All right, I finally had to weigh in because while I love theory and honestly believe even the most esoteric has its place even in undergraduate education (and didn't particularly want to defend that position), something in recent posts made me giggle. I attended a UC school (Berkeley) for all of my university education, and taught as an adjunct at both Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz (as well as at Cal State and Community college campuses so I've encountered a range of California undergrads) before moving to DC. I did my undergrad at Berkeley in Film Studies, and my grad work in Rhetoric. In my 11 (fairly recent) years studying and teaching in the UC system (1990-2000), I don't know of any humanities professor who would regularly give out "C"'s to any undergrad, much less a senior in what must have been an upper-division course (since it sounds like she needed three theory courses to graduate). We (professors) have all learned that an "F" is only appropriate these days in the most egregious cases, and is more likely assigned when a student simply forgot to drop a course he or she never attended. A "C" generally communicates something more than pretty bad scores on exams; I even managed a "C+" in a Latin class I rarely attended and never prepared for (not my usual style, but the prof was so dull) by writing an extra essay (in english) on the uses of some word in Horace's work. And if any Humanities professor could have resisted grade inflation, it would be a tenured classics professor. As has been so astutely pointed out here, Film Studies has only gained legitimacy as a discipline in the last twenty or so years, and more and more students see a college education as equivalent to slightly more interesting high school -- no one expects to actually fail (and she didn't), and we (professors) do our absolute best not to let it happen (even if "absolute best" can mean any range of things not limited to teaching skills). Grade inflation is as rampant on UC campuses as at most other schools, most especially those populated by high-achieving students likely to go onto professional schools or to have parents who will write letters (articles, lawsuits) in protest. If indeed most of the kids sitting around this young woman made "C"s and "D"s, she was sitting in a spectacularly unlucky section of the room, accidentally took organic chemistry or electronic engineering, or was a) exaggerating for effect or b) sitting with a number of other students whose senioritis prohibited attending class regularly (or staying awake through it). Amy Holberg Catholic University Media Studies Program ---- To sign off Screen-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF Screen-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]