It's Worse Than I Expected

I've mentioned before that I'll be taking a medicine/bio-focused Calc 1 class at a nearby community college.  I'm now completely registered and enrolled and my tuition is paid.  All I'm waiting for now is for the instructor to post information on what book we'll be using so I can go pick that up.

I had some difficulty applying to the college--I didn't fit any of the 3 categories of student I had to pick from (not too many people with master's degrees go to community college, I guess).  I called the admissions office and an extremely helpful lady walked me through the process over the phone.  No way would I have figured this out by myself.

At one point we needed my "student number", and to make things go more quickly she just looked it up.  "Wow," she said, "you must have gone here a long time ago."  I replied that I took a calculus course there when I was in high school, in the Fall of 1982.  When I asked how she could tell she said something like, "Your student number begins with 4.  The ones I see all the time begin with 152."

So anyway, I got registered and all and got access to the college's "eServices".  That sounded interesting, so I logged into that.  That's where I was eventually able to enroll in my class, pay my tuition, look up the textbook, check my student email, etc. 

It's also where I got to look up my transcript.

Let's back up a bit and I'll give you some background.  I graduated high school with a 4.00 GPA (we didn't have weighted courses of any kind) and was my class valedictorian.  After graduation I went to West Point and, in part because of my good academic standing, was able to spend the fall semester of my junior year as one of 6 exchange cadets to the Air Force Academy.  I graduated from West Point with a 3.76 GPA, was the highest-ranked math major in my graduating class, and I graduated 28th out of just over 1000 in my class.

My intent there wasn't to break my arm patting myself on the back, but to point out how much of my identity was and is tied up in being a good student.

As I said, I took calculus at this same community college 38 years ago, when I was a senior in high school.  At that time my school didn't offer calculus and it was considered an impressive achievement for my class that 6 (yes, 6!!!) of us were ready to take calculus as seniors.  I think all 6 of us did, but a friend and I registered for the same course both semesters.  Come spring, though, I just stopped going.  Senioritis, track, I just stopped going.  I don't remember doing any paperwork at all, I just stopped going.  All these years I've believed that if I were ever to look at my transcript, it would have an F on it.  A big, fat F.

So I looked up my transcript.  I was prepared to see that F.

There was no F there.  It was a W!  I don't have any memory at all of filling out any withdrawal paperwork for that class, but there it is on the transcript, a W!  No F!  Did the school do me a solid since I was a high school student, and just withdraw me from the course?  Did I actually go through the process and fill out the paperwork in the necessary time window?  I don't know, but there's no F!  Happy dance celebration time!

Until I saw my grade for the first semester, Calc 1.  It was a B!  I got a B!  In a math class!  What the heck?!  How could I not remember that?!  My expectation for that transcript was that I'd have an A and an F.  Instead it shows a B and a W.

That's worse than I expected.

While typing this post I got a call from a friend of mine from high school.  I told him about the B a couple days ago when I discovered it, and told him that I was in the middle of writing a blog post about it.  "Dude, that was 38 years ago.  You've gotta let that go."  Yes, it happened almost 38 years ago, but I just learned about it.  It's just a shock, that's all.  I don't recall ever getting a B in math, but I guess I did.  And I obviously came back from it, having earned a bachelor's and a master's degree in math, but still.

I'll admit, it's kind of a blow to my ego.