Getting Grades in the Digital Age

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me welcome you to the ongoing digital revolution, occurring right now at the speed of data flow. Thanks to the Internet, information can now be sent, stored, accessed, and transferred from virtually anywhere on the planet; and thanks to technologies like BlackBoard, video chat, and the SMART Board, education is being propelled to new heights. As long as our speed stays consonant with our imagination, the sky is the limit! But speaking of limits, what has been left behind in Academia’s race to keep up with technology? How about the fact that we’re still clinging to the GPA system?

Don’t get me wrong. The GPA system is admirable if you honestly think you can ascertain a student’s cumulative capabilities by glancing at an ill-defined number between one and four. And in an era where combing over the maximum amount of data in the minimum amount of time is a virtue, perhaps the GPA has gained an extra level of prestige. But answer me this: Why should I memorize facts for a test—which is supposed to prepare me for the “real world”—when in the real world I can access all the information I need by consulting my telephone?

Now, before you retort with the obvious, expected objections, let me make the usual quick statements. First, whether we want to admit it or not, the world is changing. And rapidly! Ever since the Internet’s first breath, the tight cloister of knowledge that was Academia was cracked open; and for good or ill, knowledge is now (freely) available to anyone with a modem. If we ignore this reality, we risk irrelevance. Second, when I argue against GPAs, remember my thoughts are best focused towards the Humanities, where the goal is to find the right answer, not the languages and sciences where one is taught the right answer. Lastly, I never have favored thinking inside the box. It’s too stuffy. So open your mind, take a deep breath, and for a moment consider our current institution against the backdrop of the ever-expanding digital world.

What is the purpose of school? Or rather, why are we here in the first place? Regardless of major, the answer should be the same for everyone: To gain knowledge and credentials with the hope of getting a job in the future. Good. So school is a means to the ultimate end of gaining knowledge and entering the work force. But something about this assertion seems odd. Let’s approach this question from two slightly different angles. Think with me.

1. The point of getting an education is to gain a degree. And what is a degree? A degree is a parchment of socially constructed value that states one is competent in a given area, obtained only after years spent studying and thousands of dollars paid. In addition, a degree is in turn strengthened by one’s GPA, which is a number between one and four that is supposed to quantify one’s sum total of attributes. GPAs are largely weighted on testing, which demands countless hours of memorization. Better yet, let’s be honest and admit that without a high GPA, one’s degree can be rendered ineffective. So the point of getting an education is to ultimately obtain a high GPA. (I pray thee enjoys memorizing for tests!)

2. The point of getting an education is to get a job. But is it really? Most jobs require the prerequisite of experience, which cannot be achieved by slaving away in a classroom for nine months out of the year. Therefore, after their final final exam, students are expected to boost their resumes like Over-Achiever Barbies, and amass an army of positive letters of recommendation. (This is called “networking.”) In this, the letters typically matter more because they express a student’s attributes, and the extra fluff on a resume only props a student up. You know, like a game of who can come the closest to lying without being called out? So the point of getting an education is two-fold: To gain experience in the workforce to grant entry into the workforce, and to gain written praise from past employers.

So, to combine these ideas, the point of an education is to gain a degree and get a job, but getting a degree does not entail getting a job. In the end, grad schools as well as employers need to know one’s attributes, but these cannot be quantified until one gets a job. Two questions. First, in times like these, how are we expected to get a job and work for our elders when our elders are the ones who destroyed the job market for us? Second, is making a degree worth more too much to ask? It’s bad enough we pay fifty thousand PLUS dollars for a sheet of paper that can’t say what a past employer can! (This ignoring the fact that Boomers are hogging the job market from the young, eager Millennials.)

Do you see the disconnect? Yes, yes, yes—the system works, but not efficiently. As Americans it is NOT in our nature to settle. If we are in school to gain a degree to get a job, then our schooling (as in the degrees themselves) should go further to help us get a job. Why the hell are we paying so much for a degree when we are told the internships matter more? If networking is so valuable, then why do we obsess so darn much over grades? Which is more important? We can do better than this. But how?

The answer, I think, is much more simple than we realize.

To start, I do NOT advocate getting rid of the GPA system in favor of a narrative evaluation system. As an institution, GPAs have apparently worked to some merit over the years. Besides, since so many students have a fetish for seeing whose GPA is bigger, why harm their egos? If the problem is that degrees do not properly match up to the demands of the job market, then let’s harness our brain power and find the simple answer: Expanding the current system to something more compatible with employer’s wants.

Enter the GPA/Aptitude System. But first, a little time traveling.

Think with me six years into the future. The Class of 2017 is gearing up for graduation, and potential employers are viewing resumes via fifth generation iPads. After glancing at a long list of applicants, an employer finds “Wally Wabash” and unenthusiastically taps his name. Intrigued and slightly impressed at what he sees, he scrolls down the list of credentials and curiously taps on the transcript. Intently scanning the list of classes, he notices a lone C amongst the list of mostly As and Bs. He taps on “BIO 101”. He is instantly taken to a page with “BIO 101 – F14” as the heading, and begins to examine the student’s grade, attendance, and columns of text below. Happy with what he sees, he finally settles on the “Special Comments” section and quickly goes back to exploring the interactive resume. “Well, except for that one class,” they think to themselves, “this kid may be a good fit for the job. All of his professors say he has a good work ethic. Now let’s see if his former employers said the same thing.”

Assuming you can see the example picture, can you pinpoint its radical nature? An employer is looking through a transcript, and right alongside the grades are listed those values an employer wants to know. This allows him to look beyond the GPA and put it into context, looking at the qualities that produced the GPA. Professors, do you notice its conciseness? One would hope these few questions are not too much to ask. But I digress. When one thinks about this system for thirty-something classes over the span of four years, a picture is painted that reveals the student’s qualities with striking clarity. Sort of like an Academic Letter of Recommendation. This, in effect, takes weight off the part of “job experience” by forcing students to treat the classroom as their job. If students have to behave well—if only for fear of negative review—this could address disciplinary issues and bring a new level of decorum to classrooms nationwide. Not bad for a simple ratings system!

But let me be the first to acknowledge its flaws. First, it is almost infeasible for larger class sizes, or for lazy, unenthusiastic professors—no matter how much it helps the student. Second, the system is easily subject to abuses and “aptitude inflation”—i.e., favoritism and “everyone” being a good worker. Next is its ease with tablet computers, which are currently expensive. Fourth, putting grades in context could be seen as a justification for laziness; fifth, people change over time—meaning a bad aptitude could be condemning for years to follow. (And what if an employer only looked at a class where the student was belligerent?) And last, among others, is the student’s own privacy being damaged by the employer knowing too much too soon. But given its flaws, it at least addresses the problem and is far more efficient than our current system. While a C may be bad, at least an employer will be able to tell the difference between a hard worker who simply had trouble and a lazy bum who did not care. (Or for that matter, a gifted genius with no social skills.)

Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, we must admit that we are living in trying times. In Crisis Periods (Fourth Turnings, rather), the world is far more vulnerable to change, and ignoring this reality only sets us up as the game changees—not the game changers. A strong hunch tells me that these years we are living in—the oh so modern 2010s—will soon seem as ancient as 1929 did to 1945. There is a time for everything, and unless we realize the nation around us is finally succumbing to entropy, we will soon awake to a world that is broken beyond repair. If we do not take heed of the emerging digital world, our very education system may give way to the inability to reinvent itself. Although I’m no education major, it only takes a curious intellect to see that education is lagging compared to the demands of the real world.

To address my earlier question, I agree that we should still memorize for tests, but we must not ignore the reality of the search engine. (Keep in mind that the more machines know, the less we have to know.) If the question becomes how many answers we should memorize, we will be unable to answer the new questions that arise. And that, I fear, is precisely where we are headed.