Give me a grade

[CaptainHaplo]

Undersea - I am going to offer one last piece of advice, along with some encouragement. First - it seems the Prof. understands you more than you think, your really "ahead" - aka the elevator - vs the rest, but he needs you to establish the curriculum foundation. Work with him - his statement indicates he is willing to let you fairly. That should lighten your mind considerably.

Now - to the advice. Whatever the assignment, make the commitment to go back over it after your done with 2 specific goals in mind. The first, and most critical goal is to look back at the questions that were asked, and in reading your responses, determine if it is CLEAR whether your answer was a yes or a no to each question. If you can't find those answers clearly - aka spelled out - then you need to redo it so that you can. Second, limit yourself to no more than 5% over on the words. If they say 500 words, then you can get away with a max 525, to complete the last thought. If you can't get it under that, then you need to find another way to convey your thoughts, or change the points.

This episode is a great learning opportunity for you. Let me see if I can help you on the "tangents" bit. You are now in college. You mentioned that this was alot like the Marines. In many ways your right. Every student in that class has completed "basic" in a sense, each of you have the foundation already. He doesn't want you to explain the foundation - he wants you to build on it as he teaches you to. Just like when a platoon gets a few new bald heads from Ellis, there is an expectation that you already know some things. Go from that point. Don't explain what you already "know" - don't build the foundation all over again. In essence, don't go through "basic" again every time.

Remember the difference between when you were fresh out of your initial training and hit your first assignment? Then compare that to when you were years in, comfortable and established. Right now your in that initial phase, everything needs to be crystal clear. But that is making you lose the focus. So always - ALWAYS go back and look at the original assignment and then at your work and verify you answered every point put to you, even if you didn't do them each as clearly as you would have liked. Remember, your not in a debate with this, he wants to see you understand the lessons and the process, he isn't keeping score on whether you "win" an arguement.