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I hate fizzy water , and I like these better when they are full.

Someone called me on my comments the other day about grades and the assignment I had to do. I'm glad about that, because this is basically where I just write crap that can't be backed up, and think about it later, wishing I hadn't written it exactly how I did. Being challenged gives me a chance to rethink and update my thoughts.

In this case I think I was a little overly ticked off about having to do the report, but I think my reasoning stands. The point was raised that grades are good for helping HR people decide who to hire.

I guess I was not aware that the Universities goal was to make life easier for HR people. My goal sure isn't. My goal is to learn and explore ideas and concepts. Anything that gets in the way of that is counter-productive.

Grades in and of themselves are not bad, but they have a tendency to become the goal, and more priority is placed on them than on learning.

Likewise, writing a paper is not bad either, so long as it is serving to facilitate learning, or some other real-life goal, rather than to facilitate a grade. In this recent case, we prepared a presentation, which was very learningful because we had an opportunity to try our ideas out in semi-real-life settings. We also presented these ideas to others so that they can benefit as well. All the time for the paper however was spent formating the already old ideas into a structure that will benefit no one. Even since the presentation, some of my ideas had changed, but there is no time to both explore them and format it and hand it in. I think the time would have been much more well spent exploring the new ideas rather than rehashing the old ones... which we all did, and only for a grade.

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