Grades Quirks at Carleton

In high school, everyone is told that grades aren’t the only things that matter, but also if you don’t get good grades then you might end up homeless and under a bridge. This is an awful mindset to have, however, it has a very strong hold on many students (including me) and while it can get you through high school, it has to be dismantled if one wants to succeed at Carleton.

I’m only a first-year student who hasn’t completed my fall term yet so I don’t know the ins and outs of the academic side of things, however, I think it’s important to share this part of the journey because eventually, every freshman will encounter it. I think everyone should know that they’re not alone in the unknown. So here are the things I’ve seen notice that I’ve had to adjust to as a first year at Carleton who went to a public high school where grades were deemed all-important. 

There are not a lot of grades here.

It’s almost week 8 and breaking and here’s the breakdown for the amount the assignments I’ve had:

• Field Geology: 2 Labs and 2 Tests
• Multivariable Calculus: 1 Test, 2 Quizzes
• Philosophy: 2 Essays

Were you counting how many assignments that is? If not, I’ll tell you: that’s 9 assignments for 7 weeks of work. This means that each test, quiz, homework assignment, and the things that would have been tiny fractions of your grade in high school, have huge effects on your grade. This is true of a lot of colleges, but it’s especially true here because the 10-week term doesn’t allow for a lot of time for professors to grade work and therefore they give you fewer opportunities to show what you know for a grade. This can be extremely stressful, especially if you do poorly on one of the assignments and you know that you don’t have many opportunities to make up for it. 

However, the professors here aren’t mean and evil. They take care of you and while you still have to earn that A, they won’t make it impossible. For example, in my philosophy class, we can rewrite our first two papers or in field geology, our more difficult tests will be curved. However, since I haven’t gotten to the end of the term, there is a nagging feeling that everything might not go as well as I thought they would at the beginning of the term. Again, it’s much more difficult to get good grades here than it was in high school, however even knowing this, it’s challenging to rewire my brain to be okay with getting lower grades.

Studying for Things is Much More Difficult

Study guides don’t exist here. Actually, that’s a lie, they do, but they are few and far between and they don’t always have what will actually be on the test. If there is an upcoming test, it’s up to you to figure out what to study for it. 

However, you do have resources. You can go to your teacher assistants (TAs), you can talk directly to your professors about different things, you can collaborate with your classmates, all of which can help you become more confident for your tests.

One great example of this was in my field geology class. One day our professor just went to the board and wrote “Rock Exam next Thursday. There will be rocks and there will be questions.” We didn’t get much more of an explanation than that. It took going to TA hours every chance I could for hours at a time to glean as much information about rocks and about the test from the people who had taken this class before. When I got to the test, despite our professor not really telling us what would be on it, I felt confident because I had gotten help from other sources.

While this was really frustrating at first, I kind of realized that this is what life is like. You don’t get a study guide in real life. Instead, you have to collaborate with others and use your past experiences to figure out how to solve the problem ahead of you. 

You cannot do it alone.

In any sense of the word. If you want to succeed at all, isolating yourself is the first step in the wrong direction. There are so many resources to take advantage of! There are way more resources here than this, but these are the ones I’ve taken advantage of here so far:

Talking to my professors when I don’t know what’s going on in the class is always very helpful. All of my professors either have office hours or places to schedule appointments and they are all very accessible and very helpful when I need it.

Studying in groups helps keep my spirits up. Just having someone else in the room when I have 5 hours of homework ahead of me helps me want to study.

Counseling. At Carleton, you can take advantage of a limited amount of individual counseling sessions at SHAC or unlimited group counseling sessions. College can be challenging at first but the counselors here are amazing and willing to help when you need it.

TA hours really help when you have extra questions about the class and you need another student’s insight. This can be very helpful when there’s a test coming up and you need an idea of what to study for or if you need things explained in a different way than your prof does.

You Don’t Think About Grades As Much Here

Most classes don’t have a way to see your cumulative grade throughout the trimester. This combined with the fact that so few grades go into the gradebook makes it so that there’s no reason to be obsessing over your grades every other second. I love this aspect because it means I can focus on the cool things we’re learning in class rather than a letter that doesn’t even matter that much. 

In the end, grades don’t really matter. It’s been hard trying to convince myself of this, but I’m glad to be going to a school that forces me to accept this truth. But as with everything, it’s just putting in the effort to get to that eventual goal.