When I was a young, spry sophomore, I took a computer science class because of the succubus known as CORE. Needless to say, I haven’t been hiding some secret genius from you guys. I struggled. I had calculated during finals that if I could manage a 70 percent or so on the exam, I would have a decent chance at getting a C in the class. I got something decidedly less than a 70 percent.
Yet when grades came out, I had miraculously achieved my signature grade: the B minus. Praise Jehovah! But how did my grade go from “parents withdrawing tuition money” territory into the “parents are benignly disappointed” zone? The mystery curve, that’s how.
The mystery curve has been silently benefitting students just like you and me for centuries. Whether it’s because you’re in way over your head in computer science or because you never went to history, the mystery curve is like the invisible hand of the marketplace. Maybe. I never went to my economics class either.
The problem with the mystery curve is, well, it’s a mystery. You never know if it’s coming. You could have a class where everyone’s failing, but the teacher is 114 years old and hasn’t been keeping track of the year since the Vietnam War. Sorry, but your mystery curve is absolutely nothing. Thanks for playing!
Or you could have the class where grades are distributed all over the map because for some reason there are smart, applied students willing to work hard who are getting As.
I’m assuming these people are freshmen on scholarship or something. Anyway, these are the ones you really have to worry about, because these kids have basically outed you: The class really isn’t so hard you should be failing, so the teacher has no reason to curve your lousy grade up. Fortunately for you, these are the classes where the teacher cares just as much as you do, and you wind up getting a B no matter what you did in the class. Enjoy the hollow, mediocre amount of satisfaction that comes with it during winter break.
This just demeans the whole grading process. If you want to say grades in college are meaningful — and I contend that they are not, but the machine is trying to keep me down on this one — then classes should at least give the illusion that there’s some semblance of a system in place, instead of the spooky monster behind the curtain who may or may not make sure everyone gets a grade somewhere between a 78 and a 93.
I don’t think anyone who puts forth an honest effort should ever fail, but we should at least be able to pretend as though the curve system here has some attachment to physical reality, instead of being a random variable dependent on how nice our teachers happen to feel on a given day. If everyone’s struggling, a curve should be enacted. If one’s coming, the students should know about it. And anyway, if all the students in a class are doing that poorly in the first place, isn’t it really a reflection on the teacher?
I guess that’s the real mystery.
Rob Gindes is a senior journalism major. He can be reached at gindes at umdbk dot com.
