bet we all have heard it from our parents before, “Get good grades!” Sometimes I think parents forget what it was like to be in school, because getting those good grades is not always as easy as they make it out to be. With each new class that we take, we experience different professors, different expectations, different rules and even different ways of grading. Although we may not realize it at first, not every professor uses the same grading scale. When you think you have a “B” in one class because your average is an 83, that same 83 could be considered a “B-” in another class. I bet you really want to review all of your syllabi now, don’t you?
I imagine that by now we have all had that realization that we are not in high school anymore. Professors are not going to spoon-feed you everything; they are going to treat you like the adult that you are. Part of being an adult is being challenged, and that is exactly what professors are going to do, whether that means giving you the hardest research paper imaginable, making you do a presentation every week or even change something as simple as a grading scale.
Should professors have this liberty of tweaking the grading scale to their own liking? My answer to that is: absolutely. Why, you may ask? Because, we are in college now and that is just a part of the experience. This is the time in our lives when we are going to take classes that test our limits and creativity. This is the point at which we are going to be treated as the unique individuals that we are. Should we not allow professors to have that same opportunity? They are the ones who are teaching the classes, and they know exactly what they want. It should be up to them to decide how we are going to be graded.
Now I’m not saying that professors should take a huge leap with this different grading scale privilege. There should be a little bit of a boundary for what is considered an A to an F, and I think for the most part, grading scales are the same. Some professors may give you that A+ for your 93, but others will stick to their guns, and that 93 will be an A- and that’s okay because they are the ones with the fancy degrees that you don’t have just yet. Remember, this is what you are working for.
Dr. Matthew Skillen, assistant professor of English, and director of English education, has his own feelings towards the manner of grading. He said, “I generally oppose standardization in higher education. However, I like to encourage all teachers and professors to openly and routinely discuss their expectations with students,” Skillen said. “A greater sense of transparency in the classroom can help create better learning opportunities.”
I could not agree more with his statement. We are at a higher learning point in our lives, and part of that learning experience is understanding that we will always be graded, judged or evaluated on different levels depending on our performance. Professors and instructors should talk to their students about the expectations they have for their class, and most of them do. Remember when you weren’t paying attention as your professor was reading through their syllabus because you thought it was boring? I bet you wish you paid attention now.
The grading scales from the As and Bs only vary by a point or so, but I never really noticed it before. I always thought that I was being graded in the same way all of the time but it turns out that I’m not. Like most students, my grades are very important to me and I do not really mind that my professors do not all consider the 93 that I worked so hard for an A+. To me, having that difference in grading makes it more challenging to do the best that I can. There is no easy way out.
Once we grow up and leave college and enter the real world, I think we are going to look back and thank our professors and instructors for grading us differently. When we get into the workforce and have our first major job, we will fully realize that we are being “graded” or evaluated on our performance on all different levels, and definitely differently than our other coworkers. Does that seem fair? No, not entirely, but by being graded differently in college, we are being prepared for the future.
Professors know what they are doing. They did not get their degrees and the title of “Dr.” for nothing. We should trust their judgment in the way they choose to grade us. Although it may not always seem fair, we just have to remember that they were students, too. So make sure you listen to your parents and get those good grades, no matter what scale is used.
