Every grading scale I have ever seen has listed a ‘C’ grade as average. The idea that the world is divided into those who excel and those who fail may shock some of you, but the grading system was set up for a reason, which is that people should concentrate on areas or professions that for which they are best-suited.

I am sure many people disagree with that idea, but what would happen if you were allowed to enter any profession you wanted, regardless of how well you actually did, but by how hard you had tried?

Tell me if you’d want a doctor operating on you who may not have made all the right decisions, but he had sure as hell tried to do it right in med school! There is a reason ‘C’ students don’t go to medical school and become doctors.

How many times have students gone up to their TA’s after a test and showed how they had the work right but screwed up when it came time to punch it into the calculator? We beg them to give us the points back because it was only a little mistake, and yet there are others in the class who did not make that mistake. Who gets the ‘A’ and who gest the ‘C’?

A great example would be the support beam that collapsed in Atlanta last year during construction for the Summer Olympics: That accident killed one worker, and it was all because some engineer miscalculated the beam’s load capacity. I’m sure it was the calculator’s fault.

The students of this English class might end up constantly re-evaluating their documents so many times that they’ll catch misspelled words or bad grammar before handing in their assignments. I have a feeling the professor of this English class might nitpick enough so that any student who passed his class would emerge a better writer.

Iowa State should not be in the business of handing out free grades to those who do not deserve them; if you want an easy ‘A’, go somewhere else. Lots of people get’C”s, and that’s because there is always someone better.

Don’t sacrifice a grading system that works just because you think we should spare some feelings.

Aaron Woell

Sophomore

Biochemistry and Biophysics