I got my first midterm back today, and it was Developmental Psychology. I've mentioned that grading tends to work differently here than it generally does back in the States. For instance, last year in my English class, I got an 84 on a paper towards the end of the year. After class, my professor stopped me in the hallway and said, "That was a great paper. I don't give out grades like that very often." In philosophy (also last year), I had the highest mark in my class with an 86. So, before Dr. Bigelow (he he) returned our midterms, she did that thing where she writes out the general categories of scores people got. 80s: 5, 70s: 9, 60s: 13, 50s: 11, below 50: 13. Why do professors do this???? It is *very* stress inducing. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a direct causal correlation between this method of grade presentation and ulcers in students. Anyways, these numbers got me very freaked out, until I got my midterm back, and saw that I got an 81.5. Yay!! But I just thought it was interesting how quickly attending StFX has changed the way I react to grades.
