Proficient Is Sufficient

Midterms ended last Friday. The results are in and the news is positive. I need to work doubly hard in two classes if I want to guarantee a strong finish. Otherwise, proficient all around. And, as we say here at SOM, proficient is sufficient.

It's a tremendous relief to be done with midterms/finals. During that week, I got 1 hour of sleep on Sunday and Monday nights; and three hours on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. A little cold at the beginning of week turned into a terrible one by the end of it. With so little sleep and so much caffeine, my body didn't stand a chance in fighting off the illness. I managed to sleep a lot over the weekend though and am now as good as new.

While I would definitely consider this the most intense academic experience of my life, I did okay. I feel calm moving forward with the program and am confident in my ability to succeed here. These midterms were very validating.

P.S. One thing that I had forgotten about the grading at schools is how inconsistent it can be. You can have the exact same answer as someone else, but receive a different number of points. That drives me crazy; especially since it seems to be me with the lower number of points nearly every time. I hope the TAs are a little more generous with me come finals. LOL.

Another thing that bugs me is the "class participation" grade. This is used to justify giving higher marks to teacher's pets, even though other students scored higher on exams and were generally more familiar with the material.

Both of these things happen at all schools. So, it's nothing against Yale. It's just generally not very cool.