participation grade in college??

mflevity
Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:18:37 +0000

At Carleton, 5 out of my 6 classes have counted participation (including my computer science class), and I expect it’s the norm for liberal arts schools. Most profs do care about in-class participation, which is sometimes a pain for me because I’m more of an introvert and I’m not one of those kids who can make up a tangential, vaguely brilliant-sounding 10-minute speech off the top of my head (can such a skill be taught? I wish…it would come in handy).

That said, most of the profs made it very clear that participation grades were mostly used to fix borderline-grade scenarios–so a student with an 89.4% average might get bumped up to an A- if the professor can find proof that she/he was engaged in class, while a student with the same percentage grade but zero participation might get the B+.