>Calculus, literature, CS 101: C. Topology, Operating Systems, Quantum Mechanics: A. But why isn't it preferable to have the person who goes with: Calculus, li

>Calculus, literature, CS 101: C. Topology, Operating Systems, Quantum Mechanics: A. But why isn't it preferable to have the person who goes with: Calculus, literature, CS 101: A. Topology, Operating Systems, Quantum Mechanics: A. ? Perhaps the C/A person was spending their time better elsewhere when they could get away with it. But even so, this doesn't really excuse them because either the C/A student: (1) "gets it" -- in which case doing well in those easy classes would be trivial. Given that all the students know what the game is (get high grades), why would an employer trust them to take a job seriously when they refuse to perform any trivial tasks despite the high return on low investment? (2) "didn't bother learning the easy stuff" -- in which case they probably don't actually have any deep understanding of these more advanced topics. This would suggest to me that they simply started figuring out the teachers password for those courses. I don't see any way to interpret the C/A student as being better than the A/A student without knowing more about either the student (certainly some interaction can reveal a drone) or the classes (there are tough classes out there, which actually require understanding for high performance). Edit: Self-awareness check -- I made the transition from "C/A" in high school to "A/A" in university. This was based on an attitude adjustment, and the realization that I'm playing a partly silly, but also partly valuable game and I might as well try to win both. I suppose this opens up a third possibility in which the C/A transition comes from a change in the student. But that should still at best put me on par with an A/A student, given no more information.