RE: Were you a high GPA student?
August 31, 2015 at 10:03 am
(This post was last modified: August 31, 2015 at 10:07 am by Whateverist.)
To understand me and my GPA, you'd have to have been there when I brought some paper home from school with a "C" on it and my mother immediately put it on the refrigerator. She did not mean this as a slight. She, a high school drop out, was proud of me. So rule out pressure from home.
Through high school and the next year at a local JC, my grades were very mediocre. My M.O. was to start each course off at a B level and gradually let that sink to a low C or D. Basically, at that time I never made any effort outside of class. However, when I went to class I was always very focused even if I didn't take notes. I think I probably test better than I deserve. I never did any prep for the SAT tests but earned scholarship based on those since I had C average in high school.
Then in my late twenties after reading a lot of psychology and philosophy on my own I got accepted to UC Berkeley as 2nd year transfer student majoring in philosophy. I was very strict with myself. All papers had to be finished in time for me to re-read them and revise before submitting. First quarter I had an above 4.0 average because of Fred Dretski a visiting professor who taught the introductory Theory of Knowledge class I took. I didn't expect to enjoy the class, seeing myself as more of an ethics minded guy. But I think my writing has always benefited from having an instructor I respected. Since he gave me an A+, a friend who was a graduate student there encouraged me to ask for a letter of recommendation. It was very supportive and I remember being surprised that he described the papers I'd written as being at least the equal of all the graduate students taking the course. At the time I was a little insecure about my writing so that really made a difference for me.
I finished my undergraduate degree with a GPA a little under 4, mostly because I took a couple graduate courses at the urging of this same graduate student, Paul Loeb who despite talking dismissively about the value of philosophy the whole time I was there went on to become a professor of philosophy himself somewhere in the northwest.
Through high school and the next year at a local JC, my grades were very mediocre. My M.O. was to start each course off at a B level and gradually let that sink to a low C or D. Basically, at that time I never made any effort outside of class. However, when I went to class I was always very focused even if I didn't take notes. I think I probably test better than I deserve. I never did any prep for the SAT tests but earned scholarship based on those since I had C average in high school.
Then in my late twenties after reading a lot of psychology and philosophy on my own I got accepted to UC Berkeley as 2nd year transfer student majoring in philosophy. I was very strict with myself. All papers had to be finished in time for me to re-read them and revise before submitting. First quarter I had an above 4.0 average because of Fred Dretski a visiting professor who taught the introductory Theory of Knowledge class I took. I didn't expect to enjoy the class, seeing myself as more of an ethics minded guy. But I think my writing has always benefited from having an instructor I respected. Since he gave me an A+, a friend who was a graduate student there encouraged me to ask for a letter of recommendation. It was very supportive and I remember being surprised that he described the papers I'd written as being at least the equal of all the graduate students taking the course. At the time I was a little insecure about my writing so that really made a difference for me.
I finished my undergraduate degree with a GPA a little under 4, mostly because I took a couple graduate courses at the urging of this same graduate student, Paul Loeb who despite talking dismissively about the value of philosophy the whole time I was there went on to become a professor of philosophy himself somewhere in the northwest.
