How missing an 'A' grade was a blessing

Grades don't matter in life, Right? Well, actually, they don't. No one has ever asked me for my transcript. But that only means that grades don't matter to others. But some grades mean a lot to yourself. I still remember a couple of my grades since there are stories behind those grades.

My first semester in IITK as a student. I was doing well academically, and was looking forward to a CPI of 10.0. But in the month of November, I fell ill. The illness lasted about 3 weeks. My favorite course that semester was "Engineering Drawing." I was doing extremely well. There was a question in first mid-sem which was solved only by me in the whole class. I drew all those top views and front views so neatly that I will get not only 10/10 but also a comment from the instructor that I deserved 11. (Why he didn't give 11 then will remain a mystery.) So it was the day of the end-sem. And I had 100+ fever. Had no energy to stand for 3 hours drawing all those views. I was debating with myself. Should I go to Health Center, get a medical certificate and take the make up exam a few days later, or should I just go and do whatever I could. I only needed a few marks more to get an 'A' grade in the course. I decided on the latter.

However, luck was not with me. I could not stand even for a few minutes. I requested a chair, but I was told that I had to take the exam in the same condition as all other students. Fair enough, but my body was too weak. I fell down. Got up, took another paracetamol, kept sitting on the floor for some time, then stood up and tried again, and finally gave up. Next day, I went to UG office to request a makeup. Sorry, your name is not in the list of absentees. So no, makeup. I missed getting an 'A' grade by a whisker.

I remained sad for some time. I even tried to apply for repeating the course as an overload so that I could get an 'A' grade. This was the course that I owned, and a 'B' in this caused more hurt than 10 other Bs that I will get in future semesters. In fact, other Bs I didn't care about at all.

But a couple of months later, it dawned upon me that a 'B' grade in the first semester is the best thing that can happen to any student. It liberated me. If you were not in the race for PGM, then how does it matter whether your CPI is 9.9 or 9.7 or 9.5. I wasn't thinking of doing MS/PhD then. And the next seven semesters, I enjoyed life. I was in every council, both at hostel level and institute level. I attended more Students' Senate meetings than any Senator (and I was not a Senator). I was in Institute Hockey Team. Attended every cultural function. Watched every movie. Read books. Did a lot of programming. Read old journals in diverse topics - Economics, Philosophy, and Computer Networks. That helped me in figuring out that I wanted to study Computer Networking. That one 'B' grade had changed my life and I remain thankful to God for that.

Why am I remembering this today. Well, one of the things that I have tried to do in the last 25 years is to help students who have been ill during the end-semester exam. IIT Kanpur allows instructors a lot of freedom in dealing with any issue in the course, and I make full use of that autonomy. And, this semester, one of the students, who was in the top few in my course till the end-semester exam, fell ill and missed the exam. The rules required him to get a medical certificate from Health Center, and then take the exam on a specific day on campus. But he was in no situation to come to campus. Senate had recently passed that if someone is unable to give both the main exam or the make up exam, instructors can assign a 0 in end-sem and assign an appropriate grade (earlier, the language was confusing and some believed that missing an end-sem would get you an F grade even if you were the topper). He needed just a few marks in the end-sem to get an 'A' grade. So I made use of the instructor's autonomy and arranged his exam at his hospital. Assigning him a 'B' grade would have caused the same sadness in me that I had faced 35 years ago.