The Results Are In

I don’t even think I could describe how nervous I was yesterday. Mark had said last week that he was going to hand out our semiotics papers the next week, which was yesterday. I tried to focus on what he was saying through the majority of the class, but all I kept looking at were the papers on his desk. Mine was somewhere in there, finally free from the scrutiny it had endured.

Mark finally talked about the papers. He said the class average was 69%, which was the highest a Mass Communication class had ever reached with him. I was a tad bit proud, having always though we had a very bright class, but the revelation did nothing to my nerves. When he finally let us at them, I was hesitant. I was hoping for anything over a 60, and a 70 would be the cause of a celebration. When I grabbed mine from the mess of papers on the floor, I searched for the grade. When I finally found it, I think I took three double takes to make sure I was reading correctly. A mark in the 80s?!

I don’t think I have ever been so proud of a mark in my life. This one meant a lot more than any other ones for sure. Now that I think back, I wish I had been more confident in my work. I was worried about receiving a 60, when I was looking past the fact that I had actually worked hard on this paper. I had taken Mark’s advice and went to the Writing Center, and I have to admit, they helped in a lot of ways. At first I thought writing about something as random as chocolate advertisements might be weird, but I knew that I had learned enough in the course to prove my ideas. Usually it is hard to see how much you learn from a course, and how much you improve, but I think it is quite evident in this class. I went from hardly thinking about my first assignment and receiving a barely passing mark, to working hard to show how much I had taken out of the course and putting it into a well-thought out paper.

This mark definitely helps me believe that I am in the right place.