Can you be a drunk and get good grades?

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday October 01, 2018 · 9:41 PM PDT

2018/10/01 · 21:41

I am about two years older than Brett Kavanaugh and with all the news about him, I am reminded of my college days. My first semester I was 17, and the drinking age was 18. It was a college town, and we pretty much could go to bars as long as we weren’t obnoxious about it. My experience with drinking was pretty limited compared to Kavanaugh’s alleged hard drinking. It makes me wonder that he must really smart to be able to drink so much, and yet succeed at Yale law school.

For me, the academic side was at times pretty difficult at a state univ engineering school.. There were a few classes that were very difficult. One class was graded on a curve because average scores on tests were 15% correct. So a guy who scored a 25% got an A. One of the last senior level classes I took was a lab class. There were 3 experiment projects that you had to perform and present. You needed good technical writing, good organization to run a an experiment, good analytical skills to understand and explain the issues, and you also had to give a good presentation. This was a 2 credit class that felt like it was 5 credits. It was a lot of work, and I think I got a C. The thing I remember at the very end, was one of the guys in my class, who was in a frat, showed us his A grade. And then he also showed his library of A grade lab reports from 2-5 years earlier that his fraternity had. In a way, it made me feel better about my lousy grade in that class.

RSS