12/17/2013

Harvard student making bomb threats was peace essay winner

From the Harvard Crimson:
Eldo Kim, the Quincy House sophomore who was charged Tuesday in connection with Monday’s unfounded bomb threat, lived as a freshman in Thayer Hall, one of the four buildings in which he allegedly threatened to place explosives, according to former Thayer residents.
Kim’s entry in the freshman register for the Class of 2016 says he hails from Seoul, South Korea, and attended Kamiak High School in Mukilteo, Wash.
On the website of Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science, a profile of Kim from last academic year described him as a prospective psychology concentrator, while a cached version of Kim’s taken-down LinkedIn profile identifies him as a psychology and sociology concentrator. The Crimson could not immediately confirm Kim’s concentration. . . .
In 2009, Kim's essay, "Cultural Genocide: A Look into the Unknown," was the 1st place winner for the state of Washington in the U.S. Institute of Peace essay contest.
Edward Cho ’16, an Adams House resident who lived in Thayer with Kim last academic year, said it is “pretty surprising to hear that [Kim] went to such great lengths to avoid a final that he probably would have done well on anyway.” . . .
There are two ironies here: 1) That Kim was the peace essay winner and 2) that in a lot of classes most people get an A.  A humorous take on grade inflation at Harvard is available from the New York Times:
A longtime government professor at Harvard lashed out Tuesday at what he deemed a system of rampant grade inflation after learning that students are receiving mainly A’s.— The Boston Globe, Dec. 4From: The Dean of Harvard CollegeTo: The FacultyIn light of the controversy regarding so-called grade inflation, please take a moment to review the grading guidelines rubric, reproduced below:¶ The A+ grade is used only in very rare instances for the recognition of truly exceptional achievement.For example: A term paper receiving the A+ is virtually indistinguishable from the work of a professional, both in its choice of paper stock and its font. The student’s command of the topic is expert, or at the very least intermediate, or beginner. Nearly every single word in the paper is spelled correctly; those that are not can be reasoned out phonetically within minutes. Content from Wikipedia is integrated with precision. The paper contains few, if any, death threats.A few things can disqualify an otherwise worthy paper from this exceptional honor: 1) Plagiarism, unless committed with extraordinary reluctance. 2) The paper has been doused in blood or another liquid, unless dousing was requested by the instructor. 3) The paper was submitted late (with reasonable leeway — but certainly by no more than one or two years).An overall course grade of A+ is reserved for those students who have not only demonstrated outstanding achievement in coursework but have also asked very nicely.Finally, the A+ grade is awarded to all collages, dioramas and other art projects. . . . 

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1 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Me are a studunt att a pregigulous collage like Harverd (mabe evun Harverd). I disugree about graid inflatulence. We werk hard for our graids. My last turm paper was ovur 5000 wurds long (most of witch wen't even copied) and awl a goten wuz a A-. Maybee the graded me more tougher because I am an English compasition mayjur in my seniore year. Also, when you tawk about this guy winning a prize for an esay on piece, jus remebur that he did not plant any actuel boms. So he wuz very pieceful. Butt they shud be tuff on himm anyway and wen he retakes the test they should not giv him any moreen a A- or maybee evun a B+.

12/22/2013 4:51 PM  

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