Several times I’ve finished writing papers way early but haven’t wanted to turn them in early. Why, you ask? Well because the professor might think I could’ve put more effort into it. And while that’s oftentimes true – I chose what assignments to spend a lot of time on very intentionally – it’s often also because I’ve got other variables they don’t know about. For instance, I had a reflection paper due tonight. But because of the statistics crunch, I finished it last weekend. I put enough effort to get an A (I’m assuming, based on her grading so far), but not enough to get 100% (although you never know). Grad school is about balancing priorities. If you have a solid A in a class, don’t waste time putting all your effort into an assignment for that class when it would be better spent elsewhere.
One time I mentioned something like this, and several people were shocked that I don’t “put 100% into everything.” They quoted Bible verses. 😑 But I look at the big picture. If I put 100% effort into every aspect of every class, my spiritual life and other things would take a hit. I know where my priorities are. School is a priority, but it’s not #1. And within that, some assignments have to be ranked too. There’s just not enough hours in the day…
So anyway, the problem is that I don’t submit it early and forget about it. Now I’m very organized, so it’s not like I don’t write it down. I very carefully write it down on the day it needs to be submitted. But sometimes if my day changes drastically I don’t look at my journal as much.
The funniest example of this was my final semester of my masters. I had written my final paper early, and had written down what day I would submit it. But it was after my schedule cleared a little, so I wasn’t as into it. And I was literally on my way to graduation when my professor emailed me. Luckily I hadn’t edited it since the day I finished it, so she knew I had done it on time and gave me full credit.
This almost happened tonight. I had written that I was going to submit it last night, a day early. But I ended up crossing a bunch of stuff off and rewriting it, and somehow I never looked at that part again. I just happened to remember during my stats class, and set a reminder on my phone to do it when I got home (which I just did).
Stats wasn’t bad tonight. I actually understood the first half. I tuned out the second half, and finally ordered Chipotle on my phone during the end of class so it would be ready when I left. But I feel better about my project. She’s going to give us a whole class period next week (3 hours) to work on it and ask questions. I can probably write the whole thing during that class, but I’m still going to spend time on it tomorrow so I’ll have the basic structure down.
Good day!
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