An unfinished essay

At the end of last semester, I got an email sometime during finals week saying that the paper I turned in Dean’s Date was available to be picked up. It being halfway through finals week, I didn’t have the energy to focus on assignments that were already done — there was so much left to do. I could no longer improve that paper in any way; it was entirely out of my hands, but my final was not. But when the dust of the semester settled and I had nothing to do, I looked back at that email. I realized it wasn’t entirely out of my hands, and I scheduled an appointment with my professor.

The most obvious explanation for why I suddenly felt that I still had a stake in my paper — the reason I imagine most of this sort of ex post facto meetings are scheduled — is my grade. I get the impression that professors entertain students protesting their grades on a somewhat regular basis. But on this particular assignment, I got pretty much the grade I deserved — maybe a little higher than I deserved to be honest — and couldn’t bring myself to argue for a higher grade. I went because I enjoyed writing the paper and I cared about the things that I wrote, and that didn’t go away just because I handed it in.

Yes, I have written papers on topics I didn’t really care about and papers I just wanted to finish and never think about again. But many times in my Princeton career thus far, I have genuinely enjoyed the topic I was writing about, if not the actual act of writing it. Unfortunately, I usually let my frustration and stress in the process of writing the paper carry over after the paper was due, never wanting to look back and relive it. So I scheduled this appointment because I realized that it would be unfair to all the work I was doing that my arduously produced paper would transform into a single letter grade and never amount to anything more.

How you relate to a paper after it’s written comes down to why you wrote it in the first place. Clearly, the reason begins with the necessity of the assignment — you are told you must write a paper, so you are compelled to do so. After this fact, however, the source of this compulsion is transformed by the motivations you yourself bring to the table. If you view this paper as nothing more than a means to a good grade, then it makes sense not to care about it after you turn it in. Your grade can’t go up by further considering the paper, so why bother? But if you are motivated at least in part by something like intellectual curiosity, your paper does not end with its grade. There are still concepts to learn, intellectual work to be done and ideas to form, and thinking that these things are done just because the paper’s turned in belittles all the work that was done.

In the past, what has often prevented me from talking to a professor after they have graded my work is embarrassment. I always feel like I could have done better on an assignment and would feel very awkward if I had to rehash my sub-par work with a professor. But in some ways, this is the best way to learn.

As the old adage goes, you learn more from mistakes than success. We are more likely to remember details of moments when we are embarrassed because our brain treats the situation as a threat that it should fully understand to avoid or deal with in the future. I was embarrassed when my JP advisor showed me how many times I used the words “logically” and “flawed” inappropriately, but from now on whenever I write a philosophy paper I will without a doubt be aware of their narrow definitions and use them in their correct sense.

Since every professor grades slightly differently and looks for different things, who knows if this will help my grade on future papers. My meeting instead helped me understand the strengths and weaknesses of my writing and the consequences of the arguments I was making. Then we went far beyond the ins and outs of my paper, delving deeper into issues than I could have on my own. But most importantly, meeting my professor after the paper was turned in and done helped me remember that my paper wasn’t and couldn’t be reduced to a grade, that the ideas with which I was engaging were real and didn’t just disappear at 5 p.m. that Tuesday in January.

Luke Massa is a philosophy major from Ridley Park, Pa. He can be reached at lmassa@princeton.edu.