Greentext

I had a professor in my government and private organizations interactions class who was clear that he'd never given a "true" 100% on a paper before and was confident they never would. They'd just adjust it so that the best paper would get bumped to 100, and everyone else would get the same bump. So if the best was what he'd consider an 85, everyone would get a 15 point bump.

He was essentially making the point that the subject was too complex. I took it to mean that he was a harsh grader and expected way too much out of students.

Later that semester, I had a paper and presentation in which I decided, stupidly, to try and map out the history of the intersection between corporate personhood and campaign finance. I basically wanted to bitch about Citizens United (this was in like 2013).

So I started with Citizens United and worked my way back through Supreme Court cases tracking precedent. I got a little obsessed because I actually found it fascinating, and I ended up having like 25 SCOTUS cases summarized across over 200 years and before I knew it, I had a 60-page paper.

At that point, I knew it was way too long (there had been a 10-page minimum), but I was out of time, so instead of editing it down I just had to turn it in at 11:59pm. My presentation was like 20 minutes in which I was rushed, and I felt pretty bad about it.

The next week the professor came in and opened with 2 announcements. 1 was that there was now a 15-page limit on any papers, and that for the first time in 35 years he'd given a "true" 100. Because of the presentation I'd done, everyone knew it was me that blew the curve, so I didn't know whether to be proud, embarrassed, or scared about it.

The laptop I wrote the paper on was stolen a few months later and I didn't have a backup of the paper, which is a shame because I'd love to read it today and see if it really was good, or if I just wore him out with citations.

Screw you.