A transcript mulligan

You suck.

It's OK, you can admit it.

I suck too.

We all suck at something.

Unfortunately, the current set of College requirements doesn't let us forget it.

One of my worst areas of suckitude is learning languages.

In high school, I took French with all the other arrogant kids who didn't want to learn Spanish. Our classes were small, and we got loads of attention from the teachers.

Unfortunately, I sucked. I was unable to learn French.

My parents desperately sent me on a trip to France, where we traveled around in a small group and lived with families in exotic-sounding medieval places.

Slowly, the French began to stick.

The proof emerged after I got hit by a Renault at 45 miles an hour while wearing nothing but a bathing suit and sandals.

Thinking I had done something wrong, I tried to run away, blood flowing out of the left side of my body. I then realized that fleeing the scene of an accident is a bad idea -- especially when you're the victim. I hobbled back to the car and spoke perfect French to the stunned drivers and the ambulance crew.

When I came back to the U.S., I took a French SAT II and scored a smooth 450. Score choice was awesome.

The suckyness was back, and I simply stopped taking French in high school.

At Penn, I realized that my 450 SAT II would not get me past the language requirement. In fact, if I even told Penn about it today, they would probably revoke my admission.

So I ended up taking Hebrew.

Suddenly, the curse was broken. I established a solid base in Hebrew, got a good grade and even followed up by going to Israel over the summer to be a volunteer firefighter.

Once I had spent a week immersed in the environment, I did great. With my basic Hebrew skills, I was able to work with the Israeli firefighters, live in a housing project and even make lame attempts to pick up Israeli girls at bars. Success!

I came back to Penn this semester cocky and ready for class.

Then the suck reasserted itself. Let's just say that every resume I send for the rest of my life will include a note saying, "GPA excludes Hebrew language grades."

In addition to the language requirement, Penn's General Requirement for the College features the nauseating seven General Requirement "sectors." Additionally, we have Writing and Quantitative Data Analysis requirements.

Given that we all suck at something, the logical solution is to allow students to fulfill one of these requirements on a pass/fail basis.

That way, we can actually explore subjects that we suck at without ravaging our GPA and self-confidence.

The current situation hurts both the students and academic standards of the school.

Some departments offer courses where a sort of silent contract exists: Students only take the course to fulfill some obscure requirement. In exchange for increasing the class enrollment of that particular department, students are given an easy A.

Those who can't find these courses in their "suck sector" watch their GPA suffer.

In our increasingly grad-school-obsessed lives, getting low grades like George W. Bush and John Kerry just won't cut it.

Some might say that allowing people to fulfill even one requirement pass/fail will encourage academic laziness.

On the contrary, when given the freedom to fulfill a requirement pass/fail, students will be more adventurous in taking courses in unfamiliar subjects.

Who wouldn't try out something interesting such as Amharic, Pashto, Gaelic, mineral economics or the anthropology of music if he or she could do it pass/fail and fulfill a daunting requirement?

As GPAs become a more important legacy of our college experience, sprawling requirements can inhibit academic curiosity. As it stands, students have no incentive to challenge themselves in areas that they know they are not good at.

With College administrators working to develop a new curriculum for the Class of 2010, now is the time to consider the benefits of pass/fail.

Giving students the chance to fulfill one requirement pass/fail is a good strategy for enhancing the intellectual atmosphere on campus. Otherwise, taking classes outside of our normal areas of interest will just be an exercise in sucking.

Eric Obenzinger is a junior history major from New York. Quaker Shaker appears on Wednesdays.

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