Sunshine & Grading

Before I begin what is sure to be a post full of complaining, let me start with the positives: I am THRILLED that it's moving towards spring here in Budapest. Slowly, yes. But you can really see that it's on its way. The sun is out (or if the skies are not blue, which they're still usually not - there is sunlight through those big grey clouds!) past 5pm which means I get to see it a lot more than in previous weeks. And that is enough to make me happy on most days. That picture over there is from the Fine Arts Museum when I went a few weeks back to see the Botticelli to Titian exhibit. That was the first day I really noticed the extending light of day. See, that picture was taken at roughly 5pm. Can you still see the daylight in the background?!

Also, let me refer you to my last post - ask away with your questions :) Maybe my next post I'll answer the ones I have received so far. You can comment with the questions on any post too, don't worry about having to go back to that one!

Okay, so let me get onto the real reason for this post. The most agonizing hardship that comes along with going to school.

Do you ever feel as though you work really, really hard for something and they payoff for it is nil?

That’s been happening to me a lot lately. (Cue over dramatic sigh after that intense overstatement.)

Let me explain, today we’re going to talk about grades.

Well, more specifically about one grade for one class. Remember last semester, when I was taking nine classes? Not that the stress of taking that inhumane workload wasn’t enough, please factor in the fact that some of the classes were useless. Particularly one class which shall-not-be-named just in case someone of any importance were to stop by and read my rantings. Let’s just put it this way - the class was poorly organized and taught us nothing about the subject matter it was supposed to teach. Oh, and here I can mention that the final paper, oh it was to be written about the topic that we were never taught about (and were still required to write about it, even after the professors admitted in class that we never once touched to topic of the class). So, on our own we had to trudge our way through a vast amount of un-discussed theoretical knowledge with no guide on how to construct the paper, let alone the actual topic of the paper.

So after a few weeks scouring sources and fighting with this paper I turned something in over Christmas break. It was about 300 words shy of the suggested word limit (who suggests word limits? really?) and read like a coherent document. Yes, in the end it was a work of complete bs, but it was bs based on research I tried to accumulate and explain to myself.

While the final grade wasn’t bad (per-say), it was bad for me and has left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. You see, I didn’t earn this grade. This grade wasn’t a reflection of hard work and dedication to the class. This grade was the result of their poor teaching and their inability to convey understanding.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I am royally ticked off.

Have you guys had any similar experiences?