Imagining College Without Grades • Hacker News Board

Re: Imagining College Without Grades

#31

Post by endtime » Sat, Jan 31, 2009, 8:48 PM UTC

oldgregg wrote: post #24

The age-graded system is a dehumanizing legacy of the industrial revolution. It has nothing to do with teaching people how to think but was purposed to shoehorn people into "productive" career paths. "Liberal arts" education today is structurally flawed in such a way that people only receive incoherent bits of information without ever learning to think cohesively. So you end up going to class and learning to recite M…

I agree that grading has nothing to do with teaching people how to think, but that doesn't mean it's not useful. As a student, I would hate not to get feedback on my performance. Also, I've definitely gone over and above on assignments when extra credit was possible, and that has often forced me to learn more than I would have if things were, say, pass/fail. Sure, I could have had the discipline to go above and beyond anyway, but honestly, having an artificial motivator is nice sometimes.

And if I were an employer, it would make it much harder to determine who to interview. If you remove "dehumanizing" numbers like grades and test scores from resumes, how does Google (for example) know whether to interview you, who had a 3.8 CS GPA and a 1550 SAT, over the guy who slept through class, turned in code that didn't compile, and can't explain the difference between = and == (yes, I knew people like this as an undergrad)?

That said, this is all from the perspective of an engineering student. I suppose it's much harder to quantify performance for the liberal arts (which is probably part of what initially pushed me towards engineering, now that I think about it).

Re: Imagining College Without Grades

#32

Post by oldgregg » Sat, Jan 31, 2009, 9:00 PM UTC

endtime wrote: post #31

oldgregg wrote: post #24

The age-graded system is a dehumanizing legacy of the industrial revolution. It has nothing to do with teaching people how to think but was purposed to shoehorn people into "productive" career paths. "Liberal arts" education today is structurally flawed in such a way that people only receive incoherent bits of information without ever learning to think cohesively. So you end up going to class and learning to recite M…

I agree that grading has nothing to do with teaching people how to think, but that doesn't mean it's not useful. As a student, I would hate not to get feedback on my performance. Also, I've definitely gone over and above on assignments when extra credit was possible, and that has often forced me to learn more than I would have if things were, say, pass/fail. Sure, I could have had the discipline to go above and beyon…

Yes, feedback is hugely essential. It's more of a question whether feedback should come as an impersonal mark on a paper that provides minimal direction, or if it should come from a person who knows your unique strengths/weaknesses and can direct you in a way that will help you thrive.

As for SAT/GPA, they are terrible indicators of an individual's effectiveness. Hackers know this intuitively. (because so many of them drop out!) It's this use of artificial measurements that makes "MBA types" so despised.

If those 4 years has been spent developing real projects and interacting with real people (more like an apprenticeship than modern corporate-education) then you wouldn't need artificial measurements because people would graduate with a body of meaningful work.

Re: Imagining College Without Grades

#33

Post by helveticaman » Sat, Jan 31, 2009, 10:03 PM UTC

My experience is that your parents and teachers won't allow you not to care about your grades. I'm in an elite school right now and am trying to ignore grades. However, I'm finding the powers that be are really trying to stop me from learning for its own sake.

Re: Imagining College Without Grades

#34

Post by helveticaman » Sat, Jan 31, 2009, 10:08 PM UTC

eisenkr wrote: post #13

Many top business schools today have grade non-disclosure policies that stop employers from asking about grades and stop students from sharing their transcripts. The students love the policies because they claim it increases collaboration and teamwork, but my own experience suggests that the students also love not working hard. The undergrads at a place like Wharton (who have grade disclosure) often look for classes…

I don't give a shit about my grades, but I still go to class and work hard because I want to learn more. I want to be the best. This is because, ultimately, my success in the startup world will depend on what I learn.

But I may be an exception.

Re: Imagining College Without Grades

#35

Post by DaniFong » Sat, Jan 31, 2009, 10:25 PM UTC

chris11 wrote: post #18

mattmcknight wrote: post #3

I think they should at least move away from reporting overall GPA. I know too many people that were taking easy classes or professors to keep their GPA up. No one else benefits from that move. Moving away from grades probably makes sense too. Unfortunately classes are too unique to have simple objective standards and there is no way for anyone to make useful sense of them. The overall goals of grades, to measure stud…

There are some students who are now saying that paying attention to your overall g.p.a. is counter productive. Cal Newport just recommends that students find the best way to learn the material, and focus on grades from tests and homework. In other words, focus on the process and use the short term results for feedback, don't stress about the long term results He wrote a book on doing well in college, and interviewed…

I knew a kid who desperately wanted straight A+'s. He was really sharp, and took physics and math. But when he got to third year, quantum mechanics loomed ahead, and, reportedly, he wasn't sure if he could ace it. He abandoned physics, and switched to chemistry.

He did, in fact, get a perfect 4.3 GPA. But I think it left marks.

Re: Imagining College Without Grades

#36

Post by jfarmer » Sat, Jan 31, 2009, 11:12 PM UTC

rp wrote: post #29

akd wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought it was Harvard which was consistently rated #2 after Yale.

You are right; I had it reversed. I will add that Harvard Law is switching to a pass/fail system in 2009.

And Stanford Law switched this year. They have a no-pass/pass/high-pass system.

Re: Imagining College Without Grades

#37

Post by dill_day » Sat, Jan 31, 2009, 11:55 PM UTC

Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor.

-- Emerson

Re: Imagining College Without Grades

#38

Post by nickmolnar » Sun, Feb 01, 2009, 12:15 AM UTC

As a related question:

Could you learn as much taking a free course online (MIT OpenCourseware or Stanford's free courses)? No grades, no need to hand in assignments, no mandatory exams.

I'm trying it as an experiment right now. Any bets on whether I finish the course and/or learn anything?

Re: Imagining College Without Grades

#39

Post by Shamiq » Sun, Feb 01, 2009, 1:44 AM UTC

helveticaman wrote: post #34

eisenkr wrote: post #13

Many top business schools today have grade non-disclosure policies that stop employers from asking about grades and stop students from sharing their transcripts. The students love the policies because they claim it increases collaboration and teamwork, but my own experience suggests that the students also love not working hard. The undergrads at a place like Wharton (who have grade disclosure) often look for classes…

I don't give a shit about my grades, but I still go to class and work hard because I want to learn more. I want to be the best. This is because, ultimately, my success in the startup world will depend on what I learn. But I may be an exception.

But I may be an exception

You're not the only one, buddy.

Re: Imagining College Without Grades

#40

Post by blasdel » Sun, Feb 01, 2009, 5:21 AM UTC

I went to The Evergreen State College, which is the only public gradeless school I know of. Instead of grades, everyone writes narrative evaluations of themselves and their cohorts. Nearly everyone takes one fulltime multi-disciplinary course at a time.

What often ends up happening is that professors will attempt to be rigorous by tying awarded credit in a section of the class with the % of the work you turned in -- but then if they take credit, they excise the portion of the evaluation that would have described your failings.