It's official: I'm slightly better than average. But I'm not getting cocky; the difference is not statistically significant. So actually, yeah, I'm probably average. And that's OK.
I have now received my grades for both of my syndicate assignments, which are:
- Marketing: 78
- Accounting 78
You might wonder what mark I received last term. I'm not shy. I'll tell you:
- Managing People for High Performance (MPFHP): 78 (update: my MPFHP mark was actually a 76)
This, of course, is no freakish coincidence. Melbourne Business School grades on a curve, and I'm pretty sure the mean of that curve is 77.
Update: I've been told the mean is actually more like 75, but the gist is the same.
I'll tell you why I love the curve:The curve opens upwondrouspossibilities or learning. You see, when I know that class average must be 77, I don't hesitate to take "hard" classes that I could otherwise avoid. For example, I'm not a fan of accounting, but might try my luck at a whole class on financial statement analysis. Why not? I'm not scared of a 75. And I won't favour an "easy" class like "Leadership" just to boost my GPA. A 79 won't make a difference.
Let me contrast this with McGillwhere I did my undergraduate degree. In McGill, my major -- Computer Science -- was "hard". I can tell it's hard for a number of reasons, but an easy way to tell is that the average mark hovered around a 65, which I think was C or C+. On my transcript, it was not unusual to see a C-, and even once, a D. Without context, this isn't too good. Don't worry, though, I was able to boost slightly my GPA by taking some "easy" classes. Among them:
- Sexual Ethics
- International Organization
- Understanding Planet Earth
- Space Time and Matter
Unfortunately, I was considerably more restricted in the classes I could take than a average McGill student so my GPA stayed low in absolute terms, although probably slightly higher than average for a computer science student. Still, this low GPA had real implications in finding my first job; a legacy which still haunts me in many respects to this day.
So embrace the curve. Ride it. And enjoy your 78.
1 comments:
I have good news for you: As dictated by the University of Melbourne grading system that we use, the mean of the grading curve for each course taught at MBS must fall between 74.5 and 75.5%. And if the class mean doesn't fall within this range -- say, it's at 77% -- everyone's scores get scaled down till it does. There are exceptions to this rule (i.e. the class mean could be 77%) but for that the professor needs special permission from the grading committee and this only happens when the class size is small and the course is particularly difficult or the class has done particularly well. I took 21 courses during my MBA and this exception occurred in only once.
So cheer up because your scores are above the mean in a statistically significant way and possibly even one entire standard deviation above the class mean (I say 'possibly' because the standard deviation varies from course to course).
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