PROFILE
I Failed Econ 101 and So Should You
By Bella Smith
Figure By CORE Econ
January 2, 2020. Durham, NC.
Last semester, I did what few high achieving Duke students would even dare to consider: I failed Econ 101 and did so calmly and with dignity. The experience was surprisingly pleasant, as it freed up a considerable amount of time for what I've deemed to be more worthy endeavors, and it did so without any considerable consequences. If you're anything like me, you should try failing econ. You won't regret it. At least, I don't.
At first, I was skeptical of such a deal. Could I really fail and face no meaningful repercussions, while being more intentional with my time? Duke dogma would think not. After some introspection and informative conversations, however, I realized that I had indeed stumbled upon a steal.
One of the most salient deterrents for failing a class is the perceived cost of not mastering, or grasping, the subject matter at hand. To find out what I had missed out on, I sat down with Lori Leachman, my economics professor.
“Well, you certainly missed out on comprehension,” she laughed. Though her assessment was correct, I suspected that even had I learned the material, my comprehension would have been considerably fleeting.
Fortunately, the research is established: college students forget most of the knowledge gained in any given course in just two years. Unless the information is purposefully and routinely built upon, say by pursuing an Economics major, the projected retention of an isolated class is dismal.
And that’s okay! The established economic Theory of Educational Signaling suggests that the value of an education arises not from the course knowledge a college student retains but from the degree’s ability to signal the student’s capacity to learn and work. My degree is valuable because it signals to potential employers that I can work really, really hard — regardless of whether or not I can draw you the cost curves for a monopoly.
But can my classmates work harder? The glitz and glamor of a Duke degree, or any college degree, holds no signaling power amidst intra-college competition – namely, in the scholarship and competitive job search when candidates are pitted against their classmates. The Getting-An-F Strategy, it seems, would fare unfavorably up against the sea of Duke students who are not yet employing that strategy.
I consulted Bill Wright-Swadel, Duke’s executive director of the Career Center and assistant VP of Student Affairs, seeking ramifications for my actions.
“Of course, there are consequences,” he exclaimed incredulously. “Big consulting firms – if you’re not a 3.75 or 3.8 and above, they’re not interested!... You are not going to be selected for programs in the federal government if your GPA is below 3.5. If you’ve got a 3.2, you’ll have a hell of a time getting into the Rhodes [scholarship]!” Though, what’s most important, Wright-Swadel concluded, is whether these consequences matter to you.
It's true, if I let my F drag down my graduating GPA, doors will indeed close. I will not be among the future Deloitte interns and Marshall Scholars sitting in my economics lecture.
According to Leachman, my F may even be charming to employers. My failure could be spun into what seems to be the Silicon Valley’s version of the Hero’s Journey. She explained, “You can choose to write about your failure in your cover letter” to convey to future employers “that I’m resilient, that I can push through.”
It’s more likely, however, that my F will amount to nothing more than an unsightly stain on an otherwise unremarkable and perfectly fine GPA. And while this stain may disqualify me from the race for the top-echelon of uber-competitive jobs or scholarships, I’ve come to accept that I don’t want to be in the running in the first place.
My failed economics class is indicative of a conscious trade off I’ve made between grade point excellence and my competing priorities and values. It’s a decision I’ve made time and time again in college, though usually in more understated ways.
Every decision that we make carries an opportunity cost, which is a term I first learned from Leachman herself, who labeled it one of the “two most important takeaways from [her] discipline.” Whether the costs of our decision-making are consequential, that is, significant to us, is solely a function of our own priorities and worldview.
At a place like Duke, where Dean Milton Blackmon has described a student body that “internalizes GPA as part of their value,” the principal consequence of failing a class will come from within. Aside from being an obvious narrow measure of self-worth, conflating your grades with your abilities may lead to underestimating your own abilities and a lower sense of self-efficacy.
“In this pool, you may be the 1700th student out of 1700 [in your class], but you are still in the top percent of learners,” Wright-Swadel said. We must establish a healthy dissonance between self-efficacy and undergraduate performance, especially for feminine-identifying students who report a declining average sense of self-efficacy as they progress through Duke.
If I choose to avoid economics, and other quantitative studies, because I feel that I am less competent relative to the skewed pool I am studying within, then I have internalized the most dangerous consequence of failing a class: diminished self-trust. Losing perspective on this stands as the only lasting ramification to failing a class.
Failing a class is the same as failing to signal to yourself that you are capable of achieving. So long as you practice a realistic separation between your self-worth and your performance, failing a class, or maybe even Econ 101, can be a worthwhile experience.
So, take that, Mom and Dad.
At first, I was skeptical of such a deal. Could I really fail and face no meaningful repercussions, while being more intentional with my time? Duke dogma would think not. After some introspection and informative conversations, however, I realized that I had indeed stumbled upon a steal.
One of the most salient deterrents for failing a class is the perceived cost of not mastering, or grasping, the subject matter at hand. To find out what I had missed out on, I sat down with Lori Leachman, my economics professor.
“Well, you certainly missed out on comprehension,” she laughed. Though her assessment was correct, I suspected that even had I learned the material, my comprehension would have been considerably fleeting.
Fortunately, the research is established: college students forget most of the knowledge gained in any given course in just two years. Unless the information is purposefully and routinely built upon, say by pursuing an Economics major, the projected retention of an isolated class is dismal.
And that’s okay! The established economic Theory of Educational Signaling suggests that the value of an education arises not from the course knowledge a college student retains but from the degree’s ability to signal the student’s capacity to learn and work. My degree is valuable because it signals to potential employers that I can work really, really hard — regardless of whether or not I can draw you the cost curves for a monopoly.
But can my classmates work harder? The glitz and glamor of a Duke degree, or any college degree, holds no signaling power amidst intra-college competition – namely, in the scholarship and competitive job search when candidates are pitted against their classmates. The Getting-An-F Strategy, it seems, would fare unfavorably up against the sea of Duke students who are not yet employing that strategy.
I consulted Bill Wright-Swadel, Duke’s executive director of the Career Center and assistant VP of Student Affairs, seeking ramifications for my actions.
“Of course, there are consequences,” he exclaimed incredulously. “Big consulting firms – if you’re not a 3.75 or 3.8 and above, they’re not interested!... You are not going to be selected for programs in the federal government if your GPA is below 3.5. If you’ve got a 3.2, you’ll have a hell of a time getting into the Rhodes [scholarship]!” Though, what’s most important, Wright-Swadel concluded, is whether these consequences matter to you.
It's true, if I let my F drag down my graduating GPA, doors will indeed close. I will not be among the future Deloitte interns and Marshall Scholars sitting in my economics lecture.
According to Leachman, my F may even be charming to employers. My failure could be spun into what seems to be the Silicon Valley’s version of the Hero’s Journey. She explained, “You can choose to write about your failure in your cover letter” to convey to future employers “that I’m resilient, that I can push through.”
It’s more likely, however, that my F will amount to nothing more than an unsightly stain on an otherwise unremarkable and perfectly fine GPA. And while this stain may disqualify me from the race for the top-echelon of uber-competitive jobs or scholarships, I’ve come to accept that I don’t want to be in the running in the first place.
My failed economics class is indicative of a conscious trade off I’ve made between grade point excellence and my competing priorities and values. It’s a decision I’ve made time and time again in college, though usually in more understated ways.
Every decision that we make carries an opportunity cost, which is a term I first learned from Leachman herself, who labeled it one of the “two most important takeaways from [her] discipline.” Whether the costs of our decision-making are consequential, that is, significant to us, is solely a function of our own priorities and worldview.
At a place like Duke, where Dean Milton Blackmon has described a student body that “internalizes GPA as part of their value,” the principal consequence of failing a class will come from within. Aside from being an obvious narrow measure of self-worth, conflating your grades with your abilities may lead to underestimating your own abilities and a lower sense of self-efficacy.
“In this pool, you may be the 1700th student out of 1700 [in your class], but you are still in the top percent of learners,” Wright-Swadel said. We must establish a healthy dissonance between self-efficacy and undergraduate performance, especially for feminine-identifying students who report a declining average sense of self-efficacy as they progress through Duke.
If I choose to avoid economics, and other quantitative studies, because I feel that I am less competent relative to the skewed pool I am studying within, then I have internalized the most dangerous consequence of failing a class: diminished self-trust. Losing perspective on this stands as the only lasting ramification to failing a class.
Failing a class is the same as failing to signal to yourself that you are capable of achieving. So long as you practice a realistic separation between your self-worth and your performance, failing a class, or maybe even Econ 101, can be a worthwhile experience.
So, take that, Mom and Dad.
Bella Smith for David Graham's Magazine Journalism Class