Wise Words From My First Year English Professor

Coming to university, I thought I had prepared myself for my grades to drop from what they were in high school. All of my teachers said that university was so much different than high school, so much harder. So, I convinced myself that grades didn’t matter as much in university because no employer was ever going to not hire me simply because I got a bad grade in one of my first-year courses. Which is, of course, true, but I’m still a perfectionist and wanted to get good grades.

Turns out, I was not prepared at all to get my first university essay back with a big 7-8 written on the front page. Now, seventy-eight percent is not a bad grade at all, which I later came to acknowledge and accept. But, seeing it there in black and white for the first time, when I was so used to getting high nineties in high school, was a bit of a shock, to say the least.

But I got over it (kind of). I went to see my TAs and my professors to figure out how I could do better next time, and I started planning out my assignments further in advance than a couple days before they were due. But I was still stressed out all the time about my grades – maybe I wasn’t cut out for university if I was getting these kinds of marks in courses that I loved and had chosen to take. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for the career I dreamed of for myself if I couldn’t even get through my first-year courses without my marks falling drastically from what they were in high school.

Anyway, I was struggling hard on this one essay for my first year English course, so I decided to go to my professor’s office hours to get some guidance. We had a great discussion about the novel I wanted to write on and where I could take my argument and how my topic fit into the course’s theme as a whole. I felt great when I left his office that afternoon and so much more prepared to go home and write this essay.

But, out of all the things that he told me that day, there is one thing that has stuck with me long after I handed in that essay. Are you ready for this magical solution to all of university’s problems? He said: “you will always do well because you know how to write well.”

This was a serious game changer for me. He probably didn’t have any idea of the impact that that simple sentence would have on me, but it has changed everything about how I view my education.

I no longer have to worry and stress about what grade I will get on any given assignment because I now know that it is highly unlikely that I will ever completely fail (unless, of course, I put zero effort into it or don’t hand it in at all). This has relieved so much of the pressure for me that I think most university students face. I can now write an essay because I am interested in the topic and have something important to say about it, not because it’s worth thirty percent of my final grade. I can now write because I enjoy doing it and I’m apparently pretty good at it, not because the fate of my university career depends on it.

I am now in love with my program again and enjoy going to classes and writing assignments (for the most part) because I know that I can do it, which is what university should be about. Students should be excited about what they’re studying, not dreading going into an exam for fear that they’re going to fail. I think it’s important – and I’m so grateful that I had a professor who understood this as well – that students are reassured that they do belong here. They didn’t get to university by being completely illiterate and having no prior knowledge about the program they were going into. I think we get thrown into this new environment so quickly where everything is moving at such a fast pace that we can sometimes forget why we’re here. We get so wrapped up in midterms and essays and course readings that we forget that we love what we’re studying, and that we’re good at it! Sometimes all we need to hear is that we are doing something right and that we do somehow fit into this immense and crazy world.

The simple reassurance that came out of that off-handed comment has been incomparable to anything else I have learned, or will learn, at university. So, thank you, Professor, for teaching me so much more than you had planned in your lecture notes.