In a shocking, but not unexpected turn of events, the Faculty of Health Sciences announced last Friday that they would be getting rid of the classic twelve-point GPA scale for BHSc students. In replacement, the faculty plans to implement a colour-based grading scale, which gets rid of percentages and grade point averages in favour of hex-code based colours. This follows in the footsteps of previous Health Sciences initiatives, such as VRBR bellringers and facilitator-less 4X03 tutorials, in coming up with convoluted solutions to problems that never existed.
“The outdated numbers-based system fails to accurately display a student’s level of knowledge and participation in any given course. There are only so many numbers between 0 and 100 that we can use to measure academic achievement,” stated a FHS spokesperson, blissfully unaware of the existence of decimals. “This new colour-based system allows instructors to accurately assign up to 16,777,217 different possible grades per student, each represented with a unique hexadecimal code.” The spokesperson went on to further talk about something that they called “three dimensional marking,” wherein in-class participation is also represented through the opacity of the assigned colour.
This news has sent shockwaves across the Health Sciences community. McMaster University’s IT department recorded an unprecedented amount of Google searches for “photoshop download free no virus” amongst
BHSc students in particular, closely followed by “what is a hexadecimal” and “how to get rid of virus after downloading photoshop.” Sales for ultra-precise computer monitors also experienced a recent surge in the Hamilton area, presumably due to Health Sci students hoping to see their grades more accurately. In response to massive pressure from BHScs to “tell [us] how colours work,” the university is also planning to release a “Colours for Life” course (HTHSCI 1CL3), which will teach students colour theory content that most people learned when they were in elementary school.
The FHS has also come under fire for making the highest achievable grade “white” (hex code #FFFFFF), sparking allegations of potential racism. However, the decision to change the colour of the Pathogen suits this year was met with a much warmer reception, with the majority of the BHSc cohort thankful that they wouldn’t be associated with the “underachieving” colour of blue anymore.
Medical schools in the area have reported difficulty in parsing the final GPAs of BHSc students, which appears on their transcript as a garish mixture of all the past colours they have been assigned through their undergraduate career.
In other news, the University of Toronto’s medical school still refuses to accept “turquoise” as an acceptable grade for Anatomy & Physiology.
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