For whom the bell curve tolls

It’s almost springtime, and high school seniors are
eagerly awaiting college acceptance letters. Many of these students
have declared majors in engineering, math and science. Upon
graduation, will they be ready to venture further into the exciting
world of science and engineering?

All college students have lives filled with frustration, anxiety
and lack of sleep. But those within the engineering and scientific
realms are pushed to the brink, only to end with average GPAs much
lower than those of their counterparts in other disciplines.

The excitement is gone, replaced with a robotic mindset.

In the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at
UC Berkeley, there is a set of grading guidelines for all the
department’s courses.

It states, “A typical GPA for courses in the lower
division is 2.7. This GPA would result from 17 percent As, 50
percent Bs, 20 percent Cs, 10 percent Ds and 3 percent Fs.”
In a 100-person class, 13 students will fail.

These predetermined grading policies are prevalent in
engineering, math and science departments. As a mathematics and
computer science student at UCLA with coursework in a multitude of
disciplines, I have first-hand experience with the grading
discrepancies between various departments on campus.

If I write an A-quality paper in an English class, I will
receive an A. Science, math and engineering classes are not so
straightforward ““ my grade is relative to the performance of
other students.

Grading issues are extremely problematic, especially when
students are looking beyond college. Nearly all math, science and
engineering internships require a 3.0 GPA or higher.

Many medical and law schools will not consider applicants with
GPAs below a 3.5.

How is it possible for students at schools like UC Berkeley and
UCLA to compete, when average GPAs in these difficult sciences are
below a 3.0?

Proponents of strict grading systems argue that curves are
necessary to motivate students to learn challenging material and to
accommodate difficult exams. Curved grades give professors the
ability to quantize the difficulty of a test and help the students
who receive grades in the 50-75 percent range by bringing them up
to the A or B-minus range.

Limiting the number of As also ensures that a higher GPA from
that institution carries more weight.

These explanations are no excuse. Science and engineering
departments focus on the quality of the professors’ research,
rather than their teaching ability.

Professors make their exams as difficult as possible, with the
justification that resulting scores will be curved. On the first
day of class, one chemistry professor at UCLA tells you to look to
your left and look to your right ““ the students sitting in
the aisles will not be there for the next class in the
sequence.”

Universities, especially public universities, should be breeding
grounds for learning. Taxpayers should not be funding a weeding
ground. Instead of using grading quotas, departments and professors
should bring the focus back to learning.

In order to succeed, students are limited to the robotic mindset
of “beating the curve,” delegating their workloads by
grading scales instead of interest in the material. The excitement
for learning is lost.

If a large portion of the class can fully comprehend the
material, that whole set of students should be rewarded. Instead of
relying on a predetermined grading scale, professors should strive
to ensure that all students in the class have a full understanding
of the material.

Knowledge, not numbers, is what’s truly important.

Eder is a second-year mathematics of computation
student.