Word: optional
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...What can Harvard do then to revive the original purpose behind the pass/fail option? The answer is simple: make pass/fail reversible. At Dartmouth and Columbia, pass/fail students get the opportunity at the end of the course to turn their Ps into grades, if they so desire...
...This minor change transforms the pass/fail option from a preemptive admission of defeat—one which most overachievers are unwilling to settle for—into a sort of grade insurance. If, as usual, they pulled it out in the end, they could always cash in their Ps for shinier, more respectable-looking...
...other respects, the pass/fail system would remain entirely the same. The College could still impose a limit of one pass/fail class a semester, and professors could still exercise their right to disallow pass/fail students in their classes. For those students who use the pass/fail option to avoid doing work—and we all know they exist—the ability to reverse their decision would only add to the incentive to strive for success. (Allowing the reverse, that is for students to change grades into Ps, would weaken the incentive for success...
...This new system would encourage students to take the intellectual risks they’ve been nervously avoiding for so long. Rather than reinforce our nervous tendencies, the reversible pass/fail option might even help us in an area in which we all deserve a big, collective F: relaxation...
...self-important provisions as “offering to meet frequently with student organizations to coordinate affairs between them” or “developing further ways to promote understanding of the affairs and processes of the UC.” The infeasibility of a third committee option should have been clear in light of the “what should a third committee do” discourse in the past few weeks, and the proposal of an OSC in spite of this reality suggests that UC members were struck with a pretentious amnesia of one simple fact...