“…[D]edicated to all the teachers who told me I’d never amount to nothin’…”
After graduating law school, I’d figured I had the last laugh by getting out of there with a degree, a handful of great friends who I think will keep in touch with me, grades better than I would have settled for had you asked me first year, and, most importantly, a job and a functioning marriage. While it’s still too early to tell if I “liked” or “disliked” law school, I would have told you a week ago that at least my last year was more “sweet” than “bitter.” That was until, of course, I found out last week that law school got the last laugh.
Now, as “Wifey” will surely tell you, I am what you would call a “last word freak.” I’d take two shots to deliver that killer one-liner that so often happens in TV land but so rarely happens in real life. So, with that introduction, you can imagine how upset I am that law school flipped the script on me and pummeled me last week.
See, unlike most law schools, our law school, because it thinks it is special, waits over a month (usually 5-6 weeks) past the end of finals week to give us our grades, EVEN for graduating students. This means that, paradoxically, I graduated over four weeks before I found out if my grades were good enough to graduate or not. And we don’t get more for our wait, either. Our school does not report class rank, does not report class tiers, and makes you wait an additional two weeks to find out if you made the “Dean’s List” or not. All in all, it’s pretty shitty.
On to the meat of the story. This year at graduation, I thought I had finally beaten the system. As I was waiting in line for the graduation procession (the procession of all the graduating students to the University-wide graduating ceremony) to begin, a professor came up to me who I had had several times before and whom I generally had a good relationship with. After chatting with a few other students, this professor came up close to me and said in a low tone, and I quote, “
Congratulations Mike. You pulled it off again. I just checked the grade report. Don’t tell anyone I told you.” Then, the professor went to talk to someone else. Needless to say, I was on Cloud Nine, although even I had to admit I wasn’t quite sure what the statement signified. But, I was as happy as a pig in shit for the next day or two as I attempted to figure out what the statement meant. Did I make an A+ in that professor’s class? Straight As in all of my classes? How good did I do? What if they weren’t talking about grades? No, you idiot, they HAD to be talking about grades or they would not have followed the statement with the fact that they had seen the grade report. But what did they mean by the statement that I had done it “again”? What did I do the first time? And how good did I do? I’m speeeciallllllllllllll!!!!!!!
Well, you get the idea – I was really happy for a while. But then, as I thought about it, I became upset. So upset that I knew I would have chosen NOT to hear the statement if I’d had the choice. This is because certain things had become apparent to me:
1. It had become apparent that I had lost all bounds of reasonableness regarding the statement. In other words, I kept imagining my grades higher and higher, and I knew that no realistic GPA would satisfy me. I realized the statement had taken me to the point where I was going to be disappointed unless I got some unrealistically high GPA, like a 4.0, which is virtually unattainable in law school.
2. The statement more or less proved that the administration and the faculty knows our grades a week after finals are over (or thereabouts) and yet makes us wait another month just to know our own damn grades.
3. The professor knows what each student got in their class. This means that after the anonymous grading process is over, the registrar gets back to the professor a list of grades corresponding to students, without the students having a choice. Not to mention, the professor also knows the student’s grade weeks before the student does.
4. If I had interpreted the statement the right way, it seems the faculty might also know our grades in other professor’s classes.
5. Knowing myself and who I am, both in my eyes and in other professors’ eyes, I know I’m not that special. And I just got special treatment from a professor. And if I’m not that special, and I got special treatment, how many truly “special” people are also getting special treatment? Does everyone know their grades? Am I the last person to get a “oh, by the way, good job, asshole”? Does everyone else have their complete GPA already? Are they looking at me and laughing? What the hell is going on?
So, to make a long story short, add four weeks of suffering onto two days of joy, and you have yours truly for the last month. I was a wreck every time I thought about grades, but, as time goes on, and other challenges present itself, you move on. I had basically reached a point where although I was upset that I had ever heard the statement in the first place, and although I had to realize that I had very high expectations (which it took a while to bring back to reality), and although the statement changed my whole world-view of my law school, my professors, my peers, and my place in the middle of it all, at least I could hang my hat on the fact that I had gotten really good grades. At least I had “pulled it off.” Right?
WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. I was screwed. I was boned in the ass. I was bamboozled. I was “funked.” There was absolutely nothing special about my grades, my GPA, my performance, or anything. It was total, utter, and complete bullshit. My grades were absolutely unspectacular, even adjusting for my high expectations. I to this day can think of no reasonable meaning to that professor’s statement, other than to screw with me, and I thought we had a good relationship. I have asked some people what the professor must have meant by that statement, and no one has given me any satisfying answers.
Q -- Was my overall GPA great?
A -- No. My GPA was not even the sole personal best GPA I had earned while in law school.
Q – Did the professor mean I made the Dean’s List?
A – Maybe. There might be a possibility that I squeaked on to the Dean’s List (it is not announced for another week). But like I said, this was not even my sole personal best GPA, and certainly nothing that warranted a discreet, personal congratulations.
Q-- Well, maybe the professor just meant I did well in their class.
A-- My grade in the individual professor’s class who gave me the statement was not that good. It was not even my personal highest grade in one of that professor’s classes before. In fact, it was LOWER than what I had expected, and I usually do not get a “feeling” about an individual class. This made the professor’s words particularly bitter.
Q – Was there one class this semester that I did particularly great in?
A -- No. Not one singularly noteworthy grade.
So, basically I was left totally emasculated. Even though my semester GPA would be what I would have considered good (but not “great”) before this whole fiasco, the experience took what would have been a pleasing day and totally robbed me of any enjoyment I otherwise would have had.
Now, I hope you understand what I meant when I said that school had the last laugh over me. I also hope you understand that I didn’t write this just to whine about my grades. There’s definitely something else there (or a lot of somethings, I should say) that bothered me, and would continue to bother me, even if I had not been misled by someone who I had held in fairly high regard. I can’t quite put it all into words, but I can say that one of those things is a hatred for “special treatment.” Now, I had been on the receiving end of special treatment in high school and college (both good and bad, but mostly good), and had generally been left out in law school, but I had quite a few friends who got the ST in law school. A little extra “face time” here and there, a comment or confidential information that most other students would not be privy to, an unsolicited email or phone call offering help or encouragement, a full-out search to help someone get a good job, institution of a policy that would help one class of people over others, or even an early “grade report,” apparently. I think it all sucks. It doesn’t take much to make an honest student feel uneasy about it, it sure doesn’t take much to make an honest student angry or hurt when he hears of someone else getting it, and, I should add, painting the professor who was the subject of this post in the fairest light possible, it damn sure doesn’t take a lot for a student to misconstrue it.
I guess that’s all I have to say. I didn’t know where this post was going when I started it, and I still don’t really know where I am. Maybe I’m just cynical about the whole law school experience, but in the end, there were no surprises. The most accomplished students going in were the most accomplished students going out. I wasn’t at the very top of the food chain, but I did good. I did better than most. And, in case I was wondering, I got a glimpse into what it would be like to be near the summit, with all the perks and privileges that attach for some. And you know what? It tasted more bitter than sweet.
