I no longer care about my permanent record

One of the last classes I took in grad school was CAMB 600: Cell and Molecular Biology. It was pretty much a graduate level intro class to cell biology. This was of particular interest to me as the only biology class I took in undergrad was "Biology of Cancer and AIDS" which fulfilled the general education bio requirement without actually being a biology class. You see, my bachelor's degree is in chemical engineering, but it was traditional chemical engineering with no biology at all. I didn't figure out till my senior year that traditional chemical engineering is unbelievably boring. Given that, you might be surprised that my Ph.D. is also in chemical engineering, but I didn't really do chemical engineering research. My thesis was much more cell biology based. Hence, my interest in CAMB 600.

However, given that the only cell biology I knew by that point was what I had taught myself, I was at a slight disadvantage in a class full of BS's in biology. As such, I found the class to be a bit of a struggle and by mid semester I was facing the possibility of a C. This had me worried, because I thought that a class would not count towards my degree unless I got at least a B, and I didn't want to have to take any more classes.

I expressed my concern to The Doktah, and she said, "No, I think that we just have to pass all the classes and maintain an overall GPA of 3.0 or higher, so one C shouldn't keep you from graduating." This was excellent news, but I wanted to be sure and went to see the graduate advisor to double check.

"That's right," he said, "you just need an overall 3.0 or higher."

"That's great!" I said.

"But you don't want to get a C," he warned me.

"Why not?" I said. "What difference will it make?" This class was my last one, and I had already gotten mostly A's, so a C could not possibly lower my GPA to below a 3.0.

The advisor looked a little appalled at my cavalier attitude. "Well, it will not look good on your transcript," he replied.

"But who's going to see my transcript?" I asked. "Do employers want to look at your transcript?"

"Well, no," he said. "But you don't want to get a C!"

I realized the problem. I was talking to a young professor at a major research university, ergo, I was talking to an overachiever. Earning a B would have brought him shame; had he ever gotten a C he probably would have had to commit hara-kiri.

"OK," I said. "I won't get a C."

And I didn't.