Getting Grades

Bud Whitley

Measuring one’s success in college comes in the form of academic grades given by professors. Dr. Norm Weiner of the University of Maine writes in a guide to freshmen: “Your grade is a message from your professor to you, a message that says, ‘This is how well you really do — or really don’t — understand this stuff.’ It is our attempt to communicate our evaluation to you.” Professors need to perform this very beneficial to the student and an essential job. However, Dr. Weiner does not discuss in his guide what happened when that “attempt to communicate” breaks down.

When a professor refuses to give out grade or takes a long time to grade things, students do not know how they are doing in a class or if they need help understanding the material. Without having an idea of where they stand, students doing poorly in a class will consequently do worse in the future. At the same time, some professors return tests and quizzes without noting if there will be a curve or not, and if so how large will it be. Most prevalent in classes where the test average is between 30% and 50%, this issue is a major problem as it is really anyone’s guess what a student’s grade will amount to in the end. This lack of understanding is most detrimental as it leaves the student in a state of unease and fear as he or she has no clue how they are doing in a class.