The first thing that caught my eye after I logged into my email was “Assignment Graded.” I had forgotten that this task existed entirely, as my life had naturally moved on.
It was an essay I had completed a month ago. It was a pretty tough assignment, I put in the work and I was proud of what I did. My thoughts were racing: What did I get? Did I do poorly? Did I do a good job? I opened the email and the mark immediately popped up: 17/20, 85 per cent, A. That’s not a bad mark at all. I felt content that I was on track and doing a good job in that course.
However, instead of staying satisfied with myself, I wanted to know how my peers had performed — to compare. The class average on the assignment was 18. Immediately my mood shifted dramatically. I was furious and upset. I was disappointed in myself, I thought of how much better everyone was than me. I kept thinking I would never be able to achieve my goals in life and would always be ‘behind.’
This little episode exemplifies a major problem in university, namely the anxiety-inducing and zero-sum way we are assessed. I’ve been thinking, what's the point of university? Well, surely it’s to learn, right? It’s an institution designed to educate people. So then, how come I would rather (for the most part) take a course that guarantees a good mark than ‘challenge’ my preconceived notions? The obsession with achieving high grades and maximizing our GPA is so dominant, it makes me completely forget that learning is actually done through making mistakes and failing. Most of what I call ‘myself’ is a product of mistakes, failures and disappointments. I should know that whatever mistakes I make academically are not a permanent reflection of my skills.
Yet (and this is a big counterpoint) the grades I get will determine how I can move forward in my career. The higher my grades, the more options I have, the more ‘prestige’ I accumulate. My future is shaped by numbers. Numbers which are cold, unfeeling and without any nuance. I can’t help but feel that my name is just going to become an attachment to a spreadsheet, and that’s all I’ve gotten out of these four years. This judgment of intelligence I feel from the number assigned to my work has really hindered a lot of the passion I did, and would have, for academia.
For those that don’t know me (and I will try my best to say this without coming off as a pretentious asshole), I’m really into politics — my field of study is political science. I love talking about history, theory and why the world is so garbage. However, in university, there is a number attached to that passion. My ‘level’ of authority is put to trial, a number like '90’ indicates to me that my passion for politics is warranted and reaffirms my convictions. Yet, if I get a grade like a '60’ it makes me feel like I shouldn’t proudly discuss political concepts anymore and my passion is now unwarranted — as if the university is telling me, “you don’t know what you are talking about, why else would you get this low mark?”
It makes sense why (at least in my opinion) anxiety is so prevalent on university campuses. We are constantly being judged intellectually and this judgment has repercussions on our careers. A recurring thought of mine is how arbitrary the grades are. I just keep thinking: “What if this TA was in a bad mood?” “The professor is just a strict marker” “They just gave me this mark because they liked me.” Not only can grades often be subject to the individual marker, but I also question whether or not the assignments are truly a reflection of ‘intelligence’ (whatever that means).
It can feel at times they’re not testing us on learning the concepts, but rather they’re testing how well we can remember the specifics of that class.
As we are now slowly moving outside the purview of COVID-19 restrictions, I think we would all be remiss if we do not realize how much of an impact COVID-19 has had on all of us. No matter how hard we try to distract ourselves with deadlines, tests and midterms, we are, unfortunately, still human beings. We are vulnerable and tied to our emotions, and as much as we’d like, we can’t always be as efficient as possible.
So when getting a bad mark or not completing as much work as you’d like on your day off, give yourself space and be kind. After these past two years, perhaps we should be a lot easier on ourselves.
In regards to the university grading system, I understand that you need to have some measure of how well you did in a program, but is it possible to facilitate objective grading, without the anxiety-inducing judgment? Is anxiety just something we have to accept in our lives?
I don’t have the answer here, at all. To quote one of my friends, “I’m not an architect, but I can point out when a building is bad” and I do feel that is the case with university. I think we should start reconsidering the way we handle grades. Something about it is just off. I don’t think I am alone in this, some professors I’ve talked to also have mentioned that they don’t appreciate the way grades are handled. So my question is, if the students are anxious and the professors are upset — what’s stopping us from trying to change it?
As evidence for why the grading system needs to change, just look how insane it makes the student body: I literally just wrote this entire article because I got one mark less than the class average.