Feedback

I know. I’ve been slacking.  Sorry about that. It’s not even that I’m busy, it’s that I just don’t have the dedication required (at least not yet).

I’ve only written three papers so far, but I’ve yet to receive any feedback about them. Unheard of in the States. You turn in a paper. A few classes later, you get it back. On the returned paper there is feedback and/or a grade. I’ve gotten nothing back. Let me say that again...I’ve gotten NOTHING back. Nor have I heard from the professors.

*LIFE EXPERIENCE-BASED DETOUR*
"But no news is good news!" Lies. Ask any hagwon (afterschool academy) teacher in South Korea, and they'll tell you. No news from the boss is NOT good news, it just means that they're just compiling everything and will give it to you all at once. I hate that. It completely blindsides you. Think you're doing well and things are going smoothly. Ah ha ha ha ha ha. Not so much.

*and now, back to where we were*
Yeah yeah. “You’re getting older. You need to be more confident in yourself and your abilities.” Tell me something I haven’t heard before. I am looking to my professors for approval, but for once, it’s to be expected. They are GRADING me. They are JUDGING me.   I want to know how I’m doing in class. Am I on the right track? Is my work up to par? Am I completely wrong and hopelessly lost? I’m even more spazzed about it because I was so unsure of my first paper that I asked to have it back at the end of class.

With feedback on a paper or assignment, it's easier to see exactly what the professor is looking for. You can pick up on what kind of quirks they have (I once had a journalism teacher who would gut papers for MLA instead of AP, despite the fact that she never actually said it in class), how they want a question answered, and the kinds of sources they prefer (some profs never accept Wikipedia. Others don't care). But without it, I'm shooting in the dark at a new target a mile away.

Then there’s that whole “limited number of A’s” thing, too. South Korea, I really can’t thank you enough for that. I didn’t have enough to worry about already, what, with not having a job and trying to figure out WTF I’m doing with my life. I now have to work AGAINST my classmates for the grade, essentially turning everyone into a competitor. We’ll not all go for the same jobs later, but right now we’re all going for the same limited number of high scores. Fail on the part of the system.

But back to the grades, I really don’t know. No one else seems to be concerned about hearing nothing, but then again, most of them are Korean or Chinese and this is apparently par for the course.  I like my USA system where I know how on (or off) course I am.

The main reason this is an issue is because I think my work is sub-par. I put in the effort, but it feels almost...too easy(?). You know what I mean? This is graduate school. People slave over books and papers and journals for hours and hours to get stuff done. I don’t do that.  Sure, I take furious notes in class and do the reading, but it feels like I’m missing something, big time.

Here’s hoping that the something I’m missing isn’t a good grade.