Comment on Defeating Ugh Fields In Practice

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 16:23:46 GMT

It is indeed a problem, but it will be present any time you want to offer any type of incentive towards good academic performance. The proper solution is to tighten grading standards in humanities, not to take it as a given and drop the idea of merit-based incentives altogether. Or you could establish different subsidy rates for each department, but 1) it's an inelegant hack and 2) it's a political minefield.

(Somewhat related: a little over a year ago I was looking at applying for studying at the Université du Québec. It turned out that, for the purpose of converting the grades one gets during a bachelor's degree from an Italian university, they actually had separate tables depending on your course of studies. Had I been a philosophy or literature student, only my straight 30/30s would have been turned into As; as a math student, 27/30 and above would have sufficed.)

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