Dear Dr. Aderhold,
I need your help with something. A while back I signed up for an honors course called Chemistry II. I don’t know why I agreed to put myself through that ordeal. I wasn’t really interested in chemistry and didn’t need the credit. I guess it was just kind of expected that I would take the class. But I had a lot going on in my life. I was involved in lots of extracurricular activities, including student government, yearbook, golf team, math club, and chorus, and I was in the school musical. While all that was going on I was also working a part-time job.
I have to admit that Acid-Base Titration just wasn’t the most important thing in my life at the time. Anyway, chemistry got the best of me, and I failed. (Full disclosure: I damn near failed Honors English, too, but there was one big difference. My English teacher, coincidentally the advisor to the yearbook, mistakenly wrote “A” in her grade book after reading the most pathetic final exam in the history of New Jersey secondary education.)
So I need a favor. Could you possibly change my chemistry grade to incomplete? I don’t think it’s fair that I got an F. The fact is that I understood most of the material. It was just those pesky lab reports, and we got no time in class to work on them. I think my teacher actually expected me to miss golf practice or a rehearsal to write a few lab reports. Can you believe that?
I don’t have a single doubt in my mind that incomplete much more accurately reflects my performance in that class and my understanding of the subject matter. I’m pretty sure of something else, too. I bet I’d have passed that class if my chemistry teacher worked on the yearbook, the school musical, or coached the golf team.
Many things have gone wrong for me since my disastrous grade in Chem II. I didn’t get into a top college. While I did avoid jail, I was sentenced to serve time in a number of menial jobs. My girlfriend dumped me like I was some kind of loser.
I have even subsequently failed at quite a few things, just as most of my teachers and classmates probably expected I would. I have been stigmatized, all over some silly lab reports. Believe me when I say I carry scars to this day.
With all that said, I have managed to succeed at a few things since my chemistry debacle. I did graduate (with honors) from two of the finest colleges anywhere. The career I never wanted has taken me far and wide, long ago exceeding my wildest dreams. I have an amazing family with a loving wife and happy, healthy, and achieving children. I’m in excellent health and I’ve never been happier. It certainly is hard to believe all that could happen with a high school transcript tainted by an F.
On second thought, don’t change my grade. Forget I asked. It was 35 years ago, and I probably should get over it. Something else just occurred to me. Maybe that F wasn’t such a stigma after all. Just maybe, it was a guidepost. It just took me a while to figure it out.
William McElroy
West Windsor
