No More Comps!

Happy Monday, and Happy No More Comps Exam Day!

I'm not sure if I explained comps exams in prior blog entries, but a brief synopsis... In order to deem us worthy of the master's of science in education degree, Penn GSE has each of its cohorts complete some sort of culminating assignment....a thesis, a portfolio, a multiple-choice test, an essay exam, etc. These assignments go by the fear-inciting title of "THE COMPS." In the case of the Higher Education cohort, comps consist of two questions sent out to all cohort members at 8 AM on a Friday morning. Students read the two questions, choose one, and then answer it in 2000 words or fewer by the following Monday at 5 PM. This format is actually new to this year...last year, students had to come in and do the same sort of prompt in a mere three hours with no access to sources! Needless to say, I am VERY thankful for the change!

Now that I've submitted my exam, it's only a matter of waiting for the results! The grading responsibility is shared by all of the higher education professors here. Each paper is read by two professors (and there are no names on the papers so the professors don't know who we are...no preconceived notions!). Each paper is marked with a high pass, a pass, a low pass, or a remediate. If you get a remediate, it's really not the end of the world. You just get a chance to speak with whomever gave you that assessment, and then you make the appropriate changes and resubmit. I'm rather hoping that it doesn't happen to me, but if it does, I'll live through it! :-)

When I first heard about comps, it just sounded like an evil, evil...evil thing. I mean, here we are writing papers left and right, reading everything there is to read about higher ed., and they throw in ANOTHER test? However, I have come to see--at least a little bit--the merit of the comps. It's really not an opportunity for professors to fail us out of the program. The faculty here want us to succeed! And by seeing how we respond to a comps question, they see what we have and haven't learned, and where we might need improvement before we return to the real world.

So am I glad it's over? HECK YES. Would I do it again? Probably not. Did it teach me anything? Absolutely, and I've got to give it a little bit of credit for that!