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Grade Inflation
There's a discussion @ slashdot on grade inflation at universities, driven by an editorial at the Post.
Doonesbury had a series on this topic back in '93 and '94.
In my stats and probability class, I describe the result as "I got a B because everyone else failed too". There was an editorial published in the school paper the year after a CS/Math prof left where he, after giving out 3 Fs and a D in a Graph Theory class (out of 5 students total), was told by the dept head that "we don't give Fs around here". That statement was, of course, denied in the rebuttle.
Several classes I was in had plenty of Cs, but several did not...and sometimes its up to the student to recognize his own failures (the system won't tell you anymore), like I did when I decided that the curved-C I was destined to get in modern physics wasn't enough to go on in the physics program because I really didn't understand any of it (to that detail, anyways). So I left and switched to CS. But when you're already in an "easy" program (by comparison to physics), and grade inflation is still telling you you're great, then what?
In my CS class, of 24 graduates, I'd estimate that about half couldn't program Karel out of a paper bag. Of those that got B's in the O/S class, less then half could clearly explain what a file system was. My B in that class was more due to my lack of ability to deal with those who didn't know crap (but were partnered with me) than to any lack of knowledge of the class topic.
Doonesbury had a series on this topic back in '93 and '94.
In my stats and probability class, I describe the result as "I got a B because everyone else failed too". There was an editorial published in the school paper the year after a CS/Math prof left where he, after giving out 3 Fs and a D in a Graph Theory class (out of 5 students total), was told by the dept head that "we don't give Fs around here". That statement was, of course, denied in the rebuttle.
Several classes I was in had plenty of Cs, but several did not...and sometimes its up to the student to recognize his own failures (the system won't tell you anymore), like I did when I decided that the curved-C I was destined to get in modern physics wasn't enough to go on in the physics program because I really didn't understand any of it (to that detail, anyways). So I left and switched to CS. But when you're already in an "easy" program (by comparison to physics), and grade inflation is still telling you you're great, then what?
In my CS class, of 24 graduates, I'd estimate that about half couldn't program Karel out of a paper bag. Of those that got B's in the O/S class, less then half could clearly explain what a file system was. My B in that class was more due to my lack of ability to deal with those who didn't know crap (but were partnered with me) than to any lack of knowledge of the class topic.
funniest comment @ slashdot on this topic
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