Are Gen Eds in college useful or just a drag on finishing? (assessment, admissions)

[Cat Turd Collector]

Originally Posted by mitsguy2001

But professors often won’t allow you to hand a paper in early, and wont accept it until after the dorms close for Thanksgiving, and you have to hand it in in person, not online. Plus, they give an in person exam the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving after the dorms are closed, and give you a 0 if you miss it for any reason.

Really? Most of my professors gave bonus points for handing in assignments the day before Thanksgiving

[tnff]

Originally Posted by Cat Turd Collector

IME as an Accounting major, because humanities-type courses tended to be very reading and writing heavy, and grades were based on less tangible metrics. For example, in my accounting and accounting-adjacent courses (finance, economics, business), as long as I was able to conceptualize the coursework, I easily passed the tests. Contrast that with say, a history course, it could take weeks to churn out a good research paper, only to lose points because some of the footnotes were wonky and the thesis statement didn’t wow the professor.

Ironically, I ended up changing to a humanities major, but that’s a whole other story, and a choice I have yet to regret.

Great answer. While I loved history and literature, I hated having my grade depend on whether the professors happened to like what I wrote. Opinion and silly rules such as no more than two CORRECTED typos on a page or lose a letter grade. This when we still had to physically type each page. The professor would hold the page up to the light and could see where the correction tape or fluid had been applied. Three typos on a page, even corrected, and lose a letter grade from whatever your actual grade was. B's turned into C's and C's into D's quickly.

And I actually had a woke professor for English years before anyone had ever heard of "woke." He thought personal pronouns were sexist and racist. I had a horrible time learning to use "they" or "their" in place of "he" or "she." Years of English grammar beaten into me in school taught me not to use plural for singular. And lord help if you used a word that had "man" as part of it (as in human). I was still young and inexperienced then and I couldn't figure out why I was failing the course.

[mitsguy2001]

Originally Posted by tnff

Money should be a factor, but not the only factor. For example, the Education Department has a website, https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator...pg=1&id=199193 that provides a lot of information about colleges. Just for grins I picked NC State since I have no affiliation to that state or school. The information covers everything from admissions cohort data to graduation rates and final ROI results. A little quick comparison of various colleges will show which higher or lower probabilities of success. For example NC State typical cohort 25th to 75th percentile is 27 to 32 ACT score. Compare that to other schools which are higher or lower gives an idea of the talent in the student body and the level courses will be taught toward. You can also see graduation rates and default rates which give an indication of the quality of outcomes/jobs post college.

It's not just about money, but about value.

But it's hard to assess that "value". In my field, it is very clear that employers only care about the fact that you have the piece of paper, and not where it's from. And, as I've mentioned, they look down on employees who are too academic.

The average salary of a college's graduates have more to do with the geographic area where the graduates tend to work, rather than anything about the quality or value of the particular school. I remember a while ago seeing a list of colleges whose graduates have the highest salaries. Most of them were small, little known schools in the New York City area. That is because they would mostly attract local NYC students, where salaries are higher. It would not include Ivy League schools, since their graduates live and work all over the world, including in low cost of living areas where the salaries are low. Maybe a good measure would be graduates salaries vs their local cost of living.

I wouldn't call it a deal so much as school guidance counselors are just that clueless about higher education opportunities.

Plus, fairly or not, high schools are judged by the colleges that their graduates attend, not based on adult quality of life. Guidance counselors get their paycheck from the school district, not the individual students. So their incentive is to get students to attend the most "prestigious" universities possible, without regard to the quality of life that graduates will have as adults.

Location is a legit concern. I'm a strong advocate for dorm life. There's a lot to be learned there that isn't taught in class.

Definitely agree!

I think you got some really bad advice somewhere along the way. Of course, there are some lousy college professors. I had them myself. Also, good ones and in between ones. One of the big differences that many kids don't get told, esp the top students in high school, is college professors aren't going to spoon feed the material.

Basically all of my high school teachers would tell us about how terrible college professors are, that they have zero teaching ability, and that they view students as nothing more than a number on their roster. My father told me the same thing, that there is no such thing as a good college professor. So I expected the professors to be bad, no matter what college I attended.

Just like good employers care more than about a "piece of paper." (That's another one of those anti education put downs we discussed in another thread).

Again, it maybe depends on the field, but in my field, all they care about is having the piece of paper.

What they care about is what that "piece of paper" represents -- the knowledge and skills you were trained on.

And they know full well that none of the skills we learned to get that piece of paper have any use in the real world.

For an engineer especially, the degree doesn't represent the end of education, but the beginning. It's a license to learn.

And there is the problem. Continuing education is overly focused on checking a box rather than actually learning material relevant to your career. And that is not unique to engineering. I posted before that my 11th grade AP Physics teacher had to attend a continuing education session about disabled students. Seems reasonable at first. But he said that it was about disabled students who can't tell the difference between a B or a D. Such students are never going to be taking AP Physics in 11th grade. That session was appropriate for an elementary school special ed teacher. Not a high school physics teacher.

[mitsguy2001]

Originally Posted by RamenAddict

Money is a two-part equation- how much you spend to go to the school and how much you can expect to earn when you get out.

As I said in another post, that is all about the geographic area where a school's graduates tend to work, and nothing about the value of such school.

For example, my sister’s best friend majored in engineering and had the option between a full scholarship at Flagship State U or a scholarship that allowed her in-state tuition at one of the other State U’s known for having an excellent engineering program. She chose the latter, did a 6-year coop program where she was working every other semester, and I think she was basically able to cover a lot of her expenses during the time she was actually in the schooling portion.

Rightly or wrongly, my guidance counselors told us to avoid colleges with a coop program, since we are better off with the more traditional college experience.

She had a specific interest and was able to pursue it. I’m not sure that would have happened at Flagship State U and certainly wouldn’t have happened at Hometown Directional U.

It seems that she specifically wanted a coop program, and I can definitely view that as being something potentially valuable.

I have a coworker who chose a specific private university for a couple of reasons. I think he came out with some student loans, but he absolutely doesn’t regret it. It’s a school that is known for the student experience and fantastic alumni network and by all accounts, he had a wonderful time there. I’ve certainly met a lot of people through the years who will only hire people from X or Y school, so a lot of times where the paper is from is just as important as actually having the piece of paper.

It might depend on the field.

A lot of times, it’s a simple as going to Flagship State U… it doesn’t have to be an expensive degree. For example, there was one family in my block growing up that was hugely into Flagship State U, which is one of the big football schools. One of the daughters got into sports management that way and I think did recruiting for Flagship S U for a while and maybe went onto doing stuff for other teams. I think another friend’s husband went there as well and ended up working on one of the state’s Super Bowl organizing teams.

Ok

[mitsguy2001]

Originally Posted by Cat Turd Collector

IME as an Accounting major, because humanities-type courses tended to be very reading and writing heavy, and grades were based on less tangible metrics. For example, in my accounting and accounting-adjacent courses (finance, economics, business), as long as I was able to conceptualize the coursework, I easily passed the tests. Contrast that with say, a history course, it could take weeks to churn out a good research paper, only to lose points because some of the footnotes were wonky and the thesis statement didn’t wow the professor.

I had the same experience. Math and science came naturally to me, so I never had to study at all, and (since I was able to avoid the weed out classes), I was able to breeze through the homework. But, for anything involving literature, there was no way to save time. It would mean spending a lot of time reading books that I had absolutely 0 interest in, and it was too time consuming. And, as you say, I'd be expected to interpret things exactly the way the teacher did.

[mitsguy2001]

Originally Posted by tnff

Great answer. While I loved history and literature, I hated having my grade depend on whether the professors happened to like what I wrote. Opinion and silly rules such as no more than two CORRECTED typos on a page or lose a letter grade. This when we still had to physically type each page. The professor would hold the page up to the light and could see where the correction tape or fluid had been applied. Three typos on a page, even corrected, and lose a letter grade from whatever your actual grade was. B's turned into C's and C's into D's quickly.

It was no better in engineering classes. There was one notorious professor (I was able to avoid him) where all work had to be done in pen, and no cross-outs were allowed, or you'd get a 0 for the entire assignment. If you made a mistake near the bottom of a written page, you had to either completely re-write that page from scratch, or just accept the error and accept the penalty.

In engineering, lab reports were often graded by TAs who knew nothing about the subject matter and knew nothing about the English language, so they would often grade on meaningless things such as what font you used, and not based on the content.

And I actually had a woke professor for English years before anyone had ever heard of "woke." He thought personal pronouns were sexist and racist. I had a horrible time learning to use "they" or "their" in place of "he" or "she." Years of English grammar beaten into me in school taught me not to use plural for singular. And lord help if you used a word that had "man" as part of it (as in human).

While I understand (but don't agree) why he saw such pronouns as sexist (again, I don't agree with him), how can he possibly say they are racist, when they have no reference to race?

I was still young and inexperienced then and I couldn't figure out why I was failing the course.

One question I have: you at least once defended inconsistent grading by high school teachers as a good thing, since you say it forced students to adapt to different teachers. As horrible as this professor was, why do you not make a similar argument, that it forced you to adapt to his woke style?

[tnff]

I'm going to try something make CD a little cleaner to respond within. Quote's from mitsguy will be in blue. My responses in red.

[quote=mitsguy2001;64514332]But it's hard to assess that "value". In my field, it is very clear that employers only care about the fact that you have the piece of paper, and not where it's from. And, as I've mentioned, they look down on employees who are too academic.
I'm curious, do you have a PE? From what I've seen that seems a bit of the lingua franca for civil eng. My field really doesn't have a PE though I do have the certifications for what I do. I had considered going for the PE, but since it's not used, decided it wasn't worth the cost.

The average salary of a college's graduates have more to do with the geographic area where the graduates tend to work, rather than anything about the quality or value of the particular school. I remember a while ago seeing a list of colleges whose graduates have the highest salaries. Most of them were small, little known schools in the New York City area. That is because they would mostly attract local NYC students, where salaries are higher. It would not include Ivy League schools, since their graduates live and work all over the world, including in low cost of living areas where the salaries are low. Maybe a good measure would be graduates salaries vs their local cost of living.
Interesting to look at some of the flagships. Where there is a slight regional center of mass around the flagships, it's several states across and the graduates spread accross the country/world. I can see that smaller colleges would have a smaller footprint and could be skewed by local cost of living, I'm not sure the flagships are that skewed.


Plus, fairly or not, high schools are judged by the colleges that their graduates attend, not based on adult quality of life. Guidance counselors get their paycheck from the school district, not the individual students. So their incentive is to get students to attend the most "prestigious" universities possible, without regard to the quality of life that graduates will have as adults.

That would make sense, but I'm not sure most high school guidance counselors have much influence along those lines. Students and families who have aims toward the prestigious universities will be doing their own research and hiring independent expertise. At least those guidance counselors I've interreacted with were pretty focused on the typical and bottom performing student and just didn't have much time for the top students who had much more specific needs.

Basically all of my high school teachers would tell us about how terrible college professors are, that they have zero teaching ability, and that they view students as nothing more than a number on their roster. My father told me the same thing, that there is no such thing as a good college professor. So I expected the professors to be bad, no matter what college I attended.
I pretty much got the same story from most teachers and my father too. What's interesting is I've graded all my teachers & professors A - F and the teachers came out somewhat bimodal in the excellent or in the terrible categories while professors were more of a normal distribution. So I'd say the teachers were not great judges of either their own or college professors' ability to teach, and my dad certainly wasn't either. Sorry dad, but he didn't even graduate high school so had no knowledge of what college was like.


Again, it maybe depends on the field, but in my field, all they care about is having the piece of paper.

And they know full well that none of the skills we learned to get that piece of paper have any use in the real world.
Nothing applies? Strengths of materials? Statics and dynamics? Thermodynamics? Our guys use them all the time.


And there is the problem. Continuing education is overly focused on checking a box rather than actually learning material relevant to your career. And that is not unique to engineering. I posted before that my 11th grade AP Physics teacher had to attend a continuing education session about disabled students. Seems reasonable at first. But he said that it was about disabled students who can't tell the difference between a B or a D. Such students are never going to be taking AP Physics in 11th grade. That session was appropriate for an elementary school special ed teacher. Not a high school physics teacher.
While there are mandatory training, each person has a good deal of control over how they get their CEPs.

It was no better in engineering classes. There was one notorious professor (I was able to avoid him) where all work had to be done in pen, and no cross-outs were allowed, or you'd get a 0 for the entire assignment. If you made a mistake near the bottom of a written page, you had to either completely re-write that page from scratch, or just accept the error and accept the penalty.
There's always some professor like that isn't there?

In engineering, lab reports were often graded by TAs who knew nothing about the subject matter and knew nothing about the English language, so they would often grade on meaningless things such as what font you used, and not based on the content.
When I was a TA, I had to grade lab reports on how well they followed the process; the analysis of data collected; and understanding of the results. The only formatting things graded were proper labels, tables, and figures so you could read it.


While I understand (but don't agree) why he saw such pronouns as sexist (again, I don't agree with him), how can he possibly say they are racist, when they have no reference to race?

One question I have: you at least once defended inconsistent grading by high school teachers as a good thing, since you say it forced students to adapt to different teachers. As horrible as this professor was, why do you not make a similar argument, that it forced you to adapt to his woke style?
That's where I first learned about adapting to the teacher. I hadn't experienced that in school (at least not to that extent) to where standard rules and facts didn't matter. In my mind if the proper word was a first person singular pronoun, then that should be scored correct and a plural "they" was incorrect. My mind was not able to process that he was making up his own rules. But that's where I learned when dealing with an idiot professor, that gets to make his own rules, I got a better grade by telling him whatever bullcrap he wanted to hear.

That's also part of what I dislike about various liberal arts courses -- they're too subjective. Math, physics, are either right or wrong. Liberal arts are whatever the professors wants to hear and I didn't have time to play guessing games.

[mitsguy2001]

Originally Posted by tnff

I'm going to try something make CD a little cleaner to respond within. Quote's from mitsguy will be in blue. My responses in red.

But it's hard to assess that "value". In my field, it is very clear that employers only care about the fact that you have the piece of paper, and not where it's from. And, as I've mentioned, they look down on employees who are too academic.
I'm curious, do you have a PE? From what I've seen that seems a bit of the lingua franca for civil eng. My field really doesn't have a PE though I do have the certifications for what I do. I had considered going for the PE, but since it's not used, decided it wasn't worth the cost.

Yes, I do have a PE.

Again, it maybe depends on the field, but in my field, all they care about is having the piece of paper.

And they know full well that none of the skills we learned to get that piece of paper have any use in the real world.
Nothing applies? Strengths of materials? Statics and dynamics? Thermodynamics? Our guys use them all the time.

I'm a traffic engineer, so I do not use any of those classes that you mentioned. Those would be more used by structural engineers.

In engineering, lab reports were often graded by TAs who knew nothing about the subject matter and knew nothing about the English language, so they would often grade on meaningless things such as what font you used, and not based on the content.
When I was a TA, I had to grade lab reports on how well they followed the process; the analysis of data collected; and understanding of the results. The only formatting things graded were proper labels, tables, and figures so you could read it.

In your case, when you were a TA, you obviously know the English language, and likely knew the subject matter, so what I said didn't apply to you.

While I understand (but don't agree) why he saw such pronouns as sexist (again, I don't agree with him), how can he possibly say they are racist, when they have no reference to race?

Again, how could they be racist?

One question I have: you at least once defended inconsistent grading by high school teachers as a good thing, since you say it forced students to adapt to different teachers. As horrible as this professor was, why do you not make a similar argument, that it forced you to adapt to his woke style?

That's where I first learned about adapting to the teacher. I hadn't experienced that in school (at least not to that extent) to where standard rules and facts didn't matter. In my mind if the proper word was a first person singular pronoun, then that should be scored correct and a plural "they" was incorrect. My mind was not able to process that he was making up his own rules. But that's where I learned when dealing with an idiot professor, that gets to make his own rules, I got a better grade by telling him whatever bullcrap he wanted to hear.

I too was always told that singular "they" was wrong. Sometimes we could use "he or she", but some teachers said that was too wordy. Some just said to go with "he", or alternate between "he" and "she".

As an example of both arbitrary liberal arts grading and adapting to the teacher: My 6th grade English teacher tried to intimidate us with the common liberal arts line about how an A and even B are only given in exceptional cases, and if you do all of your work properly, it means you get a C, not an A or B. And she mentioned one year where on the final exam, there were 2 girls with equally good essays, but she only wanted to give one of them an A, but wasn't sure who. But in the final paragraph, one girl wrote "in summary" but the other girl wrote "in summation". She said she was impressed with the word "summation" and gave her the A, and gave the other girl a B. So, I adapted to that teacher by always including "in summation" at the end of any essays. However, when I used "in summation" on my first paper in 7th grade, I had points taken off, saying that we should never use the words "summary" or "summation" or anything along those lines. So both teachers had a different and completely arbitrary rule. In that case, I had to adapt by breaking my habit of using "in summation".

That's also part of what I dislike about various liberal arts courses -- they're too subjective. Math, physics, are either right or wrong. Liberal arts are whatever the professors wants to hear and I didn't have time to play guessing games.

It really is no better in math, physics, etc. As an extreme example, as I mentioned before, my 8th grade math teacher would mark wrong questions that I clearly answered correctly, since she did not like me, and refuse to correct the grade. My guidance counselor, the department chair, and even the assistant principal all said there is nothing that I can do about that, since the teacher is free to grade however she chooses. Then there are teachers who mark wrong obviously right answers that were not done their way, and every teacher / professor would have a different way of doing it. Then they'd mark wrong answers that weren't rounded their way, without ever telling us what their way of rounding is, and getting mad and not answering if we'd ask. Then there were teachers who would give 0 credit if you didn't show all work, including trivial steps such as 1+1=2. Then there were teachers who would deduct points for poor handwriting, which obviously is completely subjective. Then there were teachers who were inconsistent in how many points they'd deduct for the same error, or even how many points a particular section was worth. And all of these rules would be enforced differently for different students.

And then there were, as we've both mentioned, teachers / professors where the final grade was seemingly arbitrary. I mentioned a class where we had 4 exams, and my average was in the 40s (out of 100), but I had the highest or 2nd highest grade on every exam, so my final average would have been either the highest or second highest. I can see 3 possible legitimate grades there. An F, since my average was well below a 65 (or 60, or whatever arbitrary cutoff a teacher uses). An A, on account of having the highest or 2nd highest average. Or a B, if I had the 2nd highest average and he only wanted to give one A. But my grade was a C+, which made no logical sense. I did not challenge the grade, since it was not bad enough for me to lose my scholarship, and I knew full well that he was justified in giving me (and the entire class) an F if he chose so.

[tnff]

Once again, mitsguy in blue, my response in red.

QUOTE=mitsguy2001;64518931]Yes, I do have a PE.
Cool. Do you find it valuable in your career? A couple of my friends had theirs but let it lapse because the cost to maintain it with the state wasn't worth it in the field we're in.


I'm a traffic engineer, so I do not use any of those classes that you mentioned. Those would be more used by structural engineers.
Do you use fluid mechanics much? Seems like a lot of traffic flow follows basic fluid principles to the point of choked flow, but once a phase change occurs becomes almost Brownian (at least it feels like it when stuck in traffic). Here in Tn, it seems Vanderbilt is doing a deep study on what causes the random slowdowns. They've erected a lot of monitors around Nashville..

Again, how could they be racist?
I never could successfully figure him out. Teacher logic is all I can think of.

I too was always told that singular "they" was wrong. Sometimes we could use "he or she", but some teachers said that was too wordy. Some just said to go with "he", or alternate between "he" and "she".
Those were the answers most teachers/professors went with except this one nut.

As an example of both arbitrary liberal arts grading and adapting to the teacher: My 6th grade English teacher tried to intimidate us with the common liberal arts line about how an A and even B are only given in exceptional cases, and if you do all of your work properly, it means you get a C, not an A or B. And she mentioned one year where on the final exam, there were 2 girls with equally good essays, but she only wanted to give one of them an A, but wasn't sure who. But in the final paragraph, one girl wrote "in summary" but the other girl wrote "in summation". She said she was impressed with the word "summation" and gave her the A, and gave the other girl a B. So, I adapted to that teacher by always including "in summation" at the end of any essays. However, when I used "in summation" on my first paper in 7th grade, I had points taken off, saying that we should never use the words "summary" or "summation" or anything along those lines. So both teachers had a different and completely arbitrary rule. In that case, I had to adapt by breaking my habit of using "in summation".

It's almost funny if it weren't so serious, but I've seen some real ---ing contests between some very senior executives of things just like that. And no one cares but them.

It really is no better in math, physics, etc. As an extreme example, as I mentioned before, my 8th grade math teacher would mark wrong questions that I clearly answered correctly, since she did not like me, and refuse to correct the grade. My guidance counselor, the department chair, and even the assistant principal all said there is nothing that I can do about that, since the teacher is free to grade however she chooses. Then there are teachers who mark wrong obviously right answers that were not done their way, and every teacher / professor would have a different way of doing it. Then they'd mark wrong answers that weren't rounded their way, without ever telling us what their way of rounding is, and getting mad and not answering if we'd ask. Then there were teachers who would give 0 credit if you didn't show all work, including trivial steps such as 1+1=2. Then there were teachers who would deduct points for poor handwriting, which obviously is completely subjective. Then there were teachers who were inconsistent in how many points they'd deduct for the same error, or even how many points a particular section was worth. And all of these rules would be enforced differently for different students.

You really had a lot of bad teachers along the way. I had some off the wall ones but not as many as you had.

And then there were, as we've both mentioned, teachers / professors where the final grade was seemingly arbitrary. I mentioned a class where we had 4 exams, and my average was in the 40s (out of 100), but I had the highest or 2nd highest grade on every exam, so my final average would have been either the highest or second highest. I can see 3 possible legitimate grades there. An F, since my average was well below a 65 (or 60, or whatever arbitrary cutoff a teacher uses). An A, on account of having the highest or 2nd highest average. Or a B, if I had the 2nd highest average and he only wanted to give one A. But my grade was a C+, which made no logical sense. I did not challenge the grade, since it was not bad enough for me to lose my scholarship, and I knew full well that he was justified in giving me (and the entire class) an F if he chose so.

I had profs like that and so did my kids. Absolutely no logic to what the letter grade was based on the numeric score. STEM classes seem to be especially bad about having score ranges where 40 was the highest in the class. You have no idea of what you class standing is -- failing, passing, excellent -- until the final grades are posted.

[mitsguy2001]

Originally Posted by tnff

Once again, mitsguy in blue, my response in red.

Yes, I do have a PE.
Cool. Do you find it valuable in your career?

Impossible to say, since I have no idea what my career would have been without it. It may have helped or it may not have.

A couple of my friends had theirs but let it lapse because the cost to maintain it with the state wasn't worth it in the field we're in.

My employer pays for the licensure fees, so I don't have to pay it.

I'm a traffic engineer, so I do not use any of those classes that you mentioned. Those would be more used by structural engineers.
Do you use fluid mechanics much? Seems like a lot of traffic flow follows basic fluid principles to the point of choked flow, but once a phase change occurs becomes almost Brownian (at least it feels like it when stuck in traffic). Here in Tn, it seems Vanderbilt is doing a deep study on what causes the random slowdowns. They've erected a lot of monitors around Nashville..

No, I do not use fluid mechanics at all. What you describe sounds more like research, not work that's done in the real world. I literally do not use any classes that I took in college.

As an example of both arbitrary liberal arts grading and adapting to the teacher: My 6th grade English teacher tried to intimidate us with the common liberal arts line about how an A and even B are only given in exceptional cases, and if you do all of your work properly, it means you get a C, not an A or B. And she mentioned one year where on the final exam, there were 2 girls with equally good essays, but she only wanted to give one of them an A, but wasn't sure who. But in the final paragraph, one girl wrote "in summary" but the other girl wrote "in summation". She said she was impressed with the word "summation" and gave her the A, and gave the other girl a B. So, I adapted to that teacher by always including "in summation" at the end of any essays. However, when I used "in summation" on my first paper in 7th grade, I had points taken off, saying that we should never use the words "summary" or "summation" or anything along those lines. So both teachers had a different and completely arbitrary rule. In that case, I had to adapt by breaking my habit of using "in summation".

It's almost funny if it weren't so serious, but I've seen some real ---ing contests between some very senior executives of things just like that. And no one cares but them.

About summary vs summation?

It really is no better in math, physics, etc. As an extreme example, as I mentioned before, my 8th grade math teacher would mark wrong questions that I clearly answered correctly, since she did not like me, and refuse to correct the grade. My guidance counselor, the department chair, and even the assistant principal all said there is nothing that I can do about that, since the teacher is free to grade however she chooses. Then there are teachers who mark wrong obviously right answers that were not done their way, and every teacher / professor would have a different way of doing it. Then they'd mark wrong answers that weren't rounded their way, without ever telling us what their way of rounding is, and getting mad and not answering if we'd ask. Then there were teachers who would give 0 credit if you didn't show all work, including trivial steps such as 1+1=2. Then there were teachers who would deduct points for poor handwriting, which obviously is completely subjective. Then there were teachers who were inconsistent in how many points they'd deduct for the same error, or even how many points a particular section was worth. And all of these rules would be enforced differently for different students.

You really had a lot of bad teachers along the way. I had some off the wall ones but not as many as you had.

And then there were, as we've both mentioned, teachers / professors where the final grade was seemingly arbitrary. I mentioned a class where we had 4 exams, and my average was in the 40s (out of 100), but I had the highest or 2nd highest grade on every exam, so my final average would have been either the highest or second highest. I can see 3 possible legitimate grades there. An F, since my average was well below a 65 (or 60, or whatever arbitrary cutoff a teacher uses). An A, on account of having the highest or 2nd highest average. Or a B, if I had the 2nd highest average and he only wanted to give one A. But my grade was a C+, which made no logical sense. I did not challenge the grade, since it was not bad enough for me to lose my scholarship, and I knew full well that he was justified in giving me (and the entire class) an F if he chose so.

I had profs like that and so did my kids. Absolutely no logic to what the letter grade was based on the numeric score. STEM classes seem to be especially bad about having score ranges where 40 was the highest in the class. You have no idea of what you class standing is -- failing, passing, excellent -- until the final grades are posted.

So, I am confused as to why you say that STEM grades are more subjective (and more fair? or just?) than liberal arts grades, but in this response, you acknowledge that STEM classes are especially bad when it comes to grading?

Also, what do you think of the other posters in this forum who labeled me as a grade grubber when I posted that I wanted to know that professor's grading policy, but he refused to tell me? I wasn't asking for any special treatment, just an explanation of his policy. Yet other posters labeled me a grade grubber.