I utterly destroyed my Contemporary Sociological Theory exam yesterday. It’s likely that I missed a couple of questions, but that’s because I didn’t even bother attempting to memorize birth and death dates and locations for Marx, Weber, Simmel, or Mead. I expect to see a bunch of A’s on in the database sometime this week.
I also got my paper back for the class. It was actually a pretty lame assignment: pure drudgery work, no analysis or research. Somewhat amusingly, the prof knew that and freely admitted it. Anyway, paper returned with one note or criticism scribbled in red pen: “Use title page”. Then, on the back page just above the grade is another note “marvelous writing”.
This is actually a combination of ego-boosting and depressing. I drafted this paper once, red-penned it alone (without getting an outside view) and then turned in the second draft. It’s nice to know that I can produce decent work with one go at it, but it’s sort of sad that this sort of work can impress the instructor of a fairly high-level course. I think it says something about my ability, but also something about what we’ve come to expect from our university students.
Thomas