I never cared about grades, even back into grade school. I studied what interested me and got As, got by on brains and no effort on the rest, ended up with about a net 3.0 in life (A + C = B). I don’t tell my kids this, but I think they know. My wife gets on them about grades and she established the sure footing on the moral high ground by grinding out every single grade through every single year of her life. Me not so much.
True story: third grade at small Catholic school, about 1972, new method comes over the transom requiring each kid to sign a Contract to do some subset of the tasks offered for each subject. So for math choose eight of twelve projects to get a grade for the quarter or week or whatever. I categorically rejected the model. “I am not making a collage to illustrate that seven cars plus four trucks is eleven vehicles.” I ended up moving on the fourth grade, but in four quarters of six classes I ended up with exactly two passing grades (one quarter of gym and another of religion.) Thank God for standardized test scores. I think I learned the wrong lessons from this…
TLDR, I would not have survived in modern America. I only wanted to go to college to hang out, drink beer, study Comp Sci and get a job. Mission accomplished, but it’s not possible these days.
As above- grades generally matter most for the next level in education. We were pass/fail for medical school- a great idea since even the bottom grad knows enough to be a good physician.
I have found the higher/mid gifted tend to care less about grades than the low end gifted who work hard to get A’s. They learn what they want and tend not to worry about the almighty- college friend and son. Not as willing to do the work when they know the material (eg zeroes on homework and all 100’s on AP Stats tests- B grade). It also matters if grades mean needed money for school. We always dealt with unweighted grades- class rank could have been higher for son if honors/AP mattered (and if he had done the work…).
I do remember being upset in 7th grade because I got an A- instead of an A. The teacher said it was because I performed less well than I had the previous quarter. Expectations, sigh. We had individual performance plus citizenship added to our knowledge and skills grade in HS to give us our grade. Made a difference when seated at the back or front of the science class (they did things alphabetically, reversing freshman to sophomore years).
I think some kids just care more about grades than others. My older son could get A’s in his sleep even in subjects he disliked. He occasionally got lowered grades for handing things in late or balking at doing them all together. My younger son - what wis75 would call low-end gifted - though I think it’s more some processing issues interfering had a similar modus operendi. When he needed to learn his multiplication tables in order to do arithmetic fast, (for the Officer Candidate School exam), he actually did learn them.
Ha! wis75 called me higher gifted! In 5th grade standardized testing I got 9 of the 12 99+% scores in the school. The guy who got 2 of them went to Harvard and is now a law professor.
I was the world’s worst college student, skipping classes, not doing homework, understanding that I could read the book and get good test grades. Could I have spent two hours grinding my way through the homework problems? Yes, but I could also drink beer and play Space Invaders instead and only lose 1% of the semester grade.
It took until senior year of college to realize that was a monumentally bad idea. I pulled it together and did well that year but it was way too late for the GPA. I did not know going in that grades mattered in the job market. I made sure my kids understood grades matter, going to class matters, doing homework matters, talking with your teachers matters. They are smart kids with the skills to prove it but also the grades to back it up.
My education ended with graduating at the bottom of my class with a bachelors. I’m bored out of head doing low-level work, so I guess in my case my grades still matter and will until I retire.
For D’s field (cinema), I think it’s more about connections and skills. For S, having a good GPA (3.5+) helped him get EE interviews, internships & jobs. Now that he’s been working for 7+ years, I don’t think his grades matter as much as what he’s done and recommendations and skills.
I find it interesting that some people were asked for grades and/or transcripts on job applicants. Not once have I been asked about them - ever. When did grades stop mattering to me? My sophomore year in college. All of my scholarships required a 3.0 to be renewed for sophomore year, but that was it. Don’t get me wrong, I still cared about school, but there was a shift from the external motivation of grades to an internal motivation of just wanting to do a good job and learn something.
@Knowsstuff, the directive to get rid of CE came from the governor’s office. People have told him there’s a shortage of engineers in the state, so he’s trying to make registration easier. We told the legislature that we understand that, but lowering standards is not a good idea when it comes to licensing engineers who deal with life safety!
I agree with @mathmom that some CE courses are lousy, but there are a lot of good ones, too. I’m on the board of our state engineering association, and we offer seminars monthly. It’s a good chance for local engineers to get together and discuss issues, too.
It’s the out-of-state engineers that scare me the most. You don’t know what you’re going to get, since big companies tend to put their junior engineers on projects in Maine, since it’s a low-population, low-profile state.