I'm watching Anderson Cooper 360 and they want to get DNA from an old pair of Michael Jackson's underwear they found in storage. I know they're doing their job and child molestation is a serious charge, but honestly, who puts their underwear in storage?
Oh, I must say thanks to Davo, since I stole this title from him.
The New York Times did an interesting article on ending grade inflation - using statistics to weight each class by professor and subject. It's an interesting thought, but I have a question: if the average grade a professor gives in a given class is a B+, then you would never be able to get a full 10 out of 10 in the weighting system. Now what if your curriculum requires lots of classes like that? In other words, would it become possible that some majors simply do not contain enough rigerous courses to get the highest grades and therefore graduate with honours?
I'd say one thing we really need to be looking at is the grading in liberal arts courses. It is generally accepted that they tend to be easier than say, engineering. However, I know lots of people who scored badly in verbal or can't write a coherant paper. My neighbor even admitted one of his papers had no thesis! Liberal arts teachers need to be tougher when they're grading, especially essays. It's far too easy to knock something together at the last minute and still get A's. Then again, I am the beneficiary of such A's, so maybe I shouldn't complain so loudly, after all, I don't get my degree (with honours) for another two weeks.