Filling out job apps; grades

I am filling out job apps for part time teaching jobs and suddenly a yukky bitterness about those A minuses. 3.89, so close. I hate that! Goddamn it!

Still scarred like hell from being grounded 6 weeks every time I got a B in jr. high.

A minuses... as I contemplate my transcript I think I could justify one of them for sloppiness, but the others I think were based on the personally high expectations of the profs of me and not on how I did in any absolute scheme of things. If someone else had written my papers they would have given them a plain old A. But because they expected me to be some big ass genius because I can shoot my mouth off well in class, I got A minuses... that's how I feel about it. I worked so hard, had fucking original ideas and huge ambitions, why not give me the perfect grade, assholes? INstead of sticking me in underachiever hell for the rest of my life as I have to write down that number, 3.89, so close. If only... if only... too sloppy... better checking... more feedback loops... not good enough.

I know it's petty and maybe doesn't matter but it matters to me.

Comments

[Jo]

What kind of teaching gigs are they? part time meaning one class at a time, or a position in a school?

[Lori S.]

I can show you my transcript if it would make you feel better. I was shocked at how haphazard it looked when I was doing the grad school application thing.

[Trish A.]

Hi, I'm de-lurking for this comment. I agree with Lori S., I can show you my transcripts if it would make you feel better :-). I had a huge adjustment in my second M.A. program -- they didn't award letter grades! You "passed" if you earned the equivalent of an A or a B but we received a narrative evaluation and weren't told if it was an A or not. I was surprised how much it bothered me not to know "how" I was doing according to a traditional scale. But I grew to love the feedback that focused on what I actually did, rather than the letter grade. That said, I really decided to comment because I've encountered really interesting attitudes about GPA when I've interviewed. One person asked me (about my first M.A. program 4.0 gpa) is a 4.0 indicated I was a perfectionist. He made it clear he did not mean it in a good way! He did eventually hire me, so I guess I had some kind of good BS answer. So, your 3.89 might be an advantage in some ways :-). Thanks for writing a blog that always makes me think!