Failure to Get Magna Honors

I finished my last final this morning. It was for Relational Communication Theory, and I think I did very well. Despite the grade, I will be getting a B for the class. Not an A- like I wanted, or the B+ that would have had to do. No, I got a B. I am guaranteed not to get magna cum laude honors. Needless to say, I am horribly disappointed.

There is a lesson to be learned, though. The grade does not reflect my knowledge of the material, but it does reflect my lack of effort to do the busywork that I disliked. Arnold Waddell gave a wise suggestion: in grad school, if I encounter busywork, I should immediately arrange with the professor for an alternative assignment. This way, I would still demonstrate effort but bypass menial coursework where I wouldn’t learn anything new. That’s the lesson.

I regret not having done the work. It is definitely my fault for receiving the grade. Though I am deeply disappointed at myself, I will have to live with the consequences of my decisions. Moreover, on a karmic level, I deserve the B. Two years ago, I took another class with this professor. For this class also, there was busywork. And, for this class also, I chose not to do the busywork until I realized how much it affected my grade. At the end of the semester, I went to him with the late work. He suspected that I was lying. So, he asked me if the work really was misplaced within the department. I lied straight-faced to him that it was. My punishment for that blatant lie is soft if all I am getting is just a B. I could be expelled. Since that lie, I have felt guilty. Where was my integrity? Not getting magna is my punishment for that lie. Though I do not have magna honors, my GPA is still at least within the regular honors’ range. I must be grateful for that, and consider the punishment as absolution for my lie. At any rate, I will just have to accept the GPA and work with it. I will have to prove to myself, my future employers and to my grad school in other ways that I am MBA-material.