🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <DIInuo.JKD@cunews.carleton.ca>,
Jake Galuga <jgaluga@chat.carleton.ca> wrote:
>Michael Barbour (mbarbour@chat.carleton.ca) wrote:
>
>> One thing that i think Carleton shoudl remember is that we ranked
>> number one in the area of highest percentage of student that had a
>> higher graduating average than they did an entrance average.  Meaning
>> that as easy as Carleton is to get in (in some people's opinion), it
>> is an excellent school it bettering their students' academic performances.
>
>I think that's the best way to judge a university.  From an
>
>Carleton makes something good out of the students whose marks may not
>have been so good prior to university.  
>
>That is something to be proud of.

Marks are just numbers.  In most cases, they are all relative.  Most 
courses tend to give "bell-curve" distribution type marks, so the marks 
are relative to other students in the class, and not necessarily to other 
classes at the same institution or a different program at a different 
institution. 

Standards can be different as well.  Programs at universities that let in
a higher quality of students tend to have higher expectations of them as 
well.  I am not making ANY comments about the quality of education at 
Carleton, as I have no idea what the programs are like, but saying that 
students marks improve, may say that the pace or material might be 
actually EASIER than these students have previously been used to.  

Having gone to two different universities, Queen's and Waterloo, I DO 
notice a big difference in courses among the two universities.  I went 
from getting an award for 1st year calculus at Queen's, to barely passing 
2nd year calculus at Waterloo.

So marks are definitely not a reflection of the quality and depth of 
knowledge that one has obtained IMO, but a way of ranking students 
relative to each other, based mostly on irrelevant criteria such as 
amount of time spent following professor's instructions, or ability to 
spit things up again, or ability to recall a small subset of knowledge 
under pressure.  Just because one student does numerically worse than 
another, doesn't mean they have any less understanding of the material, 
or any less ability to apply this knowledge in the so called "real world"  

An as far as Carleton providing a better "rate of return" this is simply 
as measured by numbers and not quality of knowledge.

Tanya