Abby, I wholeheartedly agree with you that there is another exit from the rat race that is the 1L grading system aside from Rule 3.1.2. We certainly have the freedom and the capability to ignore the Scarlet B and not let it define our intelligence, our effort or our growth, and it is vitally important that all of us understand that.

But I honestly don't think that's a vision based in reality (at least for most of people). I can't speak for you, but I have found that I'm a person who unfortunately needs mechanisms in my life to help me break bad habits and reinforce good ones. On a small scale, that means I need to put my alarm on the other side of room or else I'll find myself right back in bed sleeping through my first class. It means turning off my WiFi? during class lest I spend half the lecture on the Internet. In this context, it means I know I'll find meaning in those meaningless letters on my transcript, no matter how many times I tell myself that it's a reflection of nothing more than my ability to hit 14 major points in under four hours, a skill that I likely will never be forced to replicate past these three years. I tell myself that, but I'll only half-believe it. I imagine most other people will feel the same way.

I think Credit-Fail acts as a mechanism to help me along the way, no more, no less. You're right that getting rid of those letters is not going to be my silver bullet. I will still need to remind myself constantly that I need to follow my own path and discover my own means of measuring my progress. But I don't think that refusing to subject myself to a measure that I know hinders that progress is a cowardly move in the slightest. We all have ideals of what we should be and how we should think, and we all need help getting from point A to point B, especially when that path is fraught with so many obstacles that are wrapped in our Self-Doubt. In the long run, removing one of those major obstacles may be the best way to succeed. And if so, we should do it.

I also disagree that choosing not to have grades means that we are in fact submitting ourselves to the system. Your statements that professors and classmates may look down on us and employers will see us as weak if we go C/F seems to imply that we should care about their reactions. Why? I appreciate your realist perspective that, in the end, grades often DO matter, but I actually think that in this case, you may be wrong. Honestly, the one great thing about EIP is that every firm that you're assigned to interview with has to interview with you no matter what your grades are. That set-up provides you with a golden opportunity, one in which you can eloquently explain that you choose not be measured by the arbitrariness of a four-hour period and suffer from all of the negative side effects that come along with that process. Instead, you have enough trust in your ability to learn the material that the exam's push from behind is wholly unnecessary. You are confident that the skills that the firm will find valuable - your writing, your work ethic, your personability, your analytical skills - are top-notch and wouldn't have changed one bit if those C's were moved up two letters in the alphabet. Yes, some firms will think you're weird and take a pass. But fuck them. Others will love you and your confidence, your creativity and your unwillingness to be a sheep. They'll understand that you're a person who can actually contribute to their work, and they'll treat you that way once you arrive.

One last note that will may make me sound like a bit of a hypocrite, but I'll put it out there anyway. I don't 100% share Eben's sentiment that grades are the worst thing known to man. In my academic experience, I often gain a great deal from the studying experience of looking at a course as a whole, taking the time to re-examine everything and trying to plug it into my brain. As I said, I personally respond to mechanisms and incentives, and I often feel that the threat of a bad mark at the end of the semester is the thing pushing me to learn and absorb the material in a way that I quite honestly wouldn't have the willpower to accomplish in the same way otherwise. Again, I'm guessing many people (though probably not everyone) feel the same way. I very much agree that there are many things about grades that are terrible - how we (and employers) lionize them, how poorly they often reflect our true abilities, how they often serve as a substitute for, instead of complement to, productive critical feedback, how they just make us crazy - but I'm not willing to go so far as to say they should be abandoned. But if that's what you think is better for you, you should take full advantage of it.

-- JaredMiller - 19 Apr 2012