My big finish in the summer of ’75…
You don’t want to see certain portions of my college transcript. Or rather, I don’t want you to see them.
I had what you might call a very slow start in higher education. When I left Hawaii to travel all the way to Columbia to attend USC, I thought I was ready, and had everything I needed. I was thinking about that in recent days as I heard from folks with young kids enduring the herculean mess of moving them into their dorms for this fall semester. My parents, who in any case were back in West Honolulu, didn’t have to help me move enough stuff to furnish a small house (which seems to be the fashion today) into the Honeycombs. I just had the three things I had brought with me on the plane: my Dad’s old overseas bag, my tabletop stereo and a box full of record albums.
But at 17, I wasn’t as self-sufficient as I thought. For instance (just to keep it simple) I initially thought one of the best things about being off at college was that nobody made me get up in the morning to go to class. Turns out that was one of the worst things for a guy like me, since the people who ran the classes still expected me to show up, and would hold me accountable when they handed out grades. Who knew? Nobody told me. The only thing I remember from my freshman orientation was when the guide taught us guys what it would take to make the ball atop the Maxcy monument spin. Some of you older guys no doubt know the answer, but they probably don’t teach that anymore at orientation. If they did, they’d get canceled.
Enough about USC, which I only attended for that one wreck of a semester. I want to reflect on Memphis State, or at least on the more positive aspects of my time there. This came up because I’ve been thinking lately about taking advantage of the senior deal on tuition to take a course or two at USC, and the Gamecocks want a transcript. Turns out that you can’t order a transcript from Memphis State anymore. You have to get it from a place called “the University of Memphis.” But I sent off for one a couple of days ago, and had it back in my email almost immediately.
It contained good news and bad news. The bad news was the lingering effect of the mess I’d made in Columbia. That was because I had crammed my schedule that one semester at USC with honors and upper-level courses, but (thank goodness) had taken them on a “credit/no credit” basis. The deal was that a “no-credit” didn’t count against my GPA. But out on the Tennessee frontier they’d never heard tell of such a thing, so Memphis State carried them as Fs, until I finally spoke to the right people and got it fixed. That gave me a chance to climb out of the hole.
But just a chance. Unfortunately, my climbing those first couple of years in Memphis was not what you’d call spectacular. Lots of Cs, and a couple of times worse than that. I was still, by habit, a slacker.
Dang. I promised in my headline to show you the good side, and I’m still dwelling on what went before. Well, here we go: the good bits…
Then I met my wife. That first semester that we were dating, I picked up one of her habits. She called it “studying.” I had heard of it — I even knew some people who did it — but I had never seen it as a needful thing back in high school, and had not changed my ways. But she did it like it was a normal thing, and since I was hanging out with her so much, I just fell into the same habit. I didn’t turn into a grind or anything, I just studied some.
The results were rather remarkable. I do recommend it to young people, if they can find the time. (And I should say that none of my grandchildren should ever emulate the shameful record of their grandfather earlier in his academic career.)
It took me awhile to get the hang of it, and the occasional C still cropped up in the first couple of semesters. But my last spring semester, and the crammed summer schedule I took on that last summer so I could graduate in August, showed the kind of work I should have been doing in Columbia back in 1971. You can see the part covering the summer above.
Sorry about that one B. My whole time since I had declared a journalism major I had been avoiding the two required editing courses taught by one L. Dupre Long. Mr. Long was the adviser to the lab newspaper The Statesman, which he ran with an iron fist. I never went near The Statesman until I was required to when I took those two courses under him. I had my existence over on the independent, relatively anarchic student paper, The Helmsman. We ran a student-drawn comic strip with a character named “El Depraved,” who was sort of a villain, or at least an object of ridicule. For some reason, this led at one point to my being invited to visit the office of the department chair, who gave me a stern talking-to, but probably not as stern as Leon (as Mr. Long’s friends called him) would have liked.
I took them both over the two summer terms, which were much shorter than regular semesters, thereby diminishing my suffering.
Anyway, the grading in the editing classes was highly subjective, and Leon just wasn’t going to give me an A in that first course. On the second one, he relented. But instead of posting it on the door of his office, he gave me the news in a face-to-face meeting that seemed to last hours, and it was mostly about how I was full of potential but too much a slacker to show it, and I sat there in agony because I knew that had once been true, but I also knew my work in his class could not be faulted, so I sat there nodding and thinking “Alright already! Just tell me the grade!”
Finally he came out with it, and it was an A, as you can see. That was the last grade I learned about before graduation, and it pulled my cumulative GPA to exactly 3.0. I walked out with the first B average I’d had in my entire college career, and in those days (before the grade inflation of the 21st century), that was enough to graduate cum laude.
But the programs for graduation had already been printed, so I never had any proof of it I could show to anyone until now. So I’m glad I got this transcript, because there it is.
Similarly, I had never declared a second major in history. But sometime toward the end of that last spring semester, I realized I had taken so many history electives that I was only six hours away from meeting the requirements of such a major. So I crammed two of them into the summer, one of them in the three-week mini session before the two summer sessions, which turned out to be one of my favorite courses ever. (“US SO IN HST TO 1865” on the transcript refers to “U.S. Social and Intellectual History to 1865.”)
I like to tell people that I majored in history, because let’s face it — journalism isn’t an academic subject. It’s a trade for literate people to engage in. You learn it working in a newsroom, not sitting in a classroom. And I want to seem at least somewhat educated. So I tell people I also majored in history, but I always explain that they would probably find no written proof of that anywhere.
I always say that because to me, one of the most amazing news stories you ever see — and you see it quite often — is about idiots who brag to the world, for instance, that they were Marines and received commendations for valor in the last war — when some aspect of that, or all of it, is a lie. And of course, the first reporter who checks it out discovers that and tells the whole world. It has always astounded me that anyone would be stupid enough to think he could get away with something like that. I would never do anything like that — not only because it’s wrong, but because I would expect to get caught.
But now, I don’t have to attach asterisks when I tell people about my history major, or my at-the-buzzer 3.0. Which is nice. I know neither is a major achievement, but I see them as better than nothing. Having done nothing at one point in my youth, I know.
This is great. I should have sent off for this transcript years ago…
Related Posts
As a 1974 graduate of the University of South Carolina College of Journalism (a broadcast major) also lived in the Honeycombs for my entire 3 1/2 years at Carolina, I found your commentary entertaining.
I learned a bit about studying while in high school leading quickly found that applying some of those skills made it relatively easy to do pretty well overall. My cumulative GPA was 3.26 and would’ve been better had I not agreed to take a C in two electives in lieu of taking final exams for them. A little informal negotiation with the professors worked that out…
As for the story about the monument ball, I learned it from a lovely young lady who was leading our orientation group. But, you’re right, recounting the story now in orientation would probably have significant blowback.
I could regale you with tales of my time in the Honeycombs, but you probably had many of the same experiences.
Yup, even though I was only there for a semester. After that, it was Memphis State all the way.
I don’t know about negotiating grades, but your mention of the Cs reminds me of the F that I saw on my transcript from an earlier point on my college career. I took that grade on purpose, too, but in a more direct way. It was “National Government,” and I hated that class. Part of it was the uninspiring instructor. But my fellow students were a problem, too. It was a huge survey class, and there were a bunch of guys who sat together and constantly disrupted the class in a manner you’d expect in 6th grade, but not college. The instructor couldn’t control them, and I believe I skipped the class a number of times, despite my interest in the subject. One time I skipped turned out to be a day we were told we’d have a major test the NEXT class. So I walked in for that next class, saw what was going on, and walked out immediately. I never went back.
But here’s the thing that hits me upon seeing this: My understanding was that if you took a class again, the grade you get the second time replaced the one you got the first time. I took it the next year, and got an A. It’s right there on the transcript, under Fall 1973 (right after meeting my wife). But the F is still there, too, under Fall 1972. It’s been a long time, but I think that violates the policy at the time. We can argue about whether it’s a good policy to let kids erase bad grades that way, but I think it was the policy.
Maybe I could appeal that and get something better than 3.0 cumulative. But I can’t see asking the people there to try to find and interpret policies from a time before they were born. Whatever…
By the way, you know those immature, disruptive guys in that class I walked out of? I later became friends with one or two of them. (“Immature?” Like I had room to talk…)
Ironically, I met some of them at the same party where I met the lady who would soon reform me: My wife.
She and another girl were giving a party for some mutual friends who were getting married that summer. They invited me without knowing me. On a trip to Raleigh Springs Mall, I had stopped by the mail-order desk to see Kim, who worked there and happened to be the prospective bride. She told me her friends were throwing a party for her and Tim, and I said I wished to attend. So she told the organizers — my wife and her friend — and they sent me an invitation.
The party was in a sorority house at Southwestern College. Not that my wife was a Greek, any more than I. Her friend was even less the sorority type, but she was a legacy whose mother had told her she had to join. Good thing was, that gave them a party venue.
It was a great party. It turned out some of the boys were the same guys from the National Government class. They were friends of the groom, having attended the same high school down in Whitehaven. (Most of us, including my wife, were Memphis State students, not fancy-schmancy Southwesterners.)
As it happened, the guys would end up continuing the party at whatever places we could find open in the Whitehaven area, and I joined them in spite of not knowing any of them other than the groom (Tim) and his roommate (also named Tim). I had never been to that area before and had a horrible time getting back home up in Millington. Anyway, I got to know some of the guys. Later, one of them — let’s call him C. — would be sports editor on the college paper during my time as news editor and editorial page editor. Then, he spent 35 years at The Commercial Appeal.
A week later, at the wedding, I asked my future wife out while she was serving food at the reception. We saw “Blume in Love.” Not a great movie, but we were both fans of Kris Kristofferson, for different reasons.
It worked out well. We marked our 51st wedding anniversary yesterday…
Congratulations on your anniversary!
Thank you!
I started out as a poorly performing student at USC- not very focused- and my grades showed it.
Thankfully, I turned it around and have a very solid Junior and Senior year.
I suspect a lot of people are the same.
There is only one start date that I remember. February 14, 1977, I started work at NCR E&M-Columbia over by the airport. There were easily more than a dozen married couples.
For our 45th anniversary, I thought I’d take notable events from the year that we got married. Fortunately, Paula remembered her start date.
February 18 – American Space Shuttle program: First test flight of Space Shuttle Enterprise mated to the Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.
May 25 – Star Wars premieres.
August 12 – The NASA Space Shuttle, named Enterprise, makes its first test free-flight from the back of a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.
August 15 – The Big Ear, a radio telescope operated by Ohio State University as part of the SETI project, receives a radio signal from deep space; the event is named the Wow! signal for a notation made by a volunteer on the project.
August 16 – Elvis Presley, American actor, musician and singer-songwriter dies.
August 20 – Voyager program: The United States launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft.
October 25 — Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC) introduced the VAX-11/780 at their annual shareholders meeting.
November 22 – The TCP/IP test succeeds, connecting 3 ARPANET nodes (of 111), in what eventually becomes the Internet protocol.
November 22 – British Airways inaugurates regular London to New York City supersonic Concorde service.
I went to Purdue from a vocational high school in Massachusetts. Spent as much time in the pool hall and arcade as I did studying and got a 3.5. I learned more about programming in my vocational high school than at what was considered a top 20 computer science program at the time. College is overrated unless you really want to spend time learning things you’ll never use again. Three years of Russian, calculus, sociology.. pointless. I pity the kids who are dumb enough to spend $200k on a worthless degree.
Just looking back at Doug’s comment. Of course, I disagree with his last point. Too many folks think college is about training for a job. I see it as a mind-broadening experience, a chance to expand your knowledge and understanding of the world around you.
One regret I have looking back is that I wasted that opportunity to some degree. I had such a huge opportunity, because I had tested out of all math and foreign language requirements. That gave me a huge amount of room in my schedule for electives. And I took advantage of it. But I limited those electives to history (which in the end I earned a second major in), political science and, to a lesser extent, English. Which means I, too, was focusing on subjects relevant to my chosen career. But I wasn’t doing it consciously; those just happened to be the topics that interested me.
Now, I wish I had built on that foreign language exemption and taken some linguistics courses. Or philosophy. Or something else that would broaden my education. If I had, I’d be smarter than I am today, and a more useful citizen…
A “broadened” mind doesn’t pay the rent. You have to have some type of marketable skill to exist in the world at some level above taxpayer funded dependency.
Kids today have ample opportunities and greatly reduced cost to learn whatever they want. My daughter is a teacher at the local high school career center. They have programs in AI, 3D printing, baking and pastry, marketing, fashion that expose kids to a wide range of career prep skills. Many of the tech students are skipping college and going directly into the workforce at 60K or higher salaries. How could anyone justify spending another 200K for four years to MAYBE make another $20K to start. It would take a decade just to break even.
And with the use of AI now, students aren’t learning anything except cut-and-paste. Combine that with the grade inflation, lax homework and testing policies, and a focus on social activities and I can’t see any reason to value a degree any more.
Learn a trade, read books, take classes online in the areas that interest you… when I interview recent grads I don’t care what their GPA was.. I ask for specific examples of work they have done or documents they have written.
As Will Hunting said, “You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library”.
No, it doesn’t pay the rent. It just makes you a better citizen. And if we had more fully educated citizens — not people who treated college as a training school for earning money — we’d have a much better country today. Most of our political and governmental problems arise from not having a well-educated electorate.
Along the way, people also become more productive citizens, and are generally able to “pay the rent” effectively. But that’s secondary. We need our citizens to be far more than that…
This is what is going on at Harvard now.. students crying over having to work SOOOO hard to pass their classes and all that studying is cutting into their fun time.
https://nypost.com/2025/11/03/us-news/harvard-students-unload-on-school-over-new-stricter-grading-policy/
Hey, I’m with you there.
And they all need to get offa my lawn, the brats…
I always proudly disagree with Doug.
My son is a senior at USC. He’s having a blast in college and doing well in his classes. He’s where he needs to be and wants to be. I am proud of him and happy for him.
He’s also made a few great friends- one already has a job lined up after college and he’s inspired my son to really think about trying for a few internships before he graduates. I could have talked to him until I passed out and it wouldn’t have helped. But my son’s friend keeps talking about his job he has lined up and that has further motivated my son. I am glad he’s buddies with him and they are having a great time in college.
Hopefully, my son is a good influence on him too. I think he is as he’s a very kind, reserved young man who is very careful with his actions. Doesn’t drink. Doesn’t smoke. Doesn’t want to be around people who do.
He’s having a bit of the experience I had in college in that I made several really good friends that were great influences on me all through my 20s into my early 30s until I got married.
Hey, even I don’t ALWAYS disagree with Doug!
I hope your son keeps having a great time…