Part of collecting my materials should I wish to write about my UCSC experiences was to request my transcript from UCSC. I think we might find a copy in one of those boxes behind the stairs. But neither Dennis and I wanted to pull that stuff out. I thought it just might be easier to request a new one.
I remember being quite disappointed in myself even though I earned a A.B. degree in Natural Science (OK, I did make the major up, I petitioned for it, I had enough units but the classes did not really fit into the established majors, however that kind of thinking was encouraged and respected) from the University of California in 4 years.
The grading was Pass/Fail/Evaluation. Many scoffed thinking this would be too 'easy'. They did not realize the rigor of the evaluations. Nothing like just a grade. The students were held to an extremely high standard, your work was supposed to compare favorably with established scholars in the field. The UCSC students themselves were an extraordinary brilliant accomplished group. When I took classes in other colleges, I was amazed at the low standards and arbitrary grading.
I'll feature an example, a class in the History of Science, I took several classes. Reasonably typical
Has as good a knowledge on the name--date--place--level as any member of the class but stumbles a little where subtlety and finesse of interpretation are called for-- First paper on animals in Lucretus was very good, second paper on status of scientific knowledge in Antiquity made several very interesting points but lacked coherence. Two superb essays on the final and two good but not outstanding. Overall a good solid performance.
Compare that to a letter or numeric grade. I have 7 pages single spaced of evaluations like this.
At that time, I felt like I wanted to ride my intelligence and interests into an academic career. But nobody encouraged me and I felt somewhat humiliated by these criticisms. I could never quite make it work.
When I read them now, I feel more heartened than I did at the time. I did some good work! Now, I would have liked to go to these faculty members and explored their criticisms. What might be done with my paper to improve it? Maybe now and, even at the time, it might be that if you couldn't see how to do it, then you just didn't get it. Maybe I feared that. By the time I got these evaluations (can you imagine how much work they were to write?), we were into the next quarter ad we all had a lot of work to do.
Picture of a closeup of my transcript, especially the seals.
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