Part of attending college and entering adulthood is acquiring the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can and the wisdom to know the difference.
But there are exceptions to every rule.
What if you're not given the opportunity to change the things you should be able to change, courage or no courage? What if the things you're supposed to accept as unchangeable affect the rest of your life course?
Such is life at Penn.
Many students are, justifiably, frustrated by the lack of control they have over their grades. They attend lectures and take exams, but receive little regular feedback as far as their performance.
Even if students receive their midterm exam scores, somehow, when each semester comes to a close and grades are posted after the break, they feel completely out of the loop.
This anxiety stems from the fact that, in most lectures, grades are based on how each score compares to the rest of the group's. And until transcripts are posted, there is no way of predicting this.
Thus, knowing one's individual exam scores is made worthless. Students can not know how their scores translate into letter grades (i.e., where their scores fall on the curve) without tracking the scores of every other student in the lecture.
Even when professors reveal the average score of each exam, they often fail to tell students what the curve is being set to.
I have been told by my peers that science courses, for example, often set their exam curves to B's to compensate for their level of difficulty - meaning the average test score is equivalent to a B. When I scored significantly above the mean on my first semester biology exams, I was elated by the possibility that I would get an A in such a challenging course.
But sure enough, my final grade was far from an A.
Students should have at least a vague idea of what to expect from their transcripts and it's up to professors or their teaching assistants to keep them updated.
Not only is it fair for students to be aware of their own progress, but it's also the only way students can change their study habits or seek out help before it's too late.
There are numerous services available to help students do well during the semester. But if they don't know that they need help, there's little chance that they'll be used to their fullest extent.
It is outright unfair to keep students unaware of their grades until they're posted and it's too late to do anything about it. Students should be able to try and pick themselves up when they're falling. That is more of a learning experience than seeing a C on their transcript without warning.
Oftentimes, professors cannot estimate students' grades until they total all points at the end of the semester and use these final scores as a means of comparison. Still, there are ways of keeping students from feeling clueless.
Professor David Williams, professor of personality psychology, employs an excellent method of maintaining student-grade awareness. He treats each exam as if it's a semester, calculating the precise ranges of test scores that correspond to each letter grade (after taking into consideration all student scores). He then posts this chart on Blackboard, where his students can see how their grade on an exam compares to the other students in the lecture.
Of course, these grades can change as total points are added and students' positions on the curve shift. Nonetheless, I have found that being offered this information makes students feel much more secure and provides them with the opportunity to make changes, if they feel it's necessary.
Surely the stress level on Penn's campus would subside if students spent less time obsessing over grades and more time focusing on the intellectual strengthening behind them. But the truth is, this neuroticism is how most of us got here in the first place, and sadly it has a large bearing on how we're going to move onto graduate school.
Jamie France is a College freshman from Plantation, Fla. Her e-mail address is france@dailypennsylvanian.com. Le Freshman appears on Wednesdays.
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