Comments on: The Easy ‘A’ http://healthcare-economist.com/2006/08/17/the-easy-a/ An unbiased look at today's health care issues Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:07:08 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: jerry http://healthcare-economist.com/2006/08/17/the-easy-a/#comment-423 jerry Thu, 17 Aug 2006 19:33:11 +0000 http://healthcare-economist.com/2006/08/17/the-easy-a/#comment-423 The alternative extreme is taking courses out of sheer curiosity, without concern for gettng an A, but there isn't much support for this approach out there. Someone who works at getting As gets into USCD or Harvard, then they need easy courses and grade inflation to feed their addiction and satisfy whoever is their next employer. Corporations also have quite a devotion to grades and GPAs, and HR departments really have neither the time nor the experience to judge potential employees in any other effective way. An A is as easy to judge as a Harvard or UCSD degree, it's just the kind of shallow branding that people like to use to make decisions. I am also disillusioned enough to know that pleasing people is also very important in academic success, so not only are the students looking for an easy A, and the employers asking for those As, but the academics tend to take their As (and their opinions) quite seriously. The alternative extreme is taking courses out of sheer curiosity, without concern for gettng an A, but there isn’t much support for this approach out there. Someone who works at getting As gets into USCD or Harvard, then they need easy courses and grade inflation to feed their addiction and satisfy whoever is their next employer.

Corporations also have quite a devotion to grades and GPAs, and HR departments really have neither the time nor the experience to judge potential employees in any other effective way. An A is as easy to judge as a Harvard or UCSD degree, it’s just the kind of shallow branding that people like to use to make decisions.

I am also disillusioned enough to know that pleasing people is also very important in academic success, so not only are the students looking for an easy A, and the employers asking for those As, but the academics tend to take their As (and their opinions) quite seriously.

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