You've posted the final grades and I didn't get the grade I was hoping for. Is there anything I can do?
One of the more depressing aspects of the end of an academic semester is the almost inevitable series of "Hail Mary*" visits from students once the
final grades have been posted. For many faculty, the tried-and-true method of avoiding this has been to post the grades, and then spend the rest of the
exam week in hiding. Unfortunately, whatever the merits of e-mail as a means of student - faculty communication, the days of remaining incommunicado as
a means of avoiding such visits appears to be past. So let me try and address this question outright and save all concerned some trouble.
When the final grades are posted for a class, that means the class is over. Done. The end. Asking if there is something that can be done to change
them is really like going back to one of your high school (or middle-school, or elementary school, or... well, you get the picture.) teachers and asking if
maybe they could help you out and slip you a few extra points on an exam or paper. It's evidence of an attitude that grades (and ultimately, not just grades
but everything of value) aren't something to be
earned through diligent and successful work, but that they are a present, a gift, a free T-shirt** on the road to the rest of your life. If you don't have
this attitude, good. If you do have this attitude, get rid it.
If you aren't happy with your final grade, the time to do something about it is before you get it. If your first exam
performance isn't what you wanted it to be, then begin working harder for the second. If that means spending more time on that class and less time on
other things, then that's what it's going to take. Is it unfair that other people might not have to work as hard to get better grades? Maybe. But I
didn't make the Universe; I just have play by its rules.
An interesting analogy...
*The use of the phrase "Hail Mary" here derives from the now common usage of
the phrase to indicate a desperate, virtually-certain-to-fail play attempted
by a losing football or basketball team in the last few seconds of a game. If
a reader is offended by this type of usage, I apologize, but I didn't start
it, it doesn't appear to be going away anytime soon, and in this situation the
sports metaphor is apropos.
**Credit for this concept belongs to a Georgia Tech (I think!) physics professor who published a short article about this same problem in Newsweek
back in the mid to late 90's. Obviously, this is not a new phenomenon or one unique to a particular university.
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