Tests, Grades & Instructors

Diligent daughter reports that she received a grade of 'B' in her biology class. This is after she got an A on a midterm and A's on all her homework. However, she got a B on the final and the final was 60% of the grade. So she was undoubtedly close to an A, but no cigar.

Which reminded me of one final I took at UT in a computer science class about operating systems. The test looked really simple, one page, maybe a dozen questions, but you really had to know the material in order to answer them. Even being a whiz kid I found it difficult. What was interesting though was the last question on the test: What do you think your grade in this class should be? I thought that the test was fair evaluation of what we had covered in the class, so I answered that my grade for the class should be whatever I got on this exam. I was certain that I had answered enough questions correctly to at least rate a C, which wouldn't be great but it would be adequate. If I did better than that, well, that would be a bonus. I don't remember what I actually got. I wonder if I could look it up?

Thinking about this test reminded me of the instructor, James Peterson, I think. He was one of the best instructors I had. In comparison, Daughter hated her biology instructor. After she blew the first midterm (which was discarded from consideration when grades were calculated), she retained one of the TA's as an tutor. A couple of hours a week with the tutor were enough help that she was able to absorb enough of the material and get a decent grade for the class. Money well spent, I say.

UT had a system for evaluating instructors. If you wanted to bother you could find out what kind of rating previous students had given an instructor. Of course, if you opted not to take a class because of the instructor, that meant screwing around with your schedule and possibly having to wait another term to take a class, which might mean having to hang around school for another term and delaying graduation.

I was on a self imposed time and money budget, and I wanted to get done in the least amount of time possible, so I ignored these ratings. As a result, I got stuck with a couple of really miserable instructors. One guy, Andrew Sherman, I believe, taught number crunching, i.e. how to write computer programs to perform extensive mathematical computations. If would have been a fascinating subject if his delivery was not so sleep inducing. I remember making an effort to pay attention in one of his classes, and the material was really interesting, but his manner negated that value.

Then there was the French teacher who was a very mother hen type, which was just fine for the young women who were good at languages who were taking her class. But they were ten years my junior in age and ten years superior in language ability. Gawd, I hated that class, but I managed to sit through it for two whole terms and complete my language requirement.