I had a short discussion with a friend of mine about grades and, more particularly, rank. I've previously mentioned that I don't really see grades as all that important, personally.* I will admit that they can be helpful in finding a job. We said a few sentences about rank, but I don't think I did a particularly good job articulating my position.
Rank is a different animal because it is so intimately connected with everyone else in your (in this case my) class. This is a problem for me becomes that I sort of divorce the number from the meaning. I don't like to think about it. I want my "rank to go up" in terms of the number, but I avoid thinking about the fact that for that to happen, someone else's rank must go down. I'm not stupid,** I know that's how it works, but that's an aspect I take no pleasure in.
Maybe it's different in other schools. Lots of schools have many more students than we do, and maybe things are less personal. Besides that, our school (or maybe just my class) is particularly non-competitive. I think we're extremely studious, on average, but we just don't feel like smashing each other. Couple that with the fact that I like nearly everyone in my class, and you can see why I have a certain distaste for the whole rank thing.
There's no help for it for now, I suppose, but to keep the cognitive dissonance rolling. I still hope for higher numbers, mainly because I want to find a decent job out of state and that means I have some unwarranted prejudice of my school to overcome. Why bring it up at all? Well, our grades came in and I had my best semester yet, better even than my very first semester. It seems so arbitrary, though. In ConLaw, for example, the professor just happened to ask a question on something I had very much paid attention to in class, so I had good notes in my outline. It could have been very different.
* Of course, I must admit to feeling happy and proud when I get good ones, but when it comes down to it, lasting happiness is in our relationships, not our transcripts.
** On average.
Well said
A lot of schools don't rank at all, so maybe you could just pretend you went to one of those schools.
P.S. - Happy de-lurking for myself (Can't wait for the skinny magic to happen), although I will be honest and say I'm a first-time lurker here. :)
No problem, Everyone's welcome! Thanks for stopping by.