I would not normally say that I am a prideful person. If I ever argue a point, I really try not to cling so steadfastly to my own ideas as to be unable to admit when I am wrong. I try to be fair and open-minded, and try to check my own sense of viewing my own opinions as better than anyone else’s.

However, if there is one area in which I am prideful, it is in my writing. Writing is something I have loved since as long as I can remember — certainly since I was old enough to actually write material of substance, as opposed to sentence-strip bits of eloquence. That being said, I hate showing my writing to other people (this whole public forum thing? Yeah, not so easy for me). For me, it is when I am writing that I am the most vulnerable. I am the purest form of myself in my writing, and it is not easy for me to bear that to people, to strip away the carefully crafted façade of perfection and general veneer of “everything is just peachy.” My writing is me, so I suppose it makes sense that I take a lot of pride in my writing.

I suppose my pride in my writing has also been vetted over the years by consistent praise. In school, I was always “the good writer.” Teachers held me up as an example to other students — literally. Teachers used to ask me for second copies of my work for them to keep on file as ideal examples for future classes. My peers hailed me as a good writer — when we were all complaining about some essay we had been assigned, they would say, “Well, you’re an English person, it’s easy for you.” And that’s true — it was. I can honestly say that I never started an essay more than six hours before the start of the school day it was due. I never had to try very hard to get a good grade on an essay.

However, this praise in itself did not contribute to my own idea that my writing was “good.” At the core of my pride was intense insecurity in my writing. Even with all the praise, I knew that I had not put very much work into my assignments, because writing apparently “well” came naturally. In my mind, I saw myself as an above average writer — just better than most, but not really very good on my own accord. I felt that I had become known as a “good writer” because I probably was better than most and because I stunned my teachers with florid language and advanced vocabulary, but I honestly did not think my writing was very good besides its relative sophistication. I felt deserving of the praise and the good grades because my writing probably was good relatively speaking, but in terms of the amount — or lack thereof — of time and effort I had put in, I didn’t feel like I deserved the grades or the acclaim that I got. And then of course was the additional insecurity in my thoughts and feelings that I bared in my writing. All that added up to a big ol’ whopping superiority complex, in which my insecurity was thinly veiled in my fragile “pride” in my writing.

Fast forward to my second semester of college, and I was feeling pretty damn good about myself. I had crushed it the previous semester in my writing seminar class, as well as in my other classes, all of which were writing intensive. I had made Dean’s List with flying colors. I was riding the high tide of my superiority complex as I began my first college English class, an introductory course. I figured it would be a piece of cake: do the readings, work my authorial magic, and get the same exceptional grades I had grown accustomed to. At the same time, I understood that the second semester of college is supposed to be harder than the first, and that I was now taking an actual English class as opposed to one that was intended to teach me how to write for college. So, I adjusted accordingly by starting my first English essay earlier than usual. I finished it a whole 36 hours before it was due. I had started it two full days before it was due, and that, to me, was huge. I felt confident that my extra effort would pay off — especially since I had written my essay on a text I had read and written on in high school, an essay for which I had received an A.

You could imagine my surprise, anger, and dismay when I received not an A, not an A-, and not even a B+ on that essay, but a B. A B. I had never gotten a B on a writing assignment in my entire life, and perhaps what stung even more was the fact that that essay was my first B in college. Throughout my first semester, I had crossed my fingers and driven myself crazy with worry, hoping desperately that I would receive an A each time I handed in an essay. The prospect of receiving a B was something of which I was painfully aware, but it was a possibility of impending doom that I chose to ignore. I knew it had to happen at some point — I mean, almost nobody gets out of college without having gotten a B, and rationally speaking I would not be able to get out college with more than just one B, but rather with a few, or even a handful of Bs. However, as a humanities student, knowing that the vast majority of my classes’ grades would be dependent on my writing ability, I chose to ignore the imminent possibility that I would ever receive a B for my writing.

I cried about that first B. Nay, I bawled about that first B. I was devastated. Not only was it a slap in the face to my pride in my writing, it was all the more demoralizing since I had started the essay early and had put into it more time and effort than I ever had before. Along with my despair was the added worry of my future average in the class, and subsequently my eventual GPA for the semester. I was set on making Dean’s List every semester, and now my near perfect GPA felt jeopardized. As if my threatened perfection in my writing wasn’t enough, I now had the additional worry of maintaining GPA perfection. I was not a happy Type A perfectionist. But after a week of being sad and mopey about it, I picked myself up, brushed myself off, and resolved myself to two optimistic maxims for the future: 1. it was bound to happen eventually, and it will happen again, so it’s good that it happened now and 2. I will do better next time, and I will be able to come back from this.

Then came the next essay. I asked for an extension because I knew that I didn’t have enough time with the given deadline to make it as good as I wanted it to be (unless of course I wanted to seriously stress myself out, which I did not — writing with the threat of another less-than-stellar grade was stressful enough as it was). I spent a full 24 hours writing that paper. Seriously. I wrote through lunch and dinner, eating only when I was absolutely famished and even then, writing as I ate. I turned in an essay that I was truly proud of, not simply because of the amount of time I had put into it but because of the sheer amount of effort I had put into it. By the time I finished, I felt a mental exhaustion I had never felt before, combined with a sense of pride that was actually authentic. I truly felt proud of the work I had done, rather than in a sense that I had done better than everyone else.

So I’m sure you can imagine my disappointment when I received yet another B. I reacted better to this one: only cried a little bit, felt more angry than dejected, and my pride soared so high that I swore that the grader was practically delusional in not rewarding what she had admitted in her comments was “good writing” that “just didn’t satisfy the prompt.” There had been no prompt beyond “do not use outside sources,” and I had created my own topic. So yeah, I handled it healthily.

At my mom’s urging (they truly do know best), I reluctantly went to the grader to discuss my essay during her office hours. I have never dreaded anything more. I felt humiliated at the mere prospect of having to defend my writing — I don’t like people reading my writing to begin with, so having to come to terms with explicitly why my writing sucked sounded absolutely horrible.

I dragged myself to office hours. Sat down with my grader, who is very nice and who I truly hold no ill will towards even with the less-than-ideal grades — it was forgivable when I reminded myself that she was just doing her job, and part of her job is to be impartial, even to the stuck up former brown-nosers who are used to always getting good grades. We talked about my essay, and she told me straight-up (but of course very kindly) that in college, and with this professor in particular, they look for more close-reading. She told me that this professor’s teaching style, in which he zeroes in very closely on small passages, mirrors his grading style, and as his teaching assistant she has to be faithful to that. If it is a good essay like mine was but didn’t do as much close reading as the professor would have wanted, she has to grade accordingly. Since my essay was more along the lines of a critical lens paper, it made perfect sense that I had received a B.

After thanking the TA for her help, and agreeing that we would work closely together on the next essay for optimal success, I walked out of her office with a new mindset. By meeting with her and actually discussing my writing, I realized what I should have realized after my first essay: I need to swallow my pride and do what the professor asks for. The same writing that brought me success in high school and even in my writing seminar would not necessarily work for every other class and every other instructor. I can still write as I would naturally write, but I need to adapt to what the professor wants to get out of my writing — whether that is more close reading, or more engagement with the text, or more symbolic analysis, or more awareness of broad overarching themes. Another important lesson I learned is that having to discuss less-than-ideal grades with the grader is not shameful in any way. That is how you learn from your mistakes so that you can improve, and that is nothing to be ashamed about.

For now, I have my third essay in that class looming over me. Of course, I am dreading starting it, because I know how much time and effort it will take. But I now go into this essay with the knowledge of what I need to do in order to do well, and now that I have talked with my grader, I no longer shy away from asking for her input before I have received my grade — in fact, I already plan to send her my introductory paragraph to look over before I proceed writing, because she welcomes that practice and because I know that her feedback will help set me on the path to success. As for my writing, I am still going to have difficulty receiving criticism and scrutiny, but I will now be able to accept such responses as opportunities for improvement. Most importantly, I have learned that I can comply with a professor’s wishes without compromising myself in my writing, and that is a lesson that I will carry with me through college and beyond.