my grades, I wasn't really prepared. Bad news might have killed me.

In any event, I did have a grade back. I passed Contracts II. There were some moments when I was seriously scared that I wouldn't. But, thankfully, it was all for naught.

The downside: other grades will be coming out soon. I'm not excited.



7 Comments


TheExpat said:

Mother F grades. Grades are faulty and ridiculous in comparison to hard work, experience, and peer review. Where grades often fail is not in their result, but in the testing for them. Multple choice tests, while a godsend at the end of finals week, are for losers with no practical reason for studying their chosen subject. Also, when tests are given only two or three times in a semester (regardless of how they are implemented), they foster poor study habits, i.e. cramming and memorization of facts students will have no way of remembering, that is unless they are constantly reinforced in everyday life.

I say, put students in a learning environment (ie actual work) that requires them to use the knowledge they are supposed to be learning, rather than continuing to tip our hat to an antiquated wrote method which continues to breed mental stagnation and idiocy in our schools.

Reading this, I think we also need to hurry up and invent the Holodeck already. Real world opportunities are running thin.

January 11, 2007 4:14 AM



Vice said:

I had the same kind of feeling. My professor kindly sent me a grade through email about a week back. I looked at it and went "huh." Not as bad as I feared, not as good as I hoped. Like yep, that's a number.

January 11, 2007 8:26 AM



jbob said:

Who'd you have for Con Law II?

January 11, 2007 9:43 AM



Ismael Tapia II said:

Expat,
I agree. Your criticisms of grades and grading are even more true in the case of law school. One all-encompassing test at the end of the semester cannot be the best way to test how much you know about the law, and certainly not how much you will retain. And, besides, any good law student will tell you that it's not so much about wht you know as it is about whether you can give the prof. what he wants.

The worst is when people equate intelligence with good grades. That's ridiculous. I know some really smart people who do not have great grades, and I also know some idiots who are towards the top of their class. Of course, there are smart people at the top and stupid people at the bottom, too, but it's a much more even distribution than one might expect.

Vice,
Yeah--I hate the email grade. It's almost impossible to get ready for it.

jbob,
I had Quraishi.

January 11, 2007 11:16 AM



jbob said:

Thanks. I had Church for Con Law 1 and hadn't seen the grades out yet so wanted to know if it was worth checking the system every hour. Apparently not yet.

I agree about grades. I like the system as is because I'm doing extremely well under it, but it doesn't necessarily test learning. On the other hand, I've found I usually have acquired most of the material needed for the final exams inside my brain from class prep and note taking and can spew it out on the exams without much trouble. Retaining it is another thing altogether.

Another interesting point is how the exams are structured which is dependent on the subject being taught. If the final consists of BSing 30 pages onto blue books, does it really test anything other than the ability to spew somewhat class-related crap onto the page?

I mentioned my doubts about how well grades relate to future success to an interviewing partner at a law firm party once. He dismissed it and maintained the strong correlation between grade success and law firm success. I didn't get the callback from them and wonder if it was because of my comments. I still extremely doubt long-term success has any relation to grades. The only thing you can learn from grades is whether someone can pick something up quickly and whether they can read the professor's mind. Both are important in a law firm. As much as the firms like to think grades reflect intelligence and hard work, I doubt there is any link.

January 11, 2007 1:14 PM



Dee said:

well, this is why everyone should study English. there are no bullshit tests, you are simply asked from time to time to write an essay that proves your mind isn't rotting from the inside out. skill in bullshitting is rewarded dearly, but so is independent thought.

about that whole real life experience bit, though, yeah. maybe nobody should study English.

January 11, 2007 8:49 PM



Elise said:

Two of my grades were posted today, and both were good, but I felt that only one was logical (i.e. a direct cause and effect between the work I put in and the grade I got could be seen). law school grading is ridiculous. did you see that thing on legal badger about the registrar printing our transcripts incorrectly? I sent one out and now am not sure whether it's even correct.

January 11, 2007 11:13 PM



Leave a comment


Type the characters you see in the picture above.