Ever turn in a final paper that was so stressful it feels like you just had a baby? I don't know how else to describe that.
This final I just turned in is one of those papers. It was for my grant writing class and it was all of two pages long because it was a grant proposal. We have no idea what our class standing is, and up until class time last Wednesday we did not know what our final was. A lesson in flexibility? Yes. A lesson in how many times I can hyperventilate without causing brain damage? A little bit, yeah. A lesson in Kate's hyperbolic skills? A little bit, yeah.
I freaked out for about ten minutes when he gave us the prompt: propose a program, project, or initiative which will benefit the graduate students in your particular field. Then I figured out what I wanted to do: a mini-research conference which teams professors with students who present posters. Members of the community who are professionals in our field will judge the event (science fair style) and award the winning group with a scholarship ($2,500 for the next semester, which is all but $500 of a semester's tuition). Hooray! Encourage research? Check. Encourage student-faculty relations? Check. Encourage inter-cohort relations? Check. Encourage community involvement? Check. Encourage networking and future employment? Check. Awesome.
I got to the computer and totally lost confidence in the program. All these new issues popped up. All these insecurities about how the program would look if it needed a mini-research conference to get people involved (it does). About how silly the whole thing was. But I stuck with it because it was too late. I had no other ideas. And I really had been psyched about it until I sat down to write the proposal.
So now, yes, I feel like I just went through labor. For that tiny tiny thing. I hope I don't fail, I hope I get an A in the class, but there is really no way of telling because we don't know any of our grades. ANY of them. This is the problem with laid-back professors. They drive their students insane.
To everyone else completing your finals, remember there is an end in sight! So soon! We can do it!
I'm still not sure I did the right thing, but everything he said needed to be there was there.
1 comment:
Ugh... I. FEEL. THIS. POST!! One of my finals was writing a grant...though ours had to be MUCH longer, yay science... We've only received one or two assignments back and really have no idea where we stand in the class... SUUUUCKS! I hate these kinds of classes...I mean, really. Grade our work; give it back; move on to the next assignment. How difficult is that?! But hey, we did it! Now to see if we actually passed ;)
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