As a school that is well-known for its academic standards and rigor, SBU fails to provide feedback to students. I am one of the unfortunate students to miss out on the deadline for withdrawing from my fall semester classes. If only my professors had more evaluation criteria and if they released my midterm grades, I could have prevented a sudden drop in my gpa, and my self-esteem.
One exam and a final is never enough for a 4 credit course that essentially requires at least (4 times 3) 12 hours of work per week. If professors insist on evaluating students based on such minimal measures, then they should be encouraged, even mandated to give out midterm grades to students.
Some professors might resist giving out midterm grades simply because of how the class work is distributed throughout the semester. A student’s grade at the mid-point of the class might not be a good reflection of how he/she will perform at the end. But there are more benefits to monitoring your progress during the semester, rather than at the end when we are forced to stick with our final grades.
Midterm grades will force students to realize how they are performing. Some students might want to ignore their classes until the very end of the semester. But mandatory midterm grades will bring students back down to reality. They will force them to think about academics before finals and set their priorities straight.
Incoming freshmen will benefit most from such a change. A lot of freshmen are not used to the college way of grading, and so they may need to be reminded. In fact, helping incoming freshmen to stay out of academic trouble could keep them enrolled longer. This will undoubtedly aid SBU’s retention rate.
Posting midterm grades online seems like a very easy process. Professors have to keep track of their students’ grades anyway, so they might as well put all the grades online so students can check on their progress at any time. This will not take too much time, and it won’t cost a lot. A lot of professors already provide feedback to their students. Mandating this will ease the professor’s job, cut down the red tape, and most importantly, benefit the student.
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