Glee?

Now, not this movie or television show, although I haven't seen a minute of it/them--and have no plans to do so.  But glee as in joy and, in some instances, even giddiness.

I was thinking of this the other day, handing back papers/essays to students.  How disappointed many of them looked.  And, I noted, even some with Bs and Cs looked like they weren't too happy.  Hmmm.....  There was a day when I almost shouted with "glee" when I received a paper back with a B or even B- on it.  And, to get a B+?  That was almost sheer giddiness. 

How times have changed!  Now, a B is a let-down for many students.  Back when, my classmates practically exulted over Bs on papers; certainly we bragged about them.  I suppose it's the times.  Of course, it may also be the schools.

For a long time I was under the impression I had about the worst GPA among my classmates and friends at Amherst.  Only much later, maybe 25 or 30 years, did I discover it wasn't.  My GPA wasn't the best, but I was far from being the anchor.  My B- average was about, well, average. 

I remember being struck, hard, at how easy graduate school was--three different universities over the years.  I'm not sure it was that easy or if it was merely comparatively so.  I wondered, but appreciated it, when my advisers gave me graduate credit, up to three courses if I recall correctly, for my Amherst undergraduate courses.  Hmmmm....  It save me time and, at the time, money when it was very tight for us.  It all added up.

If I remember correctly, for the first two degrees, I only had to do 18 hours of credit.  And the third one, I think, I did 24 hours.  Each degree "required" 30 or 32 hours.  Yep, that's a lot of time and money.

And, not only was the work much, much easier, but grading was much more lenient, in all but one or two cases/classes.  I laugh when I think how my classmates at Amherst would react if they knew I was a Phi Beta Kappa (or whatever the equivalent is) in grad school--they don't.  In fact, before this admission, I think the number of people who knew this could be counted on one hand. 

Yes, I remember looking at my returned papers or even my report card at the end of a term at Amherst and thrilling at Bs and B-s.  I never had an A there, at least never for a course grade.  I was proud of the half dozen or so B+s I received.  I still have a few of those papers.  I look at them--and the B grades--and compare them to the B grades my students get...they don't match up too well.

 But, as I realize, times and places change.  I don't know if that's for the better or not.  It just is, I guess.

An all-A average v a B- average?  Nah, I wouldn't trade at all; I wouldn't even consider it.  I was a very, very lucky guy.