I would really hate it if today’s politically-charged insanity
gave birth to a new standard. What
happens in college stays in college. It’s
not that I have anything to hide. I
would rather not have the distraction of defending my youthful preferences and peccadilloes
on a public stage.
College is a journey; not a destination. The person I was upon graduation was vastly
different than the one who entered those hallowed halls. The person I am today is even more
removed. The years I spent in that
intellectual incubator were not, for me, an opportunity to show how smart I
could be. Instead, it was a treasure
hunt. There were many areas in which I
excelled. There were an equal number at
which I was not as good. I took many
classes because I felt that they should be a mandatory part of a certain type
of education. Others were required
courses that I dispatched as quickly and easily as possible.
I would hate to be questioned about how I satisfied my
General Sciences distribution requirements.
The courses I took could barely be described as science. This would have created serious problems for
me during my career when I managed an effort to bring to market the first
turnkey electronic medical record product.
My credibility would have been seriously undermined had I appeared
before those rooms of physicians with my college transcript projected on the
screen behind me. I would have failed to
engage their attention demonstrating the future of electronic data capture
if they were fixated on my lack of medical credentials. Instead of dazzling them with online alerts,
integrated digital images, and predictive text generation, they would have
discredited me and hence the message I was delivering.
I would hate to reveal my grade in Hum 5. I took this course because it taught the
foundation of Western thought. Before
this, I had never read anything that could be called philosophy—not even in a
random passage on the SAT. I loved Plato
and Aristotle but really struggled with Aquinas and Nietzsche. In that struggle, however, a door opened to
my analytical self, helping to refine the critical eye that would serve me so
well throughout my career. In the end,
it was not the grade that mattered to me.
What I carried forward was worth so much more.
I would hate for my kids to see my Calculus grade. In fact, I did not attend a single class
after the first week of the semester. It was at an
inconvenient time in a very remote location.
The lectures were brutal and the snow was deep. The
teaching fellow did a 4-hour review for me the day before the final. I was fortunate to pass the class at all, but
my poor performance cost me an honors distinction by 1/100 of a point.
I would hate to be judged for taking an English class that
had no papers. It was a notorious “gut”
class; twice weekly lectures with a midterm and a final. But the topic was Samuel Johnson, and the professor,
the late W. Jackson Bate. Bate had just
written the definitive modern biography of Dr. Johnson, for which he was
awarded the Pulitzer Prize. In my high
school AP English class, we were charmed by Samuel Johnson stories, reading
heavily from Boswell’s journals. While
most of the students in this class were there to fulfill an easy Humanities
requirement, as a music major I had more than my fair share of such classes. This class was a guilty pleasure. I devoured the readings and hung on every
word of the lectures.
It is a wise decision that colleges hold such records
confidential. Not since my very first
job interview—a firm that recruited on campus—has any prospective employer
asked to see my college transcripts. For
that occasion, Harvard graciously supplied a low-tech masterpiece: a colored
Xerox of my course record with grades entered by hand, the Harvard seal
embossed through the entries. On it was
a hand-stamped message in Crimson ink that said, somewhat brazenly, “This is a
Red Stamp.” Any attempt to reproduce
this official document would result in a ridiculous black-and-white version of
that message.
What can you really learn from my college transcript? That I placed out of half, but not all, of my
foreign language requirement? That
despite my graduate degree in Health Policy and the career that followed, I
spent my college years pursuing a degree in music? That I was distracted during sophomore and
junior years, but found academic redemption in my senior year? That I took a wide array of courses that
ranged from the Arab-Israeli crisis to the History of Science and
Medicine? That my intellectual leanings
tend more toward the humanities than math and science?
These only tell half of the story. The truth behind my transcript is that it
reflects a young woman with intellectual curiosity who knew enough upon
entering college to realize that she had not yet found herself or her
calling. As I tell my own kids, college
is the one time in your life to try it all.
It is that grey zone between the structure of high school and the
responsibilities of real life during which you must critically question your
life’s trajectory. Some people make
incremental adjustments; in my case the adjustments were monumental.
In the final analysis, all that matters is that you played
all the innings and finished the game.
When caps and gowns are donned, every student receives the same piece of
parchment. On graduation day, the ledger
books are closed. What is most important is what you do next.
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