Cambridge, MA - MIT electrical engineering professor
Dong Wong Chang used a quasi-random number
generator to assign semester grades to his undergraduate
students, departmental sources confirmed
Monday. Citing “the immense uncertainty that characterizes
the learning process,” Chang defended his
use of uniformly drawn random samples, which were
then converted into Gaussian-distributed course
grades.
“What kind of random bullshit is this?”
shouted exasperated MIT Junior John
Schroeder upon learning that his
assigned grade, a “D-”, had absolutely
no correlation with his test performance.
“You can't just give us grades arbitrarily!” he
fumed.
Freshman Katie Schmaltz, having been assigned an
“A,” was much more supportive of the policy, and
was quick to remind her classmate that his chances
of being assigned such an “abysmally low grade”
were, in fact, “vanishingly small.”
Shortly after news of Chang's methods became public,
he was quickly added to the Harvard College
admissions committee, where he will be
charged with streamlining the undergraduate
admissions process.
HSP
Issue 12
