Just one more exam to survive, but before that I must act as a peer reviewer for three more researchers in my History Research Seminar, and after these two things pass I’ll be free to celebrate the official end of the semester.
The Earth and Space science exam doesn’t have me too worried. After the last exam I was only twenty points shy of an A for the semester, and I’ve gotten at least 12 bonus points since then, so I could feasibly fail this last exam horribly and still get out of the class with that A.
My eugenics exam went fairly well, too. Only five questions, and one was a repeat of a question from the midterm (for which I scored all available points). Two of them I more or less wrote a seat of my pants treatise based on whatever came to mind that was remotely related to the question at hand, but I think that my other three answers will make up for that bit of fudging.
The task I dread the most is the peer review process. Mostly this is because not a single one of the three papers I’ve been assigned to read and review have been submitted to me. I take no comfort in the fact that these people have already been told by the instructor that their final grade will be reduced by one full letter grade because they did not have the papers available last Wednesday, as they were instructed.
I’m distraught because I made an unrequired effort to help these people get their papers to me via e-mail, allowing them extra time beyond what the professor allowed. And yet, here I am, only twenty-five hours before I’m supposed to turn in my peer review comments to the professor as a portion of my grade, and not one of the three has e-mailed their paper to me. Alas.
Meanwhile, I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. on multiple occassions perfecting my paper for submission on the required date, one week prior to my own presentation. While this is encouraging in that it bolsters my confidence in my own abilities, it is nonetheless disconcerting - for some reason I would like to not be the exception, and not feel like such a big fish in a small pond. In no small part this is because I fear that my entry to grad school will be a rude awakening when I find myself in a more competitive environment where other people actively put forth effort and actually care about their studies, too.
