Due to the prevalent COVID-19 outbreak, all UC Merced students have had to transition towards an online curriculum. Despite the commendable efforts by the university, this change to an online curriculum can heavily affect a student's performance in a class. Speaking for other Merced students, courses taught through a recorded video or Zoom are not optimal. Many of us get a firm understanding of a subject by being physically inside a classroom or attending in-person office hours. Although attaining high scores/grades ultimately falls towards our own individual efforts, the lack of proper "face-to-face" interaction/direction is a problem that we all face. 

I hope UC Merced considers switching to a Pass / Fail system on a class to class basis. This would help the students who are truly affected by the current circumstances to not worry about their GPA being negatively affected. As for the students who want their grades to be factored into their GPA, they also can opt to have that rather than a P/F; this would still incentivize students to study hard and persevere in their courses. As stated, this P/F system will be class to class!

And for reference, many other schools such as UC Berkeley, Duke, and MIT have transitioned to a P/F system. Attached are other sources that supplement other universities moving towards a P/F grading system. Factoring all this into account, I hope this is a satisfactory resolution for our aspiring student community moving forward. 

*All the universities that have transitioned to a P/F grading system: https://www.reddit.com/r/college/comments/fnr8iv/list_of_schools_going_to_passfail_grading/

*BYU changes to a P/F system for their Winter Semester: https://www.deseret.com/faith/2020/3/23/21191848/byu-covid-19-coronavirus-mormon-university-testing-campus-utah

*OU changes to a P/F system: https://www.normantranscript.com/news/ou-releases-guidelines-for-elective-pass-fail-grading-system/article_4f689918-6aef-11ea-b60a-87f2cd37c844.html

Thank you for your time!