Grade Inflation and Choice of Major
15th November 2011
To me, the real and practical problem of grade inflation is that it causes students to alter their choices, away from fields with tougher grading, like the sciences and economics, and toward fields with easier grading.
But, of course, since we don’t know the students involved, we’re not entitled to speculate about their motives, the poor babies.
November 15th, 2011 at 14:54
Nothing new here. I had 2 roomates in college drop out of the College of Arts & Sciences to go to the much easier College of Education. Both of them improved grade point average while significantly increasing their “party time”. (Just coincidentally, both were Democrats.)
So they went on to assist in destroying the minds of the future. At least they didn’t become lawyers or economists or marry a Khardasian.
November 15th, 2011 at 16:00
Lol, I used economics courses to fill out my schedule, because they weren’t demanding in time or effort. Perhaps they’ve changed over the years?
November 15th, 2011 at 19:15
“I used economics courses to fill out my schedule, because they weren’t demanding in time or effort…” Need more be said?
Actually, the students are simply utilizing the capitalist cost/benefit formula: what will maximize my return (a degree) while costing me the least? They should be commended for their initiative while at the same time not clogging up valuable instruction time for the real achievers. After all, if anybody could be a scientist, then science wouldn’t be worth much, would it? (Value is based on scarcity, to quote an old–but still good–macroeconomic chestnut.)