As I start a new academic year, I find myself pushing my graduate students to focus less on grades and more on learning. I urge them to aspire to a higher level of thinking. To focus on solving problems, and not cramming for tests. To consider viable, alternative, courses of action rather than check boxes to meet requirements for an assignment. To stop being students, but to be competent, and emotionally intelligent business people.
There are those that get it, and those that never will. I think our culture of grades can be counter-productive to the learning process. To see my students evolve, as they push their minds and shift the intellectual paradigm is personally rewarding. Most of them will join me on this journey. Unfortunately, there will always be those who strive for a grade, but lose the higher purpose. Oh well. You can’t win em all.
About Hemant Rustogi